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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11159-0.txt b/11159-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d0976e --- /dev/null +++ b/11159-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8383 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11159 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. X.--DECEMBER, 1862.--NO. LXII. + + + + +THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. + + +In Cuba there is a blossoming shrub whose multitudinous crimson flowers +are so seductive to the humming-birds that they hover all day around it, +buried in its blossoms until petal and wing seem one. At first upright, +the gorgeous bells droop downward, and fall unwithered to the ground, +and are thence called by the Creoles "Cupid's Tears." Frederika Bremer +relates that daily she brought home handfuls of these blossoms to her +chamber, and nightly they all disappeared. One morning she looked toward +the wall of the apartment, and there, in a long crimson line, the +delicate flowers went ascending one by one to the ceiling, and passed +from sight. She found that each was borne laboriously onward by a little +colorless ant much smaller than itself: the bearer was invisible, but +the lovely burdens festooned the wall with beauty. + +To a watcher from the sky, the march of the flowers of any zone across +the year would seem as beautiful as that West-Indian pageant. These +frail creatures, rooted where they stand, a part of the "still life" of +Nature, yet share her ceaseless motion. In the most sultry silence of +summer noons, the vital current is coursing with desperate speed through +the innumerable veins of every leaflet; and the apparent stillness, like +the sleeping of a child's top, is in truth the very ecstasy of perfected +motion. + +Not in the tropics only, but even in England, whence most of our floral +associations and traditions come, the march of the flowers is in an +endless circle, and, unlike our experience, something is always in +bloom. In the Northern United States, it is said, the active growth of +most plants is condensed into ten weeks, while in the mother-country the +full activity is maintained through sixteen. But even the English winter +does not seem to be a winter, in the same sense as ours, appearing more +like a chilly and comfortless autumn. There is no month in the year +when some special plant does not bloom: the Coltsfoot there opens +its fragrant flowers from December to February; the yellow-flowered +Hellebore, and its cousin, the sacred Christmas Rose of Glastonbury, +extend from January to March; and the Snowdrop and Primrose often come +before the first of February. Something may be gained, much lost, by +that perennial succession; those links, however slight, must make the +floral period continuous to the imagination; while our year gives a +pause and an interval to its children, and after exhausted October has +effloresced into Witch-Hazel, there is an absolute reserve of blossom, +until the Alders wave again. + +No symbol could so well represent Nature's first yielding in spring-time +as this blossoming of the Alder, this drooping of the tresses of these +tender things. Before the frost is gone, and while the newborn season is +yet too weak to assert itself by actually uplifting anything, it can at +least let fall these blossoms, one by one, till they wave defiance to +the winter on a thousand boughs. How patiently they have waited! Men are +perplexed with anxieties about their own immortality; but these catkins, +which hang, almost full-formed, above the ice all winter, show no such +solicitude, but when March wooes them they are ready. Once relaxing, +their pollen is so prompt to fall that it sprinkles your hand as you +gather them; then, for one day, they are the perfection of grace upon +your table, and next day they are weary and emaciated, and their little +contribution to the spring is done. + +Then many eyes watch for the opening of the May-flower, day by day, +and a few for the Hepatica. So marked and fantastic are the local +preferences of all our plants, that, with miles of woods and meadows +open to their choice, each selects only some few spots for its +accustomed abodes, and some one among them all for its very earliest +blossoming. There is always some single chosen nook, which you might +almost cover with your handkerchief, where each flower seems to bloom +earliest, without variation, year by year. I know one such place for +Hepatica a mile northeast,--another for May-flower two miles southwest; +and each year the whimsical creature is in bloom on that little spot, +when not another flower can be found open through the whole country +round. Accidental as the choice may appear, it is undoubtedly based +on laws more eternal than the stars; yet why all subtile influences +conspire to bless that undistinguishable knoll no man can say. Another +and similar puzzle offers itself in the distribution of the tints +of flowers,--in these two species among the rest. There are certain +localities, near by, where the Hepatica is all but white, and others +where the May-flower is sumptuous in pink; yet it is not traceable to +wet or dry, sun or shadow, and no agricultural chemistry can disclose +the secret. Is it by some Darwinian law of selection that the white +Hepatica has utterly overpowered the blue, in our Cascade Woods, for +instance, while yet in the very midst of this pale plantation a single +clump will sometimes bloom with all heaven on its petals? Why can one +recognize the Plymouth May-flower, as soon as seen, by its wondrous +depth of color? Does it blush with triumph to see how Nature has +outwitted the Pilgrims, and even succeeded in preserving her deer like +an English duke, still maintaining the deepest woods in Massachusetts +precisely where those sturdy immigrants first began their clearings? + +The Hepatica (called also Liverwort, Squirrel-Cup, or Blue Anemone) has +been found in Worcester as early as March seventeenth, and in Danvers on +March twelfth,--dates which appear almost the extreme of credibility. + +Our next wild-flower in this region is the Claytonia, or Spring-Beauty, +which is common in the Middle States, but here found in only a few +localities. It is the Indian _Miskodeed_, and was said to have been +left behind when mighty Peboan, the Winter, was melted by the breath +of Spring. It is an exquisitely delicate little creature, bears its +blossoms in clusters, unlike most of the early species, and opens in +gradual succession each white and pink-veined bell. It grows in moist +places on the sunny edges of woods, and prolongs its shy career from +about the tenth of April until almost the end of May. + +A week farther into April, and the Bloodroot opens,--a name of guilt, +and a type of innocence. This fresh and lovely thing appears to +concentrate all its stains within its ensanguined root, that it may +condense all purity in the peculiar whiteness of its petals. It emerges +from the ground with each shy blossom wrapt in its own pale-green leaf, +then doffs the cloak and spreads its long petals round a group of yellow +stamens. The flower falls apart so easily that when in full bloom it +will hardly bear transportation, but with a touch the stem stands naked, +a bare gold-tipped sceptre amid drifts of snow. And the contradiction +of its hues seems carried into its habits. One of the most shy of wild +plants, easily banished from its locality by any invasion, it yet takes +to the garden with unpardonable readiness, doubles its size, blossoms +earlier, repudiates its love of water, and flaunts its great leaves in +the unnatural confinement until it elbows out the exotics. Its charm is +gone, unless one find it in its native haunts, beside some cascade which +streams over rocks that are dark with moisture, green with moss, and +snowy with white bubbles. Each spray of dripping feather-moss exudes a +tiny torrent of its own, or braided with some tiny neighbor, above the +little water-fonts which sleep sunless in ever-verdant caves. Sometimes +along these emerald canals there comes a sudden rush and hurry, as if +some anxious housekeeper upon the hill above were afraid that things +were not stirring fast enough,--and then again the waving and sinuous +lines of water are quieted to a serener flow. The delicious red-thrush +and the busy little yellow-throat are not yet come to this their summer +haunt; but all day long the answering field-sparrows trill out their +sweet, shy, accelerating lay. + +In the same localities with the Bloodroot, though some days later, grows +the Dog-Tooth Violet,--a name hopelessly inappropriate, but likely +never to be changed. These hardy and prolific creatures have also +many localities of their own; for, though they do not acquiesce in +cultivation, like the sycophantic Bloodroot, yet they are hard to banish +from their native haunts, but linger after the woods are cleared and the +meadow drained. The bright flowers blaze back all the yellow light of +noonday as the gay petals curl and spread themselves above their beds of +mottled leaves; but it is always a disappointment to gather them, for +indoors they miss the full ardor of the sunbeams, and are apt to go to +sleep and nod expressionless from the stalk. + +And almost on the same day with this bright apparition one may greet a +multitude of concurrent visitors, arriving so accurately together that +it is almost a matter of accident which of the party shall first report +himself. Perhaps the Dandelion should have the earliest place; indeed, +I once found it in Brookline on the seventh of April. But it cannot +ordinarily be expected before the twentieth, in Eastern Massachusetts, +and rather later in the interior; while by the same date I have also +found near Boston the Cowslip or Marsh-Marigold, the Spring-Saxifrage, +the Anemones, the Violets, the Bellwort, the Houstonia, the Cinquefoil, +and the Strawberry-blossom. Varying, of course, in different spots and +years, the arrival of this coterie is yet nearly simultaneous, and they +may all be expected hereabouts before May-day at the very latest. After +all, in spite of the croakers, this festival could not have been much +better-timed, the delicate blossoms which mark the period are usually in +perfection on this day, and it is not long before they are past their +prime. + +Some early plants which have now almost disappeared from Eastern +Massachusetts are still found near Worcester in the greatest +abundance,--as the larger Yellow Violet, the Red Trillium, the Dwarf +Ginseng, the Clintonia or Wild Lily-of-the-Valley, and the pretty +fringed Polygala, which Miss Cooper christened "Gay-Wings." Others again +are now rare in this vicinity, and growing rarer, though still abundant +a hundred miles farther inland. In several bits of old swampy wood one +may still find, usually close together, the Hobble-Bush and the Painted +Trillium, the Mitella, or Bishop's-Cap, and the snowy Tiarella. Others +again have entirely vanished within ten years, and that in some cases +without any adequate explanation. The dainty white Corydalis, profanely +called "Dutchman's-Breeches," and the quaint woolly Ledum, or Labrador +Tea, have disappeared within that time. The beautiful Linnaea is still +found annually, but flowers no more; as is also the case, in all but one +distant locality, with the once abundant Rhododendron. Nothing in Nature +has for me a more fascinating interest than these secret movements of +vegetation,--the sweet blind instinct with which flowers cling to old +domains until absolutely compelled to forsake them. How touching is the +fact, now well known, that salt-water plants still flower beside the +Great Lakes, yet dreaming of the time when those waters were briny as +the sea! Nothing in the demonstrations of Geology seems grander than the +light lately thrown by Professor Gray, from the analogies between the +flora of Japan and of North America, upon the successive epochs of heat +which led the wandering flowers along the Arctic lands, and of cold +which isolated them once more. Yet doubtless these humble movements +of our local plants may be laying up results as important, and may +hereafter supply evidence of earth's changes upon some smaller scale. + +May expands to its prime of beauty; the summer birds come with the +fruit-blossoms, the gardens are deluged with bloom and the air with +melody, while in the woods the timid spring-flowers fold themselves away +in silence and give place to a brighter splendor. On the margin of some +quiet swamp a myriad of bare twigs seem suddenly overspread with purple +butterflies, and we know that the Rhodora is in bloom. Wordsworth never +immortalized a flower more surely than Emerson this, and it needs no +weaker words; there is nothing else in which the change from nakedness +to beauty is so sudden, and when you bring home the great mass of +blossoms they appear all ready to flutter away again from your hands and +leave you disenchanted. + +At the same time the beautiful Cornel-tree is in perfection; startling +as a tree of the tropics, it flaunts its great flowers high up among the +forest-branches, intermingling its long slender twigs with theirs, and +garnishing them with alien blooms. It is very available for household +decoration, with its four great creamy petals,--flowers they are not, +but floral involucres,--each with a fantastic curl and stain at its tip, +as if the fireflies had alighted on them and scorched them; and yet I +like it best as it peers out in barbaric splendor from the delicate +green of young Maples. And beneath it grows often its more abundant +kinsman, the Dwarf Cornel, with the same four great petals enveloping +its floral cluster, but lingering low upon the ground,--an herb whose +blossoms mimic the statelier tree. + +The same rich creamy hue and texture show themselves in the Wild Calla, +which grows at this season in dark, sequestered water-courses, and +sometimes well rivals, in all but size, that superb whiteness out of +a land of darkness, the Ethiopic Calla of the conservatory. At this +season, too, we seek another semi-aquatic rarity, whose homely name +cannot deprive it of a certain garden-like elegance, the Buckbean. This +is one of the shy plants which yet grow in profusion within their own +domain. I have found it of old in Cambridge, and then upon the pleasant +shallows of the Artichoke, that loveliest tributary of the Merrimack, +and I have never seen it where it occupied a patch more than a few yards +square, while yet within that space the multitudinous spikes grow always +tall and close, reminding one of hyacinths, when in perfection, but more +delicate and beautiful. The only locality I know for it in this vicinity +lies seven miles away, where a little inlet from the lower winding bays +of Lake Quinsigamond goes stealing up among a farmer's hay-fields, and +there, close beside the public road and in full of the farm-house, this +rare creature fills the water. But to reach it we commonly row down +the lake to a sheltered lagoon, separated from the main lake by a long +island which is gradually forming itself like the coral isles, growing +each year denser with alder thickets where the king-birds build;--there +leave the boat among the lily-leaves, and take a lane which winds among +the meadows and gives a fitting avenue for the pretty thing we seek. +But it is not safe to vary many days from the twentieth of May, for the +plant is not long in perfection, and is past its prime when the lower +blossoms begin to wither on the stem. + +But should we miss this delicate adjustment of time, it is easy to +console ourselves with bright armfuls of Lupine, which bounteously +flowers for six weeks along our lake-side, ranging from the twenty-third +of May to the sixth of July. The Lupine is one of our most travelled +plants; for, though never seen off the American continent, it stretches +to the Pacific, and is found upon the Arctic coast. On these banks of +Lake Quinsigamond it grows in great families, and should be gathered in +masses and placed in a vase by itself; for it needs no relief from other +flowers, its own soft leaves afford background enough, and though the +white variety rarely occurs, yet the varying tints of blue upon the same +stalk are a perpetual gratification to the eye. I know not why shaded +blues should be so beautiful in flowers, and yet avoided as distasteful +in ladies' fancy-work; but it is a mystery like that which repudiates +blue-and-green from all well-regulated costumes, while Nature yet +evidently prefers it to any other combination in her wardrobe. + +Another constant ornament of the end of May is the large pink +Lady's-Slipper, or Moccason-Flower, the "Cypripedium not due +till to-morrow" which Emerson attributes to the note-book of +Thoreau,--to-morrow, in these parts, meaning about the twentieth of May. +It belongs to the family of Orchids, a high-bred race, fastidious in +habits, sensitive as to abodes. Of the ten species named as rarest among +American endogenous plants by Dr. Gray, in his valuable essay on the +statistics of our Northern Flora, all but one are Orchids. And even an +abundant species, like the present, retains the family traits in its +person, and never loses its high-born air and its delicate veining. +I know a grove where it can be gathered by the hundreds within a +half-acre, and yet I never can divest myself of the feeling that each +specimen is a choice novelty. But the actual rarity occurs, at least +in this region, when one finds the smaller and more beautiful Yellow +Moccason-Flower,--_parviflorum_,--which accepts only our very choicest +botanical locality, the "Rattlesnake Ledge" on Tatessit Hill,--and may, +for aught I know, have been the very plant which Elsie Venner laid upon +her school-mistress's desk. + +June is an intermediate month between the spring and summer flowers. Of +the more delicate early blossoms, the Dwarf Cornel, the Solomon's-Seal, +and the Yellow Violet still linger in the woods, but rapidly make way +for larger masses and more conspicuous hues. The meadows are gorgeous +with Clover, Buttercups, and Wild Geranium; but Nature is a little chary +for a week or two, maturing a more abundant show. Meanwhile one +may afford to take some pains to search for another rarity, almost +disappearing from this region,--the lovely Pink Azalea. It still grows +plentifully in a few sequestered places, selecting woody swamps to hide +itself; and certainly no shrub suggests, when found, more tropical +associations. Those great, nodding, airy, fragrant clusters, tossing far +above one's head their slender cups of honey, seem scarcely to belong to +our sober zone, any more than the scarlet tanager which sometimes builds +its nest beside them. They appear bright exotics, which have wandered +into our woods, and seem too happy to feel any wish for exit. And just +as they fade, their humbler sister in white begins to bloom, and carries +on through the summer the same intoxicating fragrance. + +But when June is at its height, the sculptured chalices of the Mountain +Laurel begin to unfold, and thenceforward, for more than a month, +extends the reign of this our woodland queen. I know not why one should +sigh after the blossoming gorges of the Himalaya, when our forests are +all so crowded with this glowing magnificence,--rounding the tangled +swamps into smoothness, lighting up the underwoods, overtopping the +pastures, lining the rural lanes, and rearing its great pinkish masses +till they meet overhead. The color ranges from the purest white to a +perfect rose-pink, and there is an inexhaustible vegetable vigor about +the whole thing, which puts to shame those tenderer shrubs that shrink +before the progress of cultivation. There is the Rhododendron, for +instance, a plant of the same natural family with the Laurel and the +Azalea, and looking more robust and woody than either: it once grew in +many localities in this region, and still lingers in a few, without +consenting either to die or to blossom, and there is only one remote +place from which any one now brings into our streets those large +luxuriant flowers, waving white above the dark green leaves, and bearing +"just a dream of sunset on their edges, and just a breath from the green +sea in their hearts." But the Laurel, on the other hand, maintains its +ground, imperturbable and almost impassable, on every hill-side, takes +no hints, suspects no danger, and nothing but the most unmistakable +onset from spade or axe can diminish its profusion. Gathering it on the +most lavish scale seems only to serve as wholesome pruning; nor can I +conceive that the Indians, who once ruled over this whole county from +Wigwam Hill, could ever have found it more inconveniently abundant than +now. We have perhaps no single spot where it grows in such perfect +picturesqueness as at "The Laurels," on the Merrimack, just above +Newburyport,--a whole hill-side scooped out and the hollow piled +solidly with flowers, the pines curving around it above, and the river +encircling it below, on which your boat glides along, and you look up +through glimmering arcades of bloom. But for the last half of June it +monopolizes everything in the Worcester woods,--no one picks anything +else; and it fades so slowly that I have found a perfect blossom on the +last day of July. + +At the same time with this royalty of the woods, the queen of the water +ascends her throne, for a reign as undisputed and far more prolonged. +The extremes of the Water-Lily in this vicinity, so far as I have known, +are the eighteenth of June and the thirteenth of October,--a longer +range than belongs to any other conspicuous wild-flower, unless we +except the Dandelion and Houstonia. It is not only the most fascinating +of all flowers to gather, but more available for decorative purposes +than almost any other, if it can only be kept fresh. The best method for +this purpose, I believe, is to cut the stalk very short before placing +in the vase; then, at night, the lily will close and the stalk curl +upward;--refresh them by changing the water, and in the morning the +stalk will be straight and the flower open. + +From this time forth Summer has it all her own way. After the first of +July the yellow flowers begin to watch the yellow fireflies; Hawkweeds, +Loosestrifes, Primroses bloom, and the bushy Wild Indigo. The variety of +hues increases; delicate purple Orchises bloom in their chosen +haunts, and Wild Roses blush over hill and dale. On peat meadows the +Adder's-Tongue Arethusa (now called _Pogonia_) flowers profusely, with a +faint, delicious perfume,--and its more elegant cousin, the Calopogon, +by its side. In this vicinity we miss the blue Harebell, the identical +harebell of Ellen Douglas, which I remember waving its exquisite flowers +along the banks of the Merrimack, and again at Brattleboro', below the +cascade in the village, where it has climbed the precipitous sides +of old buildings, and nods inaccessibly from their crevices, in that +picturesque spot, looking down on the hurrying river. But with this +exception, there is nothing wanting here of the flowers of early summer. + +The more closely one studies Nature, the finer her adaptations grow. For +instance, the change of seasons is analogous to a change of zones, and +summer assimilates our vegetation to that of the tropics. + +In those lands, Humboldt has remarked, one misses the beauty of +wild-flowers in the grass, because the luxuriance of vegetation develops +everything into shrubs. The form and color are beautiful, "but, being +too high above the soil, they disturb that harmonious proportion which +characterizes the plants of our European meadows. Nature has, in every +zone, stamped on the landscape the peculiar type of beauty proper to +the locality." But every midsummer reveals the same tendency. In early +spring, when all is bare, and small objects are easily made prominent, +the wild-flowers are generally delicate. Later, when all verdure is +profusely expanded, these miniature strokes would be lost, and Nature +then practises landscape-gardening in large, lights up the copses with +great masses of White Alder, makes the roadsides gay with Aster and +Golden-Rod, and tops the tall coarse Meadow-Grass with nodding Lilies +and tufted Spiraea. One instinctively follows these plain hints, and +gathers bouquets sparingly in spring and exuberantly in summer. + +The use of wild-flowers for decorative purposes merits a word in +passing, for it is unquestionably a branch of high art in favored hands. +It is true that we are bidden, on high authority, to love the wood-rose +and leave it on its stalk; but against this may be set the saying of +Bettine, that "all flowers which are broken become immortal in the +sacrifice"; and certainly the secret harmonies of these fair creatures +are so marked and delicate that we do not understand them till we try to +group floral decorations for ourselves. The most successful artists +will not, for instance, consent to put those together which do not grow +together; Nature understands her business, and distributes her masses +and backgrounds unerringly. Yonder soft and feathery Meadow-Sweet longs +to be combined with Wild Roses: it yearns towards them in the field, +and, after withering in the hand most readily, it revives in water as if +to be with them in the vase. In the same way the White Spiraea serves as +natural background for the Field-Lilies. These lilies, by the way, are +the brightest adornment of our meadows during the short period of their +perfection. We have two species: one slender, erect, solitary, scarlet, +looking up to heaven with all its blushes on; the other clustered, +drooping, pale-yellow. I never saw the former in such profusion as last +week, on the bare summit of Wachusett. The granite ribs have there a +thin covering of crispest moss, spangled with the white starry blossoms +of the Mountain Cinquefoil; and as I lay and watched the red lilies that +waved their innumerable urns around me, it needed but little imagination +to see a thousand altars, sending visible flames forever upward to the +answering sun. + +August comes: the Thistles are out, beloved of butterflies; deeper and +deeper tints, more passionate intensities of color, prepare the way for +the year's decline. A wealth of gorgeous Golden-Rod waves over all the +hills, and enriches every bouquet one gathers; its bright colors command +the eye, and it is graceful as an elm. Fitly arranged, it gives a bright +relief to the superb beauty of the Cardinal-Flowers, the brilliant +blue-purple of the Vervain, the pearl-white of the Life-Everlasting, +the delicate lilac of the Monkey-Flower, the soft pink and white of +the Spiraeas,--for the white yet lingers,--all surrounded by trailing +wreaths of blossoming Clematis. + +But the Cardinal-Flower is best seen by itself, and, indeed, needs the +surroundings of its native haunts to display its fullest beauty. Its +favorite abode is along the dank mossy stones of some black and winding +brook, shaded with overarching bushes, and running one long stream of +scarlet with these superb occupants. It seems amazing how anything so +brilliant can mature in such a darkness. When a ray of sunlight strays +in upon it, the wondrous creature seems to hover on the stalk, ready to +take flight, like some lost tropic bird. There is a spot whence I have +in ten minutes brought away as many as I could hold in both arms, some +bearing fifty blossoms on a single stalk; and I could not believe that +there was such another mass of color in the world. Nothing cultivated +is comparable to them; and, with all the talent lately lavished on +wild-flower painting, I have never seen the peculiar sheen of these +petals in the least degree delineated. It seems some new and separate +tint, equally distinct from scarlet and from crimson, a splendor for +which there is as yet no name, but only the reality. + +It seems the signal of autumn, when September exhibits the first +Barrel-Gentian by the roadside; and there is a pretty insect in the +meadows--the Mourning-Cloak Moth it might be called--which gives +coincident warning. The innumerable Asters mark this period with their +varied and wide-spread beauty; the meadows are full of rose-colored +Polygala, of the white spiral spikes of the Ladies'-Tresses, and of +the fringed loveliness of the Gentian. This flower, always unique and +beautiful, opening its delicate eyelashes every morning to the sunlight, +closing them again each night, has also a thoughtful charm about it +as the last of the year's especial darlings. It lingers long, each +remaining blossom growing larger and more deep in color, as with many +other flowers; and after it there is nothing for which to look forward, +save the fantastic Witch-Hazel. + +On the water, meanwhile, the last White Lilies are sinking beneath the +surface, the last gay Pickerel-Weed is gone, though the rootless plants +of the delicate Bladder-Wort, spreading over acres of shallows, still +impurple the wide, smooth surface. Harriet Prescott says that some souls +are like the Water-Lilies, fixed, yet floating. But others are like this +graceful purple blossom, floating unfixed, kept in place only by its +fellows around it, until perhaps a breeze comes, and, breaking the +accidental cohesion, sweeps them all away. + +The season reluctantly yields its reign, and over the quiet autumnal +landscape everywhere, even after the glory of the trees is past, there +are tints and fascinations of minor beauty. Last October, for instance, +in walking, I found myself on a little knoll, looking northward. +Overhead was a bower of climbing Waxwork, with its yellowish pods scarce +disclosing their scarlet berries,--a wild Grape-vine, with its +fruit withered by the frost into still purple raisins,--and yellow +Beech-leaves, detaching themselves with an effort audible to the ear. +In the foreground were blue Raspberry-stems, yet bearing greenish +leaves,--pale-yellow Witch-Hazel, almost leafless,--purple +Viburnum-berries,--the silky cocoons of the Milkweed,--and, amid the +underbrush, a few lingering Asters and Golden-Rods, Ferns still green, +and Maidenhair bleached white. In the background were hazy hills, +white Birches bare and snow-like, and a Maple half-way up a sheltered +hill-side, one mass of canary-color, its fallen leaves making an +apparent reflection on the earth at its foot,--and then a real +reflection, fused into a glassy light intenser than itself, upon the +smooth, dark stream below. + +The beautiful disrobing suggested the persistent and unconquerable +delicacy of Nature, who shrinks from nakedness and is always seeking +to veil her graceful boughs,--if not with leaves, then with feathery +hoar-frost, ermined snow, or transparent icy armor. + +But, after all, the fascination of summer lies not in any details, +however perfect, but in the sense of total wealth which summer gives. +Wholly to enjoy this, one must give one's self passively to it, and not +expect to reproduce it in words. We strive to picture heaven, when +we are barely at the threshold of the inconceivable beauty of earth. +Perhaps the truant boy who simply bathes himself in the lake and then +basks in the sunshine, dimly conscious of the exquisite loveliness +around him, is wiser, because humbler, than is he who with presumptuous +phrases tries to utter it. There are multitudes of moments when the +atmosphere is so surcharged with luxury that every pore of the body +becomes an ample gate for sensation to flow in, and one has simply to +sit still and be filled. In after-years the memory of books seems barren +or vanishing, compared with the immortal bequest of hours like these. +Other sources of illumination seem cisterns only; these are fountains. +They may not increase the mere quantity of available thought, but they +impart to it a quality which is priceless. No man can measure what a +single hour with Nature may have contributed to the moulding of his +mind. The influence is self-renewing, and if for a long time it baffles +expression by reason of its fineness, so much the better in the end. + +The soul is like a musical instrument: it is not enough that it be +framed for the very most delicate vibration, but it must vibrate long +and often before the fibres grow mellow to the finest waves of sympathy. +I perceive that in the veery's carolling, the clover's scent, the +glistening of the water, the waving wings of butterflies, the sunset +tints, the floating clouds, there are attainable infinitely more +subtile modulations of delight than I can yet reach the sensibility to +discriminate, much less describe. If, in the simple process of writing, +one could physically impart to this page the fragrance of this spray of +azalea beside me, what a wonder would it seem!--and yet one ought to be +able, by the mere use of language, to supply to every reader the total +of that white, honeyed, trailing sweetness, which summer insects haunt +and the Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is not in language, +but in men. There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as +words,--none so graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to dream of +combinations of syllables so delicious that all the dawning and decay of +summer cannot rival their perfections, nor winter's stainless white +and azure match their purity and their charm. To write them, were it +possible, would be to take rank with Nature; nor is there any other +method, even by music, for human art to reach so high. + + * * * * * + + +ONE OF MY CLIENTS. + + +After a practice in the legal profession of more than twenty years, I am +persuaded that a more interesting volume could not be written than the +revelations of a lawyer's office. The plots there discovered before they +were matured,--the conspiracies there detected + + "Ere they hail reached their last fatal periods,"-- + +the various devices of the Prince of Darkness,--the weapons with which +he fought, and those by which he was overcome,--the curious phenomena of +intense activity and love of gain,--the arts of the detective, and those +by which he was eluded,--and the never-ending and ever-varying surprises +and startling incidents,--would present such a panorama of human affairs +as would outfly our fancy, and modify our unbelief in that much-abused +doctrine of the depravity of our nature. + +To illustrate, let me introduce to you "one of my clients," whom I will +call Mr. Sidney, and with whom, perhaps, you may hereafter become better +acquainted. His counterpart in personal appearance you may find in the +thoroughfare at, any hour of the day. There is nothing about him to +attract attention. He is nearly forty-five years of age, and weighs, +perhaps, two hundred pounds. His face is florid and his hair sandy. His +eyes are small, piercing, and gray. His motions are slow, and none are +made without a purpose. Intellectually he is above the average, and his +perceptive faculties are well developed. The wrinkles in his lips are at +right angles with his mouth, and a close observer might detect in his +countenance self-reliance and tenacity of will and purpose. But with +ordinary faculties much may be accomplished: in this sketch, let us see +how much in two particulars. + +His first entrance into my office was in the spring of 1853. He +handed me a package of papers, saying, if I would name an hour for a +professional consultation, he would be punctual. The time was agreed +upon and he withdrew. On examination of his papers, I found that his +letters of introduction were from several United States Senators, Judges +of Supreme Courts, Cabinet Officers, and Governors, and one was from a +Presidential candidate in the last election. Those directed specially +to me were from a Senator and a Member of Congress, both of whom were +lawyers and my personal friends, men in whose judgment I placed great +confidence. They all spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Sidney's +integrity, ability, and energy, and concluded by saying I might +implicitly rely upon his judgment and be governed by his counsels. + +What man of the masses can this one be, thus heralded by the authorities +of the nation, and what his labor, so commended by the rulers? I glanced +at him mentally again. Perhaps he is laboring for the endowment of some +great literary or benevolent institution, for the building of a national +monument. No. Perhaps he has some theory that thousands of facts must +prove and illustrate; or it may be he is a voracious gatherer of +statistics. The last is the most probable; but the more I mused, the +more the fire burned within me to know more of his mission. + +I awaited impatiently his coming. It was on the stroke of the hour +appointed. The object of that interview may not with propriety be +stated, nor the results described; but it may be said that that hour was +the most intensely exciting of any of my professional life, causing the +blood to chill and boil alternately. The business was so peculiar, and +connected with men so exalted in position, and conducted with such +wonderful ability and tact, that now, years after, scarcely a day passes +that my mind does not revert to those hours and do homage to those +transcendent abilities by which it was conducted, till I sometimes think +the possessor of them was an overmatch for Lucifer himself. My eyes +were for the first time opened to the marvellous in his department +of knowledge and art; and the region of impossibility was materially +circumscribed, and the domain of the prince of the powers of the air +extended _ad infinitum_. Into those regions it is not my present purpose +to delve. + +After a business acquaintance of several years with Mr. Sidney, I have +learned that he was formerly a rich manufacturer, and that he was nearly +ruined in fortune by the burning of several warehouses in which he had +stored a large amount of merchandise that was uninsured. The owners of +these store-houses were men of wealth, influence, and respectability. +Alone of all the citizens, Mr. Sidney suspected that the block was +intentionally set on fire to defraud the insurance-offices. Without +any aid or knowledge of other parties, he began an investigation, and +ascertained that the buildings were insured far beyond their value. +He also ascertained that insurance had been obtained on a far greater +amount of merchandise than the stores could contain; and still further, +that the goods insured, as being deposited there, were not so deposited +at the time of the fire. He likewise procured a long array of facts +tending to fix the burning upon the "merchant princes" who held the +policies. To his mind, they were convincing. He therefore confronted +these men, accused them of the arson, and demanded payment for his own +loss. This was, of course, declined. Whereupon he gave them formal +notice, that, if his demand were not liquidated within thirty days, +never thereafter would an opportunity be afforded for a settlement. That +the notice produced peculiar excitement was evident. _Yet the thirty +days elapsed and his claim was not adjusted_. + +From that hour, with a just appreciation of the enormity of the offence +which he believed to have been committed, he consecrated his vast +energies to the detection of crime. His whole soul was fired almost to +frenzy with the greatness of his work, and he pursued it with a firmness +of principle and fixedness of purpose that seemed almost madness, till +he exposed to the world the most stupendous league of robbers ever +dreamed of, extending into every State and Territory of the Union, +and numbering, to his personal knowledge, over seven hundred men of +influence and power, whose business as a copartnership was forgery, +counterfeiting, burglary, arson, and any other crimes that might afford +rich pecuniary remuneration. + +I will not now stop to describe the organization of this band, which is +as perfect as that of any corporation; nor the enormous resources at its +command, being computed by millions; nor the great respectability of +its directors and State agents; nor the bloody oaths and forfeitures by +which the members are bound together; nor the places of their annual +meetings; nor a thousand other particulars, more startling than anything +in fiction or history. Nor will I enumerate the great number of +convictions of members of this gang for various offences through Mr. +Sidney's efforts. Prosecuting no other parties than these,--thwarting +them in those defences that had never before failed,--testifying in +open court against the character of their witnesses, who appeared to be +polished gentlemen, and enumerating the offences of which they had +been guilty,--and harassing them by all legal and legitimate means, he +gathered around him a storm that not one man in a thousand could have +withstood for an hour. Eleven times was food analyzed that had been +suspiciously set before him, and in each instance poison was detected in +it; while in hundreds of instances he declined to receive from unknown +hands presents about which hung similar suspicions. Numerous were the +infernal-machines sent him, the explosion of some of which he escaped as +if by miracle, and several exploded in his own dwelling. Without number +were the anonymous letters he received, threatening his life, if he did +not desist from prosecuting this band of robbers. Yet not for one moment +swerved from his purpose, he moved unharmed through ten thousand perils, +till at last he fell a victim to the enemy that had so long been hunting +his life. On no one has his mantle fallen. + +His sole object in life seemed to be the breaking-up of this villanous +gang of plunderers, and he pursued it with a genius and strength, a +devotion, self-sacrifice, and true heroism, that are deserving of +immortality. + +Not long before his death, while one of the directors of this band was +confined in prison at Mr. Sidney's instigation, awaiting a preliminary +examination, he sent for Mr. Sidney and offered him one hundred thousand +dollars, if he would desist from pursuing him alone. Mr. Sidney replied, +that he had many times before been offered the like sum, if he would +cease prosecuting the directors, and that the same reason which had +inclined him to reject that proposition would compel him to refuse this. +Whereupon the director offered, as an additional inducement, one-half of +the money taken from the messenger of the Newport banks, while on his +way to Providence to redeem their bills at the Merchants Bank, and also +the mint where they had coined the composition that had passed current +for years through all the banks and banking-houses of the country, and +which stood every test that could be applied, without the destruction of +the coin itself, which mint had cost its owners upwards of two hundred +thousand dollars. All of which Mr. Sidney indignantly rejected. And it +was not till the year after his death that the coin became known, when +it was also reported and believed that a million and a quarter of the +same was locked up in the vaults of the--Government. + +The United States Government sought Mr. Sidney's services, as appears of +record. Those high in authority had decided on his employment, a fact +which in less than six hours thereafter was known to the directors, and +within that space of time five of them had arrived in Washington and +paid over to their attorney the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars for +some purpose,--the attorney being no less a personage than an honorable +member of a supreme court. The service desired of Mr. Sidney he was +willing to perform, on the condition that he should not be called upon +to prosecute any other parties than those to whose conviction he had +sworn to devote his life. + +As a detective, Mr. Sidney was unequalled in this country. Vidocq may +have been his superior in dissimulation, but in that alone. He certainly +had not a tithe of Mr. Sidney's genius and strength of mind and moral +power to discern the truth, though never so deeply hidden, and to expose +it to the clear light of day. + + "His blood and judgment were so well commingled," + +that his conclusions seemed akin to prophecy. + +But it is not as a detective that Mr. Sidney is here presented. This +slight sketch of this remarkable man is given, that the reader may more +willingly believe that he possessed, among other wonderful powers, one +that is not known ever to have been attained to such a degree by any +other individual, namely:-- + +_The power of discerning, in a single specimen of handwriting, the +character, the occupation, the habits, the temperament, the health, +the age, the sex, the size, the nationality, the benevolence or the +penuriousness, the boldness or the timidity, the morality or the +immorality, the affectation or the hypocrisy, and often the intention of +the writer_. + +At the age of thirty-five, the genius of Mr. Sidney as a physiognomist, +expert, and detective, remained wholly undeveloped. He was not +aware, nor were his friends, of his wonderful powers of observation, +dissection, and deduction. Nor had he taken his first lesson by being +brought in contact with the rogues. How, then, did he acquire this +almost miraculous power? + +After he had ascertained the names of the directors and State agents +of the band, he collected many hundred specimens of their handwriting. +These he studied with that energy which was equalled only by his +patience. In a surprisingly short time he first of all began to perceive +the differences between a moral and an immoral signature. Afterwards he +proceeded to study the occupation, age, habits, temperament, and all +the other characteristics of the writers, and in this he was equally +successful. If this be doubted by any, let him collect a number of +signatures of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, and Americans, or, what +is still better, of Jews of all nations, and at least in the latter +instance, with ordinary perceptive faculties, there will be no +difficulty in determining the question of nationality; a person with +half an eye need never mistake the handwriting of a Jew. Many can detect +pride and affectation, and most persons the sex, in handwriting, how +much soever it may be disguised. + + "The bridegroom's letters stand in row above, + Tapering, yet straight, like pine-trees in his grove; + While free and fine the bride's appear below, + As light and slender as her jasmines grow." + +Why, then, should it be strange, if remarkable powers of observation, +analysis, and patient and energetic study should accomplish much +more? In this department the Government had afforded Mr. Sidney great +facilities, till at last he would take the letters dropped during the +night in the post-office of a great city, and as rapidly as a skilful +cashier could detect a counterfeit in counting bank-bills, and with +unerring certainty, he would throw out those suspiciously superscribed. +"In each of these nine," he would say, "there is no letter, but money +only. This parcel is from the W--Street office. These are directed to +men that are not called by these names: they are fictitious, and assumed +for iniquitous purposes. Those are from thieves to thieves, and hint at +opportunities," and so on. + +Travelling over the principal railways of the country without charge, +entertained at hotels where compensation was declined, Mr. Sidney was in +some instances induced to impart to his friends some of that knowledge +which he took much pains to conceal, believing that by so doing he +should best serve the great purposes of his life. Whether he desired +this remarkable power to be kept from the rogues, or whether he thought +he should be too much annoyed by being called upon as an expert in +handwriting in civil cases, or what his purpose was, is not known, and +probably a large number of his intimate friends are not aware of his +genius in this. + +On one occasion he was in a Canadian city for the first time, and +stopped at a principal hotel. When about to depart, he was surprised +that his host declined compensation. The landlord then requested Mr. +Sidney to give him the character of a man whose handwriting he produced. +Mr. Sidney consented, and, having retired to the private office, gave +the writer's age within a year, his nationality, being a native-born +Frenchman, his height and size, being very short and fleshy, his +temperament and occupation; and described him as a generous, high-toned, +public-spirited man, of strong religious convictions and remarkable +modesty: all of which the landlord pronounced to be entirely correct. + +The hotel-register was then brought, and to nearly every name Mr. Sidney +gave the marked character or peculiarity of the man. One was very +nervous, another very tall and lean; this one was penurious, that one +stubborn; this was a farmer, and that a clergyman; this name was written +in a frolic; this was a genuine name, though not written by the man +himself,--and that written by the man himself, but it was not his true +name. Of the person last specified the clerk desired a full description, +and obtained it in nearly these words:-- + +"He, Sir, was not christened by that name. He could never have written +it before he was thirty. He has assumed it within a year. The character +is bad,--very bad. I judge he is a gambler by profession, and--something +worse. He evidently is not confined to one department of rascality. He +was born and educated in New England, is aged about thirty-nine, is +about five feet ten in height, and is broad-shouldered and stout. His +nerves are strong, and he is bold, hypocritical, and mean. He is just +the kind of man to talk like a saint and act like a devil." + +The little company raised their hands in holy horror. + +"As to age, size, nerve, etc.," said the landlord, "you are entirely +correct, but in his moral character you are much mistaken"; and the +clerk laughed outright. + +"Not mistaken at all," replied Mr. Sidney; "the immorality of the +signature is the most perspicuous, and it is more than an even chance +that he has graduated from a State's prison. At any rate, he will show +his true character wherever he remains a year." + +"But, my dear Sir, you are doing the greatest possible damage to your +reputation; he is a boarder of mine, and"---- + +"You had better be rid of him," chimed in Mr. Sidney. + +"Why, Mr. Sidney, he is the _clergyman_ who has been preaching very +acceptably at the ---- Church these two months!" + +"Just as I told you," said Mr. Sidney; "he is a hypocrite and a rascal +by profession. Will you allow me to demonstrate this?" + +The landlord assented. A servant was called, and Mr. Sidney, having +written on a card, sent it to the clergyman's room, with the request +that he would come immediately to the office. It was delivered, and the +landlord waited patiently for his Reverence. + +"You think he will come?" asked Mr. Sidney. + +The landlord replied affirmatively. + +Mr. Sidney shook his head, and said,--"You will see." + +A short time after, the servant was again ordered to make a +reconnoissance, and reported that there was no response to his knocking, +and that the door was locked on the inside. Whereupon Mr. Sidney +expressed the hope that the religious society were responsible for the +board, for he would never again lead that flock like a shepherd. It was +subsequently ascertained that the parson had in a very irreverent manner +slipped down the spout to the kitchen and jumped from there to the +ground, and, what is "very remarkable," like the load of voters upset by +Sam Weller into the canal, "was never heard of after."[A] + +[Footnote A: There is a curious story connected with this "clergyman," +which may yet appear in the biography of Mr. S.] + + * * * * * + +"Individual handwriting," says Lavater, "is inimitable. The more I +compare the different handwritings which fall in my way, the more am +I confirmed in the idea that they are so many expressions, so many +emanations, of the character of the writer. Every country, every nation, +every city has its peculiar handwriting." And the same might be said of +painting; for, if one hundred painters copy the same figure, an artist +will distinguish the copyist. + +Some years since, a certain bank placed in my hands two promissory notes +for large amounts, purporting to be signed by a Mr. Temple and indorsed +by a Mr. Conway, and which both maker and indorser pronounced forgeries. +Both notes were written on common white paper, and were purchased by the +bank of a certain broker at a time when it was difficult to make loans +by discount in the usual manner. Before the maturity of the notes, the +broker, who was a Jew, had left for parts unknown. He left behind him +no liabilities, unless he might be holden for the payment of the notes +above specified, and several others signed and indorsed in the same +manner in the hands of other parties. Several attempts had been made by +professional experts to trace resemblances between the forgeries and the +genuine handwriting of said Temple and Conway, as well as the broker, +but all had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the signatures were +as dissimilar as well could be. The cashier was exceedingly embarrassed +by the fact that Mr. Conway was one of the directors of the bank, and +he was presumed to have been so familiar with his signature as to be +incapable of being deceived. + +After a most diligent investigation and the expenditure of much time and +money, and after skilful experts and detectives had given up in despair +of ascertaining either the whereabouts of the Jew or anything further +till he could be produced, the holders of this paper had settled down +quietly in the belief that the broker was the guilty party and that all +further effort was useless. At this point of time, when all excitement +had subsided, these notes came into my possession. I immediately +telegraphed to Mr. Sidney, and it was with great joy that I received the +reply that he was on his way. At three o'clock in the morning I met him +at the railroad station. He complimented me by saying there was not +another man living for whom he would have left the city of ---- on a +similar message. I thanked him, and we walked to the office. Before +arriving there, I had merely informed him that I desired his services in +the investigation of a forgery that baffled our art. He demanded all the +papers. I produced the forged notes, several genuine checks and letters +of Mr. Temple and Mr. Conway, and several specimens of the handwriting +of the broker. + +Long as I live I can never forget the almost supernatural glow that came +over his features. I could almost see the halo. No language can describe +such a marked and rapid change of countenance. His whole soul seemed +wrapt in a delightful vision. I cannot say how long this continued, as +I was lost in admiration, as he was in contemplation. I spoke, but he +seemed not to hear. At last his muscles relaxed, and he began to breathe +as if greatly fatigued. He wiped the perspiration from his brow, and +said, as if to himself,-- + +"Sure!" + +I asked what was sure. A few minutes elapsed, and he said more loudly,-- + +"As sure as you are born,"--without seeming to have heard my inquiry. + +I proposed to state what could be proved, and the suspicions that were +entertained of the cashier. He objected, and said,-- + +"I take my departure from these papers. Mr. Temple is aged thirty-eight, +a large, well-built man, full six feet high, strongly nerved, bold, +proud, and fearless. His mind is active, and in his day he has been +professor in a college. He fares well and is fashionably dressed. I +think he is not in any legitimate business. He is a German by birth, +though he has been in this country several years. He is somewhat +affected and immensely hypocritical. I think he is a gambler and dealer +in counterfeit money. He certainly is not confined to one department of +rascality. This is not the name by which he was christened, if indeed he +was ever christened at all. He could not have written it in his youth, +and must have assumed it within a year and a half." (Exact in every +known particular.) + +"Mr. Conway I at first thought an attorney-at-law, but he is not. I +reckon he administers on estates, acts as guardian, and settles up the +affairs of the unfortunate in trade as their assignee, in connection +with his business of notary and note-shaver. He is aged fifty-six, was +born and educated in New England, and is probably a native of this city. +He is tall, lean, and bony. His nerves are not steady, and he is easily +excited. He probably has the dyspepsia, but he would not lose the +writing of a deed to be rid of it. The remarkable feature of his +character is stinginess. His natural abilities being good and his mind +strong, he must therefore be a man of means, and I think it matters +little to his conscience how he comes by his wealth. At the same time, +he has considerable pride and caution, which, with his interest, keep +him honest, as the world goes. If he were not an old bachelor, I should +think better of his heart, and he would be less miserly. + +"The Jew's signature is the most honest of the three. Timidity is the +marked character of the man. He could not succeed in any department of +roguery. It is physically, as well as mentally and morally, impossible +for him to have had any connection with the forgery. He would be +frightened out of his wits at the very suggestion of his complicity." + +"And so, Mr. Sidney," said I, "you know all about these parties and the +particulars of the forgery?" + +"Nothing whatever," he replied, "save by these specimens of their +handwriting. I never heard of the forgery, nor of these men, till this +hour." + +To which I replied,-- + +"I cannot believe that you can give such a perfectly accurate +description of them (saving their moral characters, of which I know +little) without other means of knowledge. It _must_ have been that you +knew Temple to be a German, Conway to be the most penurious old bachelor +in town, and the broker the most timid. And _how_, in the name of all +that is marvellous, _could_ you have known Conway to be afflicted with +dyspepsia? + +"Then," answered Mr. Sidney, "you are not prepared to believe one other +thing, more strange and paradoxical than all the rest. Listen! These +notes are forgeries both of the maker and the indorser. And who think +you are the criminals?" + +"The Jew?" + +"No." + +"The cashier?" + +"No. But, as sure as you are born, these notes are in the handwriting of +Temple and Conway, and the signatures are not only genuine, but they are +forgeries also: for both had formed a well-matured and deliberate design +of disputing them before placing them on the paper. And, Sir, from +my notion of Conway's character and temperament, as expressed in his +handwriting, I venture the assertion that I can make him own it, and pay +the notes. He shall even faint away at my pleasure. Temple is another +kind of man, and would never own it, were it ten times proved." + +A meeting of the directors of the bank was to be holden at nine o'clock +of the same morning. None of them knew Mr. Sidney, or were known by +him. It was arranged that he should meet them, Mr. Conway included, +and exhibit his skill, and if he should convince them of his power of +divination, he should discuss the genuineness of the signatures of the +supposed forgeries. + +For several hours he was on trial before the board with a very large +number of specimens of handwriting of men of mark, and he astonished +them all beyond measure by giving the occupation, age, height, size, +temperament, strength of nerve, nationality, morality, and other +peculiarities of every one of the writers. His success was not partial, +it was complete. There was not simply a preponderance of evidence, it +was beyond a doubt. The directors did not question the fact; but how was +it done? Some thought mesmerism could account for it, and others thought +it miraculous. + +The first experiment was this. Each director wrote on a piece of paper +the names of all the board. Eleven lists were handed him, and he +specified the writer of each by the manner in which he wrote his own +name. He then asked them to write their own or any other name, with as +much disguise as they pleased, and as many as pleased writing on the +same piece of paper; and in every instance he named the writer. + +As an example of the other experiments, take this one. The +superscription of a letter was shown him. He began immediately:-- + +"A clergyman, without doubt, who reads his sermons, and is a little +short-sighted. He is aged sixty-one, is six feet high, weighs about one +hundred and seventy, is lean, bony, obstinate, irritable, economical, +frank, and without a particle of hypocrisy or conceit. He is naturally +miserly, and bestows charity only from a sense of duty. His mind +is methodical and strong, and he is not a genius or an interesting +preacher. If he has decided upon any doctrine or construction of +Scripture, it would be as impossible to change him as to make him over +again." + +The company began to laugh, when one of them said,-- + +"Come, come, Mr. Sidney, you are disclosing altogether too much of my +father-in-law." + +And now the supposed forged notes were handed him. He gave the +characteristics of the signatures very nearly as he had before done +in the office, but more particularly and minutely. He analyzed the +handwriting,--showed the points of resemblance, where before none could +be discerned,--showed that the writing, interpreted by itself, was +intended to be disguised,--explained the difference between the +different parts of the notes,--pointed out where the writer was firm in +his purpose, and his nerves well braced, and where his fears overcame +his resolution,--where he had paused to recover his courage, and for a +considerable time,--where he had changed his pen, and how the forgery +was continued through several days,--what parts were done by Temple, and +what by Conway,-- + + "Till all the interim + Between the acting of the dreadful thing + And the first motion" + +was brought so vividly and truthfully to mind that Mr. Conway fell to +the floor as if dead. The cashier, relieved from a pressure that had for +weary months been grinding his very soul, burst into tears. A scene of +strange excitement ensued, during which Mr. Conway muttered incoherent +sentences in condemnation of Temple and then of himself,--now with +penitence, and then with rage. Recovering his composure, he suggested +the Jew as the guilty party. Mr. Sidney then dissected the handwriting +of the Jew, and demonstrated that there was as great a difference +between his chirography and a New-Englander's as between the English and +the Chinese characters,--showed how the Jew must have been exceedingly +timid, and stated the probability that he had left the city not because +he had taken any part in the forgery, but because he had been frightened +away. Then turning to Conway, he gave him a lecture such as no mortal +before ever gave or received. The agony of Conway's mind so distorted +his body as made it painful in the extreme to all beholders. "His inmost +soul seemed stung as by the bite of a serpent." When at last Mr. Sidney +turned and took from his valise a small steel safe, which Conway +recognized as his own, "the terrors of hell got hold of him," and his +anguish was indescribably horrible. The little safe had been by some +unknown and unaccountable process taken from a larger one in Conway's +office, and was unopened. Neither Mr. Sidney nor the directors have ever +seen its contents; but in consideration that it should not be opened, +Mr. Conway confessed his crime in the very form of Mr. Sidney's +description, paid the notes before leaving the bank, and _remains a +director to this day_. As is often the case, the greater criminal goes +unwhipped of justice. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sidney, besides the faculty I have described, had acquired another, +less wonderful perhaps, but still quite remarkable, and which was of +incalculable assistance to him in the prosecution of his Herculean +labor. He was a most rare physiognomist. And by physiognomy is here +intended, not simply the art of discerning the character of the mind by +the features of the face, but also the art of discovering the qualities +of the mind by the conformation of the body,--and still further, +(although it may not be a legitimate use of the word,) the power +of distinguishing the character, mental and moral, the capacity, +occupation, and all the distinctive qualities of a person by his figure, +action, dress, deportment, and the like: for Sterne said well, that "the +wise man takes his hat from the peg very differently from a fool." + +The ancient Egyptians acquired the greatest skill in this science; and +Tacitus affirms, not without reason, that their keen perception +and acute observation, essential in communicating their ideas in +hieroglyphics, contributed largely to their success. Certainly, few +better proofs of the existence of the science have been furnished than +that given by the Egyptian physiognomist at Athens in the days of Plato. +Zopyrus pronounced the face of Socrates to be that of a libertine. The +physiognomist being derided by the disciples of the great philosopher, +Socrates reproved them, saying that Zopyrus had spoken well, for in his +younger days such indeed had been the truth, and that he had overcome +the proclivities of his nature by philosophy and the severest +discipline. + +Pliny affirms that Apelles could trace the likeness of men so accurately +that a physiognomist could discover the ruling passion to which they +were subject. Dante's characters, in his view of Purgatory, are drawn +with accurate reference to the principles of physiognomy; and Shakspeare +and Sterne, particularly the latter, were clever in the art; while Kempf +and Zimmermann, in their profession, are said seldom to have erred as +physiognomists. Surely it is a higher authority and more practical, +which saith, "A wicked man walketh with a froward mouth; he speaketh +with his feet; he teacheth with his fingers.--A man is known by his +look, and a wise man by the air of his countenance." And yet again, "The +wickedness of a woman changeth her face." + +If it be true, as Sultzer declares, that there is not a living creature +that is not more or less skilled in physiognomy as a necessary condition +of its existence, surely _man_, with all his parts fitly joined +together, should be the most expert; and there are circumstances and +conditions, as well as qualities of mind and body, which will conduct +him more surely along the pathway of his research, and direct him onward +towards the goal of perfection. Consider, then, the characteristics of +Mr. Sidney, the circumstances by which he was surrounded, and the school +in which he was taught, in order to determine if there were in him the +elements of success. + +Chiefest among the essential qualities is to be named his astonishing +strength of nerve. No danger could agitate him, however imminent or +sudden. No power could deprive him of his imperturbable coolness +and courage. Perils seemed to render his mind more clear and his +self-reliance more firm. (And yet I have heard him say, that there +was among the band of criminals before mentioned one woman of greater +strength of mind and nervous power than any person he had ever seen, +whom alone of all created beings, whether man or devil, he dreaded +to encounter.) Had not Mr. Sidney been thus potently armed, he must, +without doubt or question, have become almost a monomaniac; for, +secondly, he was for years enraged almost to madness that his entire +estate had been swept from his grasp, as he believed, by the torch of +the incendiary; and he was to the last degree exasperated, and with +a just indignation, that the merchant-princes who he supposed had +occasioned his impoverishment yet walked abroad with the confidence of +the community, and were still trusted by many a good man as the very +salt of the city. Nevertheless, Mr. Sidney, solitary and alone, had +arraigned them before a criminal tribunal. He was therefore driven to +his own resources, and there was no place in his nature, or in the +nature of things, for the first retrograde step. All his vast energies +were thenceforth consecrated to, and concentrated in, the detection of +crime. And from the time that he was refused payment for his loss, so +far as my observation extended, he seemed to have been governed by no +other purpose in life than the extermination of that great gang of +robbers which he subsequently discovered. Add to these incentives +and capacities his extraordinary perceptive faculties and power of +analytical observation, together with his wonderful patience, and it +must be granted that he was qualified to discover in any incident +connected with his pursuits more of its component parts than all other +beholders, and had greater opportunities than almost any other man by +which to be informed _how_ it is that "the heart of a man changeth his +countenance." + +If I remember rightly, it was some two years after our acquaintance +commenced that I became aware of Mr. Sidney's proficiency as a +physiognomist, and it was then communicated, not so much by his choice +as by a necessity, for the accomplishment of one of his purposes. + +The object of Mr. Sidney's visit to the city of P----, at that time, +was nothing less difficult than the discovery and identification of an +individual of whom no other knowledge or description had been obtained +than what could be extracted from the inspection, in another city, of a +single specimen of his handwriting in the superscription of a letter. +So much from so little. Within three days thereafter, with no other +instrumentalities than what were suggested by Mr. Sidney's expertness +in deciphering character in handwriting and his proficiency as a +physiognomist, the result was reached and the object happily attained. +In the prosecution of the enterprise, it was important, if not +essential, that I should believe that the data were sufficient by which +to arrive at a correct conclusion, and that I should confide in Mr. +Sidney's skill in order that there might be hearty coöperation. + +My office was so situated, that from its windows could most +advantageously be observed, and for a considerable distance, the vast +throng that ebbed and flowed, hour after hour, through the great +thoroughfares of the city. For the greater part of three consecutive +days I sat by Mr. Sidney's side, watching the changing crowd through +the half-opened shutters, listening incredulously, at first, to the +practical application of his science to the unsuspecting individuals +below, till my derision was changed to admiration, and I was thoroughly +convinced of his power. As my friends of both sexes passed under the +ordeal, it was intensely bewitching. Hour after hour would he give, with +rapidity and correctness, the occupation and peculiarity of character +and condition of almost every individual who passed. This was not +occasional, but continuous. The marked men were not singled out, but all +were included. He was a stranger, and yet better acquainted with +the people than any of our citizens. And this was the manner of his +speaking:-- + +"That physician has a better opinion of himself than the people have +of him: he is superficial, and makes up in effrontery what he lacks in +qualification. The gambler yonder, with a toothpick in his mouth, has of +late succeeded in his tricks. The affairs of this kind-hearted grocer +are troubling him. Were we within a yard of that round-shouldered man +from the country, we should smell leather; for he works on his bench, +and is unmarried. Here comes an atheist who is a joker and stubborn as +a mule. There goes a man of no business at all: very probably it is the +best occupation he is fitted for, as he has no concentrativeness. The +schoolmistress crossing the street is an accomplished teacher, is +very sympathetic, and has great love of approbation. That lawyer is a +bachelor, and distrusts his own strength. This merchant should give up +the use of tobacco, and pay his notes before dinner, else he will become +a dyspeptic. Here comes a man of wealth who despises the common people +and is miserly and hypocritical; and next to him is a scamp. I think it +is Burke who says, 'When the gnawing worm is within, the impression +of the ravage it makes is visible on the outside, which appears quite +disfigured by it': and in that young man the light that was within him +has become darkness, and 'how great is that darkness!'" + +Of some qualities of mind he would occasionally decline to speak until +he could see the features in play, as in conversation. Some occupations +he failed to discover, if the arms were folded, or the hands in the +pockets, or the body not in motion. It is not my purpose to specify any +of the rules by which he was governed, though they differed materially +from those of Lavater, Redfield, and others, nor the facts from which he +drew his conclusions, but simply to give results. + +I selected from the crowd acquaintances of marked character and +standing, and obtained accurate descriptions of them. Of one he said, +"He is a good merchant, and has done and is doing a large business. He +carries his business home with him at night, as he should not. He has +been wealthy, and is now reduced in circumstances. His disaster weighs +heavily upon him. He has a high sense of honor, a keen conscience, and +is a meek, religious man. He has great goodness of nature, is very +modest and retiring, has more ability than he supposes, and is a man of +family and very fond of his children." + +Another he accurately described thus: "He is a mechanic, of a good mind, +who has succeeded so well that I doubt if he is in active business. +Certainly he does not labor. He is very independent and radical,--can +be impudent, if occasion requires,--gives others all their rights, and +pertinaciously insists upon his own." Here the mechanic took his hands +from his pocket. "Hold! I said he was a mechanic. He is not,--he is a +house-painter." + +I desired to be informed by what indications he judged him to be a +painter. He replied, that he so judged from the general appearance +and motions, and that it was difficult to specify. I insisted, and he +remarked that "the easy roll of his wrists was indicative." + +After obtaining similar correct descriptions of men well known to me, +I spied one whom I did not know, and who was dressed peculiarly. I +inquired his occupation, and Mr. Sidney, without turning a glance +towards me, and still gazing through the half-opened shutters, replied, +"Yes! you never saw him before, yourself. He is a stranger in town, as +is evident from the fact of his being dressed in his best suit, and by +the manner of his taking observations. Besides, there is no opportunity +in these parts for him to follow his trade. He is a glass-blower. You +may perceive he is a little deaf, and the curvature of his motions also +indicates his occupation." + +Whether this description was correct or not I failed to ascertain. + +Mr. Sidney contended that any man of ordinary perceptive faculties need +never mistake a gambler, as the marks on the tribe were as distinct as +the complexion of the Ethiopian,--that, of honest callings, dealers in +cattle could be most easily discovered,--that immorality indicated its +kind invariably in the muscles of the face,--that sympathetic qualities, +love and the desire of being loved, taste and refinement,--were among +the most perspicuous in the outline of the face. + +A man of very gentlemanly appearance was approaching, whom Mr. Sidney +pronounced a gambler, and also engaged in some other branch of iniquity. +His appearance was so remarkably good that I doubted. He turned the +corner, and immediately Mr. Sidney hastened to the street and soon +returned, saying he had ascertained his history: that he was in the +counterfeiting department,--that his conscience affected his nerves, +and consequently his motions,--that he was a stranger in town, and was +restless and disquieted,--that he would not remain many hours here, as +he had an enterprise on hand, and was about it. I remarked, that, as the +contrary never could be proved, he was perfectly safe in his prophecy, +when Mr. Sidney rose from his chair, and, approaching me, slowly said, +with great energy,-- + +"I will follow that man till it _is_ proved." + +The next day but one, I received a note from Mr. Sidney, simply +saying, "I am on his track." He followed the supposed counterfeiter to +Philadelphia, where he ascertained that he had passed five-dollar bills +of the ---- bank of Connecticut. Mr. Sidney obtained the bills the +gambler had passed to compare with the genuine. Failing, however, +to find any of the same denomination, he presented the supposed +counterfeits to a broker skilled in detecting bad bills, and was +surprised to be informed that they were genuine. At Baltimore, he +repeated the inquiry at the counter of a well-known banker relative +to other similar bills, and received the same response. So again in +Washington, Pittsburg, Chicago, and several other cities whither he had +followed the suspected man, and invariably the reply of the cashier +would be, "We will exchange our bills for them, Sir." In some Western +cities he was offered a premium on the bills he had collected. At St. +Louis he obtained a known genuine bill of the bank in question, and in +company with a broker proceeded to examine the two with a microscope. +The broker pronounced the supposed counterfeits to be genuine. In the +mean time the gambler had left the city. Two days after, Mr. Sidney had +overtaken him. So great were his excitement and vexation that he could +scarcely eat or sleep. In a fit of desperation, without law and against +law, he pounced upon the suspected man and put him in irons. He beat a +parley. It was granted, and the two went to the gambler's apartments in +company. In a conversation of several hours, Mr. Sidney extracted +from him the most valuable information relating to the gang he was so +pertinaciously prosecuting, and received into his possession forty-seven +thousand dollars in counterfeits of the aforesaid bank, some of which I +now have in my possession, and which have been pronounced genuine by our +most skilful experts. + + * * * * * + +It would be gratifying to all lovers of science to be informed that the +practical knowledge acquired by Mr. Sidney had been preserved, and that +at least the elementary principles of the arts in which he became so +nearly perfect had been definitely explained and recorded. I am not +aware, however, that such is the fact, but am persuaded that his uniform +policy of concealment has deprived the world of much that would have +been exceedingly entertaining and instructive. That this knowledge has +not been preserved is owing mainly to the fact that he considered it +of little importance, except as a means for the accomplishment of his +purposes, and that those purposes would be most effectually achieved by +his withholding from the common gaze the instrumentality by which they +were to be attained. That he intended at some future period to make some +communication to the public I am well assured, and some materials were +collected by him with this view; but the hot pursuit of the great idea +that he never for an hour lost sight of would not allow sufficient rest +from his labors, and he deferred the publication to those riper years +of experience and acquirement from which he could survey his whole past +career. + +It may be comforting for all rogues to know that he left behind him no +note of that vast amount of statistical knowledge which he possessed, +whether appertaining to crimes or criminals in general or in particular, +or more especially to the band of robbers,--and that with him perished +all knowledge of this organization as such, and the names of all the +parties therewith connected. They also have the consolation, if there be +any, of knowing that he was sent prematurely to his grave by a subtle +poison, administered by unknown hands and in an unknown manner and +moment, and that he died in the firm faith of immortality. + + + + +THE CUMBERLAND. + + + At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, + On board of the Cumberland sloop-of-war; + And at times from the fortress across the bay + The alarum of drums swept past, + Or a bugle-blast + From the camp on the shore. + + Then far away to the South uprose + A little feather of snow-white smoke, + And we knew that the iron ship of our foes + Was steadily steering its course + To try the force + Of our ribs of oak. + + Down upon us heavily runs, + Silent and sullen, the floating fort; + Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, + And leaps the terrible death, + With fiery breath, + From each open port. + + We are not idle, but send her straight + Defiance back in a full broadside! + As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, + Rebounds our heavier hail + From each iron scale + Of the monster's hide. + + "Strike your flag!" the rebel cries, + In his arrogant old plantation strain. + "Never!" our gallant Morris replies; + "It is better to sink than to yield!" + And the whole air pealed + With the cheers of our men. + + Then, like a kraken huge and black, + She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! + Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, + With a sudden shudder of death, + And the cannon's breath + For her dying gasp. + + Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, + Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head. + Lord, how beautiful was thy day! + Every waft of the air + Was a whisper of prayer, + Or a dirge for the dead. + + Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas! + Ye are at peace in the troubled stream. + Ho! brave land! with hearts like these, + Thy flag, that is rent in twain, + Shall be one again, + And without a seam! + + + + +THE FOSSIL MAN. + + +The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been: to +be found in the register of God, not in the records of men. The number +of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The Night of Time far +surpasseth the Day, and who knoweth the Equinox?--Sir THOMAS BROWNE. + +What a mysterious and subtile pleasure there is in groping back through +the early twilight of human history! The mind thirsts and longs so to +know the Beginning: who and what manner of men those were who laid +the first foundations of all that is now upon the earth: of what +intellectual power, of what degree of civilization, of what race and +country. We wonder how the fathers of mankind lived, what habitations +they dwelt in, what instruments or tools they employed, what crops they +tilled, what garments they wore. We catch eagerly at any traces that may +remain of their faiths and beliefs and superstitions; and we fancy, as +we gain a clearer insight into them, that we are approaching more nearly +to the mysterious Source of all life in the soul. The germ, to our +limited comprehension, seems nearer the Creator than the perfected +growth. Then the great problem of _Origin_ forever attracts us on,--the +multitudinous and intricate questions relating to "the ordained becoming +of beings": how the Creating Power has worked, whether through an almost +endless chain of gradual and advantageous changes, or by some sudden and +miraculous _ictus_, placing at once a completed body on the earth, as +an abode and instrument for a developed soul,--all these remote and +difficult questions lead us on. And yet the search for human origins, or +the earliest historic and scientific evidences of man on the earth, is +but a groping in the dark. + +We turn to the Hebrew and the inspired records; but we soon discover, +that, though containing a picture, unequalled for simplicity and +dignity, of the earliest experiences of the present family of man, they +are by no means a monument or relic of the most remote period, but +belong to a comparatively modern date, and that the question of _Time_ +is not at all directly treated in them. + +We visit the region where poetry and myth and tradition have placed a +most ancient civilization,--the Black-Land, or Land of the Nile: we +search its royal sepulchres, its manifold history written in funereal +records, in kingly genealogies, in inscriptions, and in the thousand +relics preserved of domestic life, whether in picture, sculpture, or the +embalmed remains of the dead; and we find ourselves thrown back to a +date far beyond any received date of history, and still we have before +us a ripened civilization, an art which could not belong to the +childhood of a race, a language which (so far as we can judge) must have +needed centuries for its development, and the divisions of human races, +whose formation from the original pair our philosophy teaches us must +have required immense and unknown spaces of time,--all as distinct as +they are at the present day. + +We traverse the regions to which both the comparison of languages and +the Biblical records assign the original birthplace of mankind,--the +country of the Euphrates and the plateau of Eastern Asia. Buried +kingdoms are revealed to us; the shadowy outlines of magnificent cities +appear which flourished and fell before recorded human history, and of +which even Herodotus never heard; Art and Science are unfolded, reaching +far back into the past; the signs of luxury and splendor are uncovered +from the ruin of ages: but, remote as is the date of these Turanian and +Semitic empires, almost equalling that of the Flood in the ordinary +system of chronology, they cannot be near the origin of things, and +a long process of development must have passed ere they reached the +maturity in which they are revealed to us. + +The Chinese records give us an antiquity and an acknowledged date before +the time of Abraham, (if we follow the received chronology,) and +even then their language must have been, as it is now, distinct and +solidified, betraying to the scholar no certain affinity to any other +family of language. The Indian history, so long boasted of for its +immense antiquity, is without doubt the most modern of the ancient +records, and offers no certain date beyond 1800 B.C. + +In Europe, the earliest evidences of man disclosed by our investigations +are even more vague and shadowy. Probably, without antedating in time +these historical records of Asia, they reach back to a more primitive +and barbarous era. The earliest history of Europe is not studied from +inscription or manuscript or even monument; it is not, like the Asiatic, +a conscious work of a people leaving a memorial of itself to a future +age. It is rather, like the geological history, an unconscious, gradual +deposit left by the remains of extinct and unknown races in the soil of +the fields or under the sediment of the waters. The earliest European +barbarian, as he burned his canoe from a log, or fabricated his necklace +from a bone, or worked out his knife from a flint, was in reality +writing a history of his race for distant days. We can follow him now +in his wanderings through the rivers and lakes and on the edges of the +forests; we open his simple mounds of burial, and study his barbarian +tools and ornaments; we discover that he knew nothing of metals, and +that bone and flint and amber and coal were his materials; we trace out +his remarkable defences and huts built on piles in the various lakes of +Europe, where the simple savage could escape the few gigantic "fossil" +animals which even then survived, and roved through the forests of +Prussia and France, or the still more terrible human enemies who were +continually pouring into Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland from the +Asiatic plains. We find that the early savage of Switzerland and Sweden +was not entirely ignorant of the care of animals, and that he had +fabricated some rude pottery. Of what race he was, or when he appeared +amid the forests of Northern Europe, no one can confidently say. +Collecting the various indications from the superstitions, language, +and habits of this barbarian people, and comparing them with like +peculiarities of the most ancient races now existing in Europe, we can +frame a very plausible hypothesis that these early savages belonged to +that great family of which the Finns and Laps, and possibly the Basques, +are scattered members. Their skulls, also, are analogous in form to +those of the Finnish race. This age the archaeologists have denominated +the "Stone Age" of European antiquity. + +Following this is what has been called by them the "Bronze Age." +Another, more powerful, and more cultivated race or collection of +peoples inundates Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, and other +districts. They make war against and destroy the early barbarians; they +burn their water-huts, and force them to the mountains, or to the most +northern portions of the continent. This new race has a taste for +objects of beauty. They work copper and bronze; they make use of +beautiful vases of earthenware and ornaments of the precious metals; +but they have yet no knowledge of iron or steel. Their dead are burned +instead of being buried, as was done by the preceding races. They are +evidently more warlike and more advanced than the Finnish barbarians. Of +their race or family it is difficult to say anything trustworthy. Their +skulls belong to the "long-skulled" races, and would ally them to the +Kelts. Antiquaries have called their remains "Keltic remains." + +Still another age in this ancient history is the "Iron Age," when the +tribes of Europe used iron weapons and implements, and had advanced from +the nomadic condition to that of cultivators of the ground, though still +gaining most of their livelihood from fishing and hunting. This period +no doubt approached the period of historical annals, and the iron men +may have been the earliest Teutons of the North,--our own forefathers; +but of their race or mixture of races we have no certain evidence, +and can only make approximate hypotheses,--the division of "ages" by +archaeologists, it should be remembered, being not in any way a fixed +division of races, but only indicating the probability of different +races at those different early periods. What was the date of these ages +cannot at all be determined; the earlier are long before any recorded +European annals, but there is no reason to believe that they approach in +antiquity the Asiatic records and remains. + +Such, until recently, were the historic and scientific evidences with +regard to the antiquity of man. His most venerable records, his most +ancient dates of historic chronology were but of yesterday, when +compared with the age of existing species of plants and animals, or +with the opening of the present geologic era. Every new scientific +investigation seemed, from its negative evidence, to render more +improbable the existence of the "fossil man." It is true that in various +parts of the world, during the past few years, human bones have been +discovered in connection with the bones of the fossil mammalia; but they +were generally found in caves or in lime-deposits, where they might +have been dropped or swept in by currents of water, or inserted in +more modern periods, and yet covered with the same deposit as the more +ancient relics. Geologists have uniformly reasoned on the _a priori_ +improbability of these being fossil bones, and have somewhat strained +the evidence--as some distinguished _savans_[A] now believe--against the +theory of a great human antiquity. + +[Footnote A: Pictet.] + +And yet the "negative evidence" against the existence of the fossil +man was open to many doubts. The records of geology are notoriously +imperfect. We probably read but a few leaves of a mighty library of +volumes. Moreover, the last ages preceding the present period were +witnesses of a series of changes and slowly acting agencies of +destruction, from which man may have in general escaped. We have reason +to believe that during long periods of time the land was gradually +elevated and subject to oscillations, so that the courses of rivers and +the beds of lakes were disturbed, and even the bottom of the ocean was +raised. The results were the inundation of some countries, and the +pouring of great currents of water over others, wearing down the hills +and depositing in the course of ages the regular layers of gravel, sand, +and marl, which now cover so large a part of Europe. This was still +further followed by a period in which the temperature of the earth was +lowered, and ice and glaciers had perhaps a part in forming the present +surface of the northern hemisphere. During the first period, which may +be called the "Quaternary Period,"[B] the mighty animals lived whose +bones are now found in caverns, or under the slowly deposited sediment +of the waters, or preserved in bog,--the mammoth, and rhinoceros, and +elk, and bear, and elephant, as well as many others of extinct species. + +[Footnote B: We should bear in mind that the Quaternary or Diluvian +Period, however ancient in point of time, has no clearly distinguishing +line of separation from the present period. The great difference lies in +the extinction of certain species of animals, which lived then, whose +destruction may be due both to gradual changes of climate and to +man.--PICTET.] + +We may suppose, that, if man did exist during these convulsions and +inundations, his superior intelligence would enable him to escape +the fate of the animals that were submerged,--or that, if his few +burial-places were invaded by the waters, his remains are now completely +covered by marine deposits under the ocean. If, however, in his +barbarian condition, he had fashioned implements of any hard material, +and especially if, as do the savages of the present family of man, he +had accidentally deposited them, or had buried them with the dead in +mighty mounds, the invading waters might well sweep them together from +their place and deposit them almost in mass, in situations where the +eddies should leave their gravel and sand.[C] + +[Footnote C: Sir C. Lyell, in his remarks before the British Association +in 1859, said upon the discovery alluded to here: "I am reminded of a +large Indian mound which I saw in St. Simon's Island in Georgia,--a +mound ten acres in area, and having an average height of five feet, +chiefly composed of cast-away oyster-shells, throughout which +arrow-heads, stone axes, and Indian pottery were dispersed. If the +neighboring river, the Altamalia, or the sea which is at hand, should +invade, sweep away, and stratify the contents of this mound, it might +produce a very analogous accumulation of human implements, unmixed, +perhaps, with human bones."--_Athenaeum_, September 21, 1859.] + +Such seems in reality to have been the case; though in regard to so +important a fact in the history of the world much caution must be +exercised in accepting the evidence. We will state briefly the proofs, +as they now appear, of the existence of a race of human beings on this +earth in an immense antiquity. + +A French gentleman, M. Boucher de Perthes, has for thirty-four years +been devoting his time and his fortune, with rare perseverance, to the +investigation of certain antiquities in the later geological deposits +in the North of France. His first work, "Les Antiquités Celtiques and +Antédiluviennes," published in 1847, was received with much incredulity +and opposition; a second, under the same title, in 1857, met with a +scarce better reception, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he +could induce even the _savans_ of his own country to look at the mass of +evidence he had collected on this subject. + +He made the extraordinary claim to have discovered a great quantity of +rough implements of flint, fashioned by art, in the undisturbed beds of +clay, gravel, and sand, known as _drift_, near Abbeville and Amiens. +These beds vary in thickness from ten to twenty feet, and cover the +chalk hills in the vicinity; in portions of them, upon the hills, often +in company with the flints, are discovered numerous bones of the extinct +mammalia, such as the mammoth, the fossil rhinoceros, tiger, bear, +hyena, stag, ox, horse, and others. + +The flint implements are found in the lowest beds of gravel, just above +the chalk, while above them are sands with delicate fresh-water shells +and beds of brick-earth,--all this, be it remembered, on table-lands two +hundred feet above the level of the sea, in a country whose level and +face have remained unaltered during any historical period with which we +are acquainted. "It must have required," says Sir Charles Lyell, "a +long period for the wearing down of the chalk which supplied the broken +flints (stones) for the formation of so much gravel at various heights, +sometimes one hundred feet above the level of the Somme, for the +deposition of fine sediment, including entire shells, both terrestrial +and aquatic, and also for the denudation which the entire mass of +stratified drift has undergone, portions having been swept away, so +that what remains of it often terminates abruptly in old river-cliffs, +besides being covered by a newer unstratified drift. To explain these +changes, I should infer considerable oscillations in the level of the +land in that part of France, slow movements of upheaval and subsidence, +deranging, but not wholly displacing the course of ancient rivers." + +The President of the British Association, in his opening speech at +the meeting of 1860, affirms the immense antiquity of these flint +implements, and remarks:--"At Menchecourt, in the suburbs of Abbeville, +a nearly entire skeleton of the Siberian rhinoceros is said to have been +taken out about forty years ago,--a fact affording an answer to the +question often raised, as to whether the bones of the extinct mammalia +could have been washed out of an older alluvium into a newer one, and +so redeposited and mingled with the relics of human workmanship. +Far-fetched as was this hypothesis, I am informed that it would not, if +granted, have seriously shaken the proof of the high antiquity of human +productions; for that proof is independent of organic evidence or fossil +remains, and is based on physical data. As was stated to us last year +by Sir Charles Lyell, we should still have to allow time for great +denudation of the chalk, and the removal from place to place, and the +spreading out over the length and breadth of a large valley, of heaps of +chalk-flints in beds from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, covered +by loam and sands of equal thickness, these last often tranquilly +deposited,--all of which operations would require the supposition of a +great lapse of time." + +An independent proof of the age of these gravel-beds and the associated +loam, containing fossil remains, is derived by the same authority from +the large deposits of peat in the valley of the Somme, which contain not +only monuments of the Roman, but also those of an older, stone period, +the Finnic period; yet, says Lord Wrottesley, "distinguished geologists +are of opinion that the growth of all the vegetable matter, and even +the original scooping out of the hollows containing it, are events long +posterior in date to the gravel with flint-implements,--nay, posterior +even to the formation of the uppermost of the layers of loam with +fresh-water shells overlaying the gravel." + +The number of the flint implements is computed at above fourteen hundred +in an area of fourteen miles in length and half a mile in breadth. They +are of the rudest nature, as if formed by a people in the most degraded +state of barbarism. Some are mere flakes of flint, apparently used for +knives or arrow-heads; some are pointed and with hollowed bases, as if +for spear-heads, varying from four to nine inches in length; some are +almond-shaped, with a cutting edge, from two to nine inches in length. +Others again are fashioned into coarse representations of animals, such +as the whale, saurian, boar, eagle, fish, and even the human profile; +others have representations of foliage upon them; others are either +drilled with holes or are cut with reference to natural holes, so as to +serve as stones for slings, or for amulets, or for ornaments. The edges +in many cases seem formed by a great number of small artificial tips +or blows, and do not at all resemble edges made by a great natural +fracture. Very few are found with polished surfaces like the modern +remains in flint; and the whole workmanship differs from that of flint +arrow-heads in other parts of Europe, as well as from the later Finnish +(or so-called Keltic) remains, discovered in such quantities in France. +The only relics that have been found resembling them are, according to +Mr. Worsaae, some flint arrow-heads and spear-points discovered at great +depths in the bogs of Denmark. A few bone knives and necklaces of bone +have been met with in these deposits, but thus far no human bones. The +people who fabricated these instruments seemed to be a hunting and +fishing people, living in some such condition as the present savages of +Australia. + +These discoveries of M. de Perthes have at length aroused the attention +of English men of science, and during 1859 a number of eminent +gentlemen--among them Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Prestwich, Dr. Falconer, +and others--visited M. Perthes's collection, and saw the flints _in +situ_. Several of them have avowed their conviction of the genuineness +and antiquity of these relics. Sir Charles Lyell has given a guarded +sanction to the belief that they present one strong proof of a remote +human antiquity. + +The objections that would naturally be made to this evidence are, that +the flints are purely natural formations, and not works of man,--that +the deposit is alluvial and modern, rather than of the ancient +drift,--or that these implements had been dropped into crevices, or sunk +from above, in later periods. + +The testimony of disinterested observers seems to be sufficient as to +the human contrivance manifest in these flints; and the concurrence of +various scientific men hardly leaves room for doubt that these deposits +are of great antiquity, preceding the time in which the surface of +France took its present form, and dating back to what is called the +Post-Pliocene Period. Their horizontal position, and the great depth +at which the hatchets are found, together with their number, and the +peculiar incrustation and discoloration of each one, as well as their +being in company with the bones of the extinct mammalia, make it +improbable that they could have been dropped into fissures or sunk there +in modern times.[D] In regard to the absence of human bones, it should +be remembered that no bones are easily preserved, unless they are +buried in sediment or in bog; and furthermore, that the extent of the +researches in these formations is very small indeed. Besides, the +country where above all we should expect the most of human remains +in the drift-deposits, as being probably the most ancient abode of +man,--Asia,--has been the least explored for such purposes. Still this +is without doubt the weak point in the evidence, as proving human +antiquity. + +[Footnote D: An article in Blackwood, (October, 1860,) which is +understood to be from the pen of Professor H.D. Rogers, admits entirely +that the flints are of human workmanship, and that it is impossible for +them to have dropped through fissures, as, according to the writer's +observation of the deposits, it would be impossible even for a mole to +penetrate them, so close are they. Professor Rogers takes the ground +that human antiquity is not proven from these relics, for two +reasons:--First, because the indications in the deposits inclosing the +flints point clearly to a "turbulent diluvial action," and therefore it +is possible for a violent incursion of the ocean to have taken place in +the historic period, and to have mixed up the more recent works of man +with the previously buried bones or relics of a pre-historic period; and +secondly, because the different geological deposits do not necessarily +prove time, but only succession,--two schools of geology interpreting +all similar phenomena differently, as relating to the time required. + +The last position would be admitted by few scientific geologists at +the present day, as the evidence for time, though inferential from the +deposits known to us, is held generally to be conclusive. On the first +point, Professor Rogers has the weight of authority against him: all the +great masters of the science, who have examined the formation and the +deposits of the surrounding country, denying that there is any evidence +of an incursion of the ocean of such a nature, during the historic +period.] + +The chain of evidence in regard to this important question seems to be +filled out by a recent discovery of M. Edouard Lartet in Aurignac, in +the South of France, on the head-waters of the Garonne. As we have just +observed, the weak point in M. de Perthes's discoveries was the absence +of human bones in the deposits investigated, though this might have been +accounted for by the withdrawal of human beings from the floods of the +period. M. Lartet's investigations have fortunately been conducted in a +spot which was above the reach of the ordinary inundations of the Drift +Period, and whither human beings might have fled for refuge, or where +they might have lived securely during long spaces of time. + +Some ten years since, in Aurignac, (Haute Garonne,) in the +_Arrondissement_ of St. Gaudens, near the Pyrenees, a cavern was +discovered in the nummulitic rock. It had been concealed by a heap +of fragments of rock and vegetable soil, gradually detached and +accumulated, probably by atmospheric agency. In it were found the +human remains, it was estimated, of seventeen individuals, which were +afterwards buried formally by the order of the mayor of Aurignac. Along +with the bones were discovered the teeth of mammals, both carnivora and +herbivora; also certain small perforated corals, such as were used by +many ancient peoples as beads, and similar to those gathered in the +deposits of Abbeville. The cave had apparently served as a place of +sacrifice and of burial. In 1860 M. Lartet visited the spot. In +the layer of loose earth at the bottom of the cave he found flint +implements, worked portions of a reindeer's horn, mammal bones, and +human bones in a remarkable state of preservation. In a lower layer of +charcoal and ashes, indicating the presence of man and some ancient +fireplace or hearth, the bones of the animals were scratched and +indented as though by implements employed to remove the flesh; almost +every bone was broken, as if to extract the marrow, as is done by many +modern tribes of savages. The same peculiarity is noticed in the bones +discovered among the "water-huts" of the Danish lakes. + +In this deposit M. Lartet picked up many human implements, such as +bone knives, flattened circular stones supposed to have been used for +sharpening flint knives, perforated sling-stones, many arrow-heads and +spear-heads, flint knives, a bodkin made of a roebuck's horn, various +implements of reindeers' horn, and teeth beads, from the teeth of the +great fossil bear (_Ursus spelaeus_). Remains were also found of nine +different species of carnivora, such as the fossil bear, the hyena, cat, +wolf, fox, and others, and of twelve of herbivora, such as the fossil +elephant, the rhinoceros, the great stag, (_Cervus elephas_,) the +European bison, (aurochs,) horse, and others. The most common were the +aurochs, the reindeer, and the fox. How savages, armed only with flint +implements, could have captured these gigantic animals, is somewhat +mysterious; but, as M. Lartet suggests, they may have snared many of +them, or have overwhelmed single monsters with innumerable arrows and +spears, as Livingstone describes the slaying of the elephant by the +negroes at the present day. + +With reference to the mode in which these remains were brought to this +place, M. Lartet remarks,--"The fragmentary condition of the bones of +certain animals, the mode in which they are broken, the marks of +the teeth of the hyena on bones, necessarily broken in their recent +condition, even the distribution of the bones and their significant +consecration, lead to the conclusion that the presence of these animals +and the deposit of all these remains are due solely to human agency. +Neither the inclination of the ground nor the surrounding hydrographical +conditions allow us to suppose that the remains could have been brought +where they are found by natural causes." + +The conclusion, then, in palaeontology, which would be drawn from these +facts is, that man must have existed in Europe at the same time with the +fossil elephant and rhinoceros, the gigantic hyena, the aurochs, and the +elk, and even the cave-bear. This latter animal is thought by many to +have disappeared in the very opening of the Post-Pliocene Period; so +that this cave would--judging from the remains of that animal--have been +_prior_ to the long period of inundations in which the drift-deposits of +Abbeville and Amiens were made. The drift which fills the valleys of the +Pyrenees has not, it is evident, touched this elevated spot in Aurignac. + +In chronology, all that is proved by these discoveries of M. Lartet is +that the fossil animals mentioned above and man were contemporaries on +the earth. The age of each must be determined inferentially by comparing +the age of strata in which these animals are usually found with the age +in which the most ancient traces of man are discovered,--such as the +deposits already described in the North of France. + +Similar discoveries on a smaller scale are recorded by Mr. Prestwich +in Suffolk, England, and in Devonshire. We are informed also by Sir C. +Lyell of a recent important discovery near Troyes, France. In the Grotto +d'Arcès, a human jaw-bone and teeth have been found imbedded with +_Elephas primigenius_, _Ursus spelaeus_, _Hyaena spelaea_, and other +extinct animals, under layers of stalagmite. Professor Pictet, the +celebrated geologist, who also gives his adhesion to these discoveries +of M. de Perthes, states that the cave-evidence has by no means been +sufficiently valued by geologists, and that there are caverns in Belgium +where the existence of human remains cannot be satisfactorily explained +on the theory of a modern introduction of them. The President of the +British Association (Lord Wrottesley) also states that in the cave of +Brixham, Devonshire, and in another near Palermo, in Sicily, flint +implements were observed by Dr. Falconer, in such a manner as to lead +him to infer that man must have coexisted with several lost species of +quadrupeds. + +Professor Owen, in his "Palaeontology," (1861,) appears to put faith in +the genuineness and antiquity of these flint relics. He also states that +similar flint weapons have been found by Mr. John Frere, F.R.S., in +Suffolk, in a bed of flint gravel, sixteen feet below the surface, of +the same geological age as that in the valley of the Somme. + +The conclusion from these discoveries--the most important scientific +discoveries, relating to human history, of modern times--is, that ages +ago, in the period of the extinct mammoth and the fossil bear, perhaps +before the Channel separated England from France, a race of barbarian +human beings lived on the soil of Europe, capable of fabricating rough +implements. The evidence has been carefully weighed by impartial and +experienced men, and thus far it seems complete. + +The mind is lost in astonishment, in looking back at such a vast +antiquity of human beings. A tribe of men in existence tens of thousands +of years before any of the received dates of Creation! savages who +hunted, with their flint-headed arrows, the gigantic elk of Ireland and +the buffalo of Germany, or who fled from the savage tiger of France, +or who trapped the immense clumsy mammoth of Northern Europe. Who were +they? we ask ourselves in wonder. Was there with man, as with other +forms of animal life, a long and gradual progression from the lowest +condition to a higher, till at length the world was made ready for a +more developed human being, and the Creator placed the first of the +present family of man upon the earth? Were those European barbarians of +the Drift Period a primeval race, destroyed before the creation of our +own race, and lower and more barbarian than the lowest of the present +inhabitants of the world? or, as seems more probable, were these +mysterious beings--the hunters of the mammoth and the aurochs--the +earliest progenitors of our own family, the childish fathers of the +human race? + +The subject hardly yet admits of an exact and scientific answer. We can +merely here suggest the probability of a vast antiquity to human beings, +and of the existence of the FOSSIL or PRE-ADAMITIC MAN. + + * * * * * + + +LIFE IN THE OPEN AIR. + +BY THE AUTHOR OF "CECIL DREEME" AND "JOHN BRENT." + +KATAHDIN AND THE PENOBSCOT. + + +CHAPTER X. + +RIPOGENUS. + + +Ripogenus is a tarn, a lovely oval tarn, within a rim of forest and +hill; and there behold, _O gioja!_ at its eastern end, stooping forward +and filling the sphere, was Katahdin, large and alone. + +But we must hasten, for day wanes, and we must see and sketch this +cloudless summit from _terra firma_. A mile and half-way down the lake, +we landed at the foot of a grassy hill-side, where once had been a +lumberman's station and hay-farm. It was abandoned now, and lonely in +that deeper sense in which widowhood is lonelier than celibacy, a home +deserted lonelier than a desert. Tumble-down was the never-painted +house; ditto its three barns. But, besides a camp, there were two things +to be had here,--one certain, one possible, probable even. The view, +that was an inevitable certainty; Iglesias would bag that as his share +of the plunder of Ripogenus. For my bagging, bears, perchance, awaited. +The trappers had seen a bear near the barns. Cancut, in his previous +visit, had seen a disappearance of bear. No sooner had the birch's +bow touched lightly upon the shore than we seized our respective +weapons,--Iglesias his peaceful and creative sketch-book, I my warlike +and destructive gun,--and dashed up the hill-side. + +I made for the barns to catch Bruin napping or lolling in the old hay. +I entertain a _vendetta_ toward the ursine family. I had a _duello_, +pistol against claw, with one of them in the mountains of Oregon, +and have nothing to show to point the moral and adorn the tale. My +antagonist of that hand-to-hand fight received two shots, and then +dodged into cover and was lost in the twilight. Soon or late in my life, +I hoped that I should avenge this evasion. Ripogenus would, perhaps, +give what the Nachchese Pass had taken away. + +Vain hope! I was not to be an ursicide. I begin to fear that I shall +slay no other than my proper personal bearishness. I did my duty for +another result at Ripogenus. I bolted audaciously into every barn. I +made incursions into the woods around. I found the mark of the beast, +not the beast. He had not long ago decamped, and was now, perhaps, +sucking the meditative paw hard-by in an arbor of his bear-garden. + +After a vain hunt, I gave up Beast and turned to Beauty. I looked about +me, seeing much. + +Foremost I saw a fellow-man, my comrade, fondled by breeze and +brightness, and whispered to by all sweet sounds. I saw Iglesias below +me, on the slope, sketching. He was preserving the scene at its _bel +momento_. I repented more bitterly of my momentary falseness to Beauty +while I saw him so constant. + +Furthermore, I saw a landscape of vigorous simplicity, easy to +comprehend. By mellow sunset the grass slope of the old farm seemed no +longer tanned and rusty, but ripened. The oval lake was blue and calm, +and that is already much to say; shadows of the western hills were +growing over it, but flight after flight of illumined cloud soared +above, to console the sky and the water for the coming of night. +Northward, a forest darkled, whose glades of brightness I could not see. +Eastward, the bank mounted abruptly to a bare fire-swept table-land, +whereon a few dead trees stood, parched and ghostly skeletons draped +with rags of moss. + +Furthermost and topmost, I saw Katahdin twenty miles away, a giant +undwarfed by any rival. The remainder landscape was only minor and +judiciously accessory. The hills were low before it, the lake lowly, +and upright above lake and hill lifted the mountain pyramid. +Isolate greatness tells. There were no underling mounts about this +mountain-in-chief. And now on its shoulders and crest sunset shone, +glowing. Warm violet followed the glow, soothing away the harshness of +granite lines. Luminous violet dwelt upon the peak, while below the +clinging forests were purple in sheltered gorges, where they could climb +nearer the summit, loved of light, and lower down gloomed green and +sombre in the shadow. + +Meanwhile, as I looked, the quivering violet rose higher and higher, and +at last floated away like a disengaged flame. A smouldering blue dwelt +upon the peak. Ashy-gray overcame the blue. As dusk thickened and stars +trembled into sight, the gray grew luminous. Katahdin's mighty presence +seemed to absorb such dreamy glimmers as float in limpid night-airs: +a faint glory, a twilight of its own, clothed it. King of the +daylit-world, it became queen of the dimmer realms of night, and like a +woman-queen it did not disdain to stoop and study its loveliness in +the polished lake, and stooping thus it overhung the earth, a shadowy +creature of gleam and gloom, an eternized cloud. + +I sat staring and straying in sweet reverie, until the scene before me +was dim as metaphysics. Suddenly a flame flashed up in the void. It +grew and steadied, and dark objects became visible about it. In the +loneliness--for Iglesias had disappeared--I allowed myself a moment's +luxury of superstition. Were these the Cyclops of Katahdin? Possibly. +Were they Trolls forging diabolic enginery, or Gypsies of Yankeedom? I +will see,--and went tumbling down the hill-side. + +As I entered the circle about the cooking-fire of drift-wood by the +lake, Iglesias said,-- + +"The beef-steak and the mutton-chops will do for breakfast; now, then, +with your bear!" + +"Haw, haw!" guffawed Cancut; and the sound, taking the lake at a stride, +found echoes everywhere, till he grew silent and peered suspiciously +into the dark. + +"There's more bears raound 'n yer kin shake a stick at," said one of the +muskrateers. "I wouldn't ricommend yer to stir 'em up naow, haowlin' +like that." + +"I meant it for laffin'," said Cancut, humbly. + +"Ef yer call that 'ere larfin', couldn't yer cry a little to kind er +slick daown the bears?" said the trapper. + +Iglesias now invited us to _chocolat à la crème_, made with the boon +of the ex-bar-keeper. I suppose I may say, without flattery, that this +tipple was marvellous. What a pity Nature spoiled a cook by making the +muddler of that chocolate a painter of grandeurs! When Fine Art is in +a man's nature, it must exude, as pitch leaks from a pine-tree. Our +muskrat-hunters partook injudiciously of this unaccustomed dainty, and +were visited with indescribable Nemesis. They had never been acclimated +to chocolate, as had Iglesias and I, by sipping it under the shade of +the mimosa and the palm. + +Up to a certain point, an unlucky hunter is more likely to hunt than +a lucky. Satiety follows more speedily upon success than despair upon +failure. Let us thank Heaven for that, brethren dear! I had bagged not a +bear, and must needs satisfy my assassin instincts upon something with +hoofs and horns. The younger trapper of muskrat, being young, was +ardent,--being young, was hopeful,--being young, believed in exceptions +to general rules,--and being young, believed, that, given a good fellow +with a gun, Nature would provide a victim. Therefore he proposed that we +should canoe it along the shallows in this sweetest and stillest of all +the nights. The senior shook his head incredulously; Iglesias shook his +head noddingly. + +"Since you have massacred all the bears," said Iglesias, "I will go lay +me down in their lair in the barn. If you find me cheek-by-jowl with +Ursa Major when you come back, make a pun and he will go." + +It was stiller than stillness upon the lake. Ripogenus, it seemed, had +never listened to such silence as this. Calm never could have been so +beyond the notion of calm. Stars in the empyrean and stars in Ripogenus +winked at each other across ninety-nine billions of leagues as +uninterruptedly as boys at a boarding-school table. + +I knelt amidships in the birch with gun and rifle on either side. The +pilot gave one stroke of his paddle, and we floated out upon what seemed +the lake. Whatever we were poised and floating upon he hesitated to +shatter with another dip of his paddle, lest he should shatter the thin +basis and sink toward heaven and the stars. + +Presently the silence seemed to demand gentle violence, and the +unwavering water needed slight tremors to teach it the tenderness of its +calm; then my guide used his blade, and cut into glassiness. We crept +noiselessly along by the lake-edge, within the shadows of the pines. +With never a plash we slid. Rare drops fell from the cautious paddle +and tinkled on the surface, overshot, not parted by, our imponderable +passage. Sometimes from far within the forest would come sounds of +rustling branches or crackling twigs. Somebody of life approaches with +stealthy tread. Gentlier, even gentlier, my steersman! Take up no pearly +drop from the lake, mother of pearliness, lest falling it sound too +loudly. Somewhat comes. Let it come unterrified to our ambush among the +shadows by the shore. + +Somewhat, something, somebody was coming, perhaps, but some other thing +or body thwarted it and it came not. To glide over glassiness while +uneventful moments link themselves into hours is monotonous. Night and +stillness laid their soothing spell upon me. I was entranced. I lost +myself out of time and space, and seemed to be floating unimpelled and +purposeless, nowhere in Forever. + +Somewhere in Now I suddenly found myself. + +There he was! There was the moose trampling and snorting hard-by, in the +shallows of Ripogenus, trampling out of being the whole nadir of stars, +making the world conscious of its lost silence by the death of silence +in tumult. + +I trembled with sudden eagerness. I seized my gun. In another instant +I should have lodged the fatal pellet! when a voice whispered over my +shoulder,-- + +"I kinder guess yer 've ben asleep an' dreamin', ha'n't yer?" + +So I had. + +Never a moose came down to cool his clumsy snout in the water and +swallow reflections of stars. Never a moose abandoned dry-browse in the +bitter woods for succulent lily-pads, full in their cells and veins of +water and sunlight. Till long past midnight we paddled and watched and +listened, whisperless. In vain. At last, as we rounded a point, the +level gleam of our dying camp-fire athwart the water reminded us of +passing hours and traveller duties, of rest to-night and toil to-morrow. + +My companions, fearless as if there were no bears this side of Ursa +Major, were bivouacked in one of the barns. There I entered skulkingly, +as a gameless hunter may, and hid my untrophied head beneath a mound of +ancient hay, not without the mustiness of its age. + +No one clawed us, no one chawed us, that night. A Ripogenus chill awaked +the whole party with early dawn. We sprang from our nests, shook the +hay-seed out of our hair, and were full-dressed without more ceremony, +ready for whatever grand sensation Nature might purvey for our aesthetic +breakfast. + +Nothing is ever as we expect. When we stepped into out-of-doors, looking +for Ripogenus, a lake of Maine, we found not a single aquatic fact in +the landscape. Ripogenus, a lake, had mizzled, (as the Americans say,) +literally mizzled. Our simplified view comprised a grassy hill with +barns, and a stern positive pyramid, surely Katahdin; aloft, beyond, +above, below, thither, hither, and yon, Fog, not fog, but FOG. + +Ripogenus, the water-body, had had aspirations, and a boon of brief +transfiguration into a cloud-body had been granted it by Nature, who +grants to every terrestrial essence prophetic experiences of what it one +day would be. + +In short, and to repeat, Ripogenus had transmuted itself into vapor, and +filled the valley full to our feet. A faint wind had power to billow +this mist-lake, and drive cresting surges up against the eastern +hill-side, over which they sometimes broke, and, involving it totally, +rolled clear and free toward Katahdin, where he stood hiding the glows +of sunrise. Leagues higher up than the mountain rested a presence of +cirri, already white and luminous with full daylight, and from them +drooped linking wreaths of orange mist, clinging to the rosy-violet +granite of the peak. + +Up clomb and sailed Ripogenus and befogged the whole; then we +condescended to breakfast. + + +CHAPTER XI. + +TOWARD KATAHDIN. + + +Singularly enough, mill-dams are always found below mill-ponds. +Analogously in the Maine rivers, below the lakes, rapids are. Rapids +too often compel carries. While we breakfasted without steak of bear +or cutlet of moose, Ripogenus gradually retracted itself, and became +conscious again of what poetry there is in a lake's pause and a rapid's +flow. Fog condensed into water, and water submitting to its destiny went +cascading down through a wild defile where no birch could follow. + +The Ripogenus carry is three miles long, a faint path through thickets. + +"First half," said Cancut, "'s plain enough; but after that 't would +take a philosopher with his spectacles on to find it." + +This was discouraging. Philosophers twain we might deem ourselves; but +what is a craftsman without tools? And never a goggle had we. + +But the trappers of muskrats had become our fast friends. They insisted +upon lightening our loads over the brambly league. This was kindly. +Cancut's elongated head-piece, the birch, was his share of the burden; +and a bag of bread, a firkin of various grub, damp blankets for three, +and multitudinous traps, seemed more than two could carry at one trip +over this longest and roughest of portages. + +We paddled from the camp to the lake-foot, and there, while the others +compacted the portables for portage, Iglesias and I, at cost of a +ducking with mist-drops from the thickets, scrambled up a crag for a +supreme view of the fair lake and the clear mountain. And we did +well. Katahdin, from the hill guarding the exit of the Penobscot from +Ripogenus, is eminent and emphatic, a signal and solitary pyramid, +grander than any below the realms of the unchangeable, more distinctly +mountainous than any mountain of those that stop short of the venerable +honors of eternal snow. + +We trod the trail, we others, easier than Cancut. He found it hard to +thread the mazes of an overgrown path and navigate his canoe at the +same time. "Better," thought he, as he staggered and plunged and bumped +along, extricating his boat-bonnet now from a bower of raspberry-bushes, +now from the branches of a brotherly birch-tree,--"better," thought he, +"were I seated in what I bear, and bounding gayly over the billow. Peril +is better than pother." + +Bushwhacking thus for a league, we circumvented the peril, and came upon +the river flowing fair and free. The trappers said adieu, and launched +us. Back then they went to consult their traps and flay their fragrant +captives, and we shot forward. + +That was a day all poetry and all music. Mountain airs bent and blunted +the noonday sunbeams. There was shade of delicate birches on either +hand, whenever we loved to linger. Our feather-shallop went dancing +on, fleet as the current, and whenever a passion for speed came after +moments of luxurious sloth, we could change floating at the river's +will into leaps and chasing, with a few strokes of the paddle. All was +untouched, unvisited wilderness, and we from bend to bend the first +discoverers. So we might fancy ourselves; for civilization had been +here only to cut pines, not to plant houses. Yet these fair curves, and +liberal reaches, and bright rapids of the birchen-bowered river were +only solitary, not lonely. It is never lonely with Nature. Without +unnatural men or unnatural beasts, she is capital society by herself. +And so we found her,--a lovely being in perfect toilet, which I +describe, in an indiscriminating, masculine way, by saying that it was a +forest and a river and lakes and a mountain and doubtless sky, all made +resplendent by her judicious disposition of a most becoming light. +Iglesias and I, being old friends, were received into close intimacy. +She smiled upon us unaffectedly, and had a thousand exquisite things to +say, drawing us out also, with feminine tact, to say our best things, +and teaching us to be conscious, in her presence, of more delicate +possibilities of refinement and a tenderer poetic sense. So we voyaged +through the sunny hours, and were happy. + +Yet there was no monotony in our progress. We could not always drift and +glide. Sometimes we must fight our way. Below the placid reaches were +the inevitable "rips" and rapids: some we could shoot without hitting +anything; some would hit us heavily, did we try to shoot. Whenever +the rocks in the current were only as thick as the plums in a +boarding-school pudding, we could venture to run the gantlet; whenever +they multiplied to a school-boy's ideal, we were arrested. Just at the +brink of peril we would sweep in by an eddy into a shady pool by the +shore. At such spots we found a path across the carry. Cancut at once +proceeded to bonnet himself with the trickling birch. Iglesias and I +took up the packs and hurried on with minds intent on berries. Berries +we always found,--blueberries covered with a cloudy bloom, blueberries +pulpy, saccharine, plenteous. + +Often, when a portage was not quite necessary, a dangerous bit of white +water would require the birch to be lightened. Cancut must steer her +alone over the foam, while we, springing ashore, raced through the thick +of the forest, tore through the briers, and plunged through the punk of +trees older than history, now rotting where they fell, slain by Time the +Giganticide. Cancut then had us at advantage. Sometimes we had laughed +at him, when he, a good-humored malaprop, made vague clutches at the +thread of discourse. Now suppose he should take a fancy to drop down +stream and leave us. What then? Berries then, and little else, unless we +had a chance at a trout or a partridge. It is not cheery, but dreary, to +be left in pathlessness, blanketless, guideless, and with breadths of +lake and mountain and Nature, shaggy and bearish, between man and man. +With the consciousness of a latent shudder in our hearts at such a +possibility, we parted brier and bramble until the rapid was passed, we +scuffled hastily through to the river-bank, and there always, in some +quiet nook, was a beacon of red-flannel shirt among the green leaves +over the blue and shadowy water, and always the fast-sailing Cancut +awaiting us, making the woods resound to amicable hails, and ready again +to be joked and to retaliate. + +Such alternations made our voyage a charming olla. We had the placid +glide, the fleet dash, the wild career, the pause, the landing, +the agreeable interlude of a portage, and the unburdened stampede +along-shore. Thus we won our way, or our way wooed us on, until, in +early afternoon, a lovely lakelet opened before us. The fringed +shores retired, and, as we shot forth upon wider calm, lo, Katahdin! +unlooked-for, at last, as a revolution. Our boat ruffled its shadow, +doing pretty violence to its dignity, that we might know the greater +grandeur of the substance. There was a gentle agency of atmosphere +softening the bold forms of this startling neighbor, and giving it +distance, lest we might fear it would topple and crush us. Clouds, level +below, hid the summit and towered aloft. Among them we might imagine the +mountain rising with thousands more of feet of heaven-piercing height: +there is one degree of sublimity in mystery, as there is another degree +in certitude. + +We lay to in a shady nook, just off Katahdin's reflection in the river, +while Iglesias sketched him. Meanwhile I, analyzing my view, presently +discovered a droll image in the track of a land-avalanche down the +front. It was a comical fellow, a little giant, a colossal dwarf, six +hundred feet high, and should have been thrice as tall, had it had any +proper development,--for out of his head grew two misdirected skeleton +legs, "hanging down and dangling." The countenance was long, elfin, +sneering, solemn, as of a truculent demon, saddish for his trade, an +ashamed, but unrepentant rascal. He had two immense erect ears, and in +his boisterous position had suffered a loss of hair, wearing nothing +save an impudent scalp-lock. A very grotesque personage. Was he the +guardian imp, the legendary Eft of Katahdin, scoffing already at us as +verdant, and warning that he would make us unhappy, if we essayed to +appear in demon realms and on Brocken heights without initiation? + +"A terrible pooty mountain," Cancut observed; and so it is. + +Not to fail in topographical duty, I record, that near this lakelet +flows in the river Sowadehunk, and not far below, a sister streamlet, +hardly less melodiously named Ayboljockameegus. Opposite the latter we +landed and encamped, with Katahdin full in front, and broadly visible. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +CAMP KATAHDIN. + + +Our camping-place was worthy of its view. On the bank, high and dry, a +noble yellow birch had been strong enough to thrust back the forest, +making a glade for its own private abode. Other travellers had already +been received in this natural pavilion. We had had predecessors, and +they had built them a hut, a half roof of hemlock bark, resting on a +frame. Time had developed the wrinkles in this covering into cracks, and +cracks only wait to be leaks. First, then, we must mend our mansion. +Material was at hand; hemlocks, with a back-load of bark, stood ready to +be disburdened. In August they have worn their garment so long that they +yield it unwillingly. Cancut's axe, however, was insinuating, not to +say peremptory. He peeled off and brought great scales of rough +purple roofing, and we disposed them, according to the laws of +forest architecture, upon our cabin. It became a good example of the +_renaissance_. Storm, if such a traveller were approaching, was shut +out at top and sides; our blankets could become curtains in front and +completely hide us from that unwelcome vagrant, should he peer about +seeking whom he might duck and what he might damage. + +Our lodge, built, must be furnished. We need a luxurious carpet, couch, +and bed; and if we have these, will be content without secondary +articles. Here, too, material was ready, and only the artist wanting, to +use it. While Cancut peeled the hemlocks, Iglesias and I stripped off +armfuls of boughs and twigs from the spruces to "bough down" our camp. +"Boughing down" is shingling the floor elaborately with evergreen +foliage; and when it is done well, the result counts among the high +luxuries of the globe. As the feathers of this bed are harsh stems +covered with leafage, the process of bed-making must be systematic, the +stems thoroughly covered, and the surface smooth and elastic. I have +slept on the various beds of the world,--in a hammock, in a pew, on +German feathers, on a bear-skin, on a mat, on a hide; all, all give but +a feeble, restless, unrecreating slumber, compared to the spruce or +hemlock bed in a forest of Maine. This is fragrant, springy, soft, +well-fitting, better than any Sybarite's coach of uncrumpled +rose-leaves. It sweetly rustles when you roll, and, by a gentle +titillation with the little javelin-leaves, keeps up a pleasant +electricity over the cuticle. Rheumatism never, after nights on such a +bed; agues never; vigor, ardor, fervor, always. + +We despatched our camp-building and bed-making with speed, for we had +a purpose. The Penobscot was a very beautiful river, and the +Ayboljockameegus a very pretty stream; and if there is one place in the +world where trout, at certain seasons, are likely to be found, it is in +a beautiful river at the mouth of a pretty stream. Now we wanted trout; +it was in the programme that something more delicate than salt-pork +should grace our banquets before Katahdin. Cancut sustained our _a +priori_, that trout were waiting for us over by the Aybol. By this +time the tree-shadows, so stiff at noon, began to relax and drift down +stream, cooling the surface. The trout could leave their shy lairs +down in the chilly deeps, and come up without fear of being parboiled. +Besides, as evening came, trout thought of their supper, as we did of +ours. + +Hereupon I had a new sensation. We made ready our flies and our rods, +and embarked, as I supposed, to be ferried across and fish from _terra +firma_. But no. Cancut dropped anchor very quietly opposite the Aybol's +mouth. Iglesias, the man of Maine experience, seemed nought surprised. +We were to throw our lines, as it appeared, from the birch; we were to +peril our lives on the unsteady basis of a roly-poly vessel,--to keep +our places and ballast our bowl, during the excitement of hooking +pounds. Self-poise is an acrobatic feat, when a person, not loaded at +the heels, undertakes trout-fishing from a birch. + +We threw our flies. Instantly at the lucky hackle something darted, +seized it, and whirled to fly, with the unwholesome bit in its mouth, up +the peaceful Ayboljockameegus. But the lucky man, and he happened to be +the novice, forgot, while giving the capturing jerk of his hook, that +his fulcrum was not solid rock. The slight shell tilted, turned--over +not quite, over enough to give everybody a start. One lesson teaches the +docile. Caution thereafter presided over our fishing. She told us to sit +low, keep cool, cast gently, strike firmly, play lightly, and pull in +steadily. So we did. As the spotted sparklers were rapidly translated +from water to a lighter element, a well-fed cheerfulness developed in +our trio. We could not speak, for fear of breaking the spell; we smiled +at each other. Twenty-three times the smile went round. Twenty-three +trout, and not a pigmy among them, lay at our feet. More fish for one +dinner and breakfast would be waste and wanton self-indulgence. We +stopped. And I must avow, not to claim too much heroism, that the fish +had also stopped. So we paddled home contented. + +Then, O Walton! O Davy! O Scrope! ye fishers hard by taverns! luxury was +ours of which ye know no more than a Chinaman does of music. Under +the noble yellow birch we cooked our own fish. We used our scanty +kitchen-battery with skill. We cooked with the high art of simplicity. +Where Nature has done her best, only fools rush in to improve: on the +salmonids, fresh and salt, she has lavished her creative refinements; +cookery should only ripen and develop. From our silver gleaming pile +of pounders, we chose the larger and the smaller for appropriate +experiments. Then we tested our experiments; we tasted our examples. +Success. And success in science proves knowledge and skill. We feasted. +The delicacy of our food made each feaster a finer essence. + +So we supped, reclined upon our couch of spruce-twigs. In our good cheer +we pitied the Eft of Katahdin: he might sneer, but he was supperless. We +were grateful to Nature for the grand mountain, for the fair and sylvan +woods, for the lovely river and what it had yielded us. + +By the time we had finished our flaky fare and sipped our chocolate from +the Magdalena, Night announced herself,--Night, a jealous, dark lady, +eclipsed and made invisible all her rivals, that she might solely +possess us. Night's whispers lulled us. The rippling river, the rustling +leaves, the hum of insects grew more audible; and these are gentle +sounds that prove wide quietude in Nature, and tell man that the burr +and buzz in his day-laboring brain have ceased, and he had better be +breathing deep in harmony. So we disposed ourselves upon the fragrant +couch of spruce-boughs, and sank slowly and deeper into sleep, as divers +sink into the thick waters down below, into the dreamy waters far below +the plunge of sunshine. + +By-and-by, as the time came for rising to the surface again, and the +mind began to be half conscious of facts without it, as the diver may +half perceive light through thinning strata of sea, there penetrated +through my last layers of slumber a pungent odor of wetted embers. It +was raining quietly. Drip was the pervading sound, as if the rain-drops +were counting aloud the leaves of the forest. Evidently a resolute and +permanent wetting impended. On rainy days one does not climb Katahdin. +Instead of rising by starlight, breakfasting by gray, and starting by +rosy dawn, it would be policy to persuade night to linger long into the +hours of a dull day. When daylight finally came, dim and sulky, there +was no rivalry among us which should light the fire. We did not leap, +but trickled slowly forth into the inhospitable morning, all forlorn. +Wet days in camp try "grit." "Clear grit" brightens more crystalline, +the more it is rained upon; sham grit dissolves into mud and water. + +Yankees, who take in pulverized granite with every breath of their +native dust, are not likely to melt in a drizzle. We three certainly +did not. We reacted stoutly against the forlorn weather, unpacking our +internal stores of sunshine, as a camel in a desert draws water from his +inner tank when outer water fails. We made the best of it. A breakfast +of trout and trimmings looks nearly as well and tastes nearly as well in +a fog as in a glare: that we proved by experience at Camp Katahdin. + +We could not climb the mountain dark and dim; we would not be idle: what +was to be done? Much. Much for sport and for use. We shouldered the +axe and sallied into the dripping forest. Only a faint smoke from the +smouldering logs curled up among the branches of the yellow birch over +camp. We wanted a big smoke, and chopped at the woods for fuel. Speaking +for myself, I should say that our wood-work was ill done. Iglesias +smiled at my axe-handling, and Cancut at his, as chopping we sent chips +far and wide. + +The busy, keen, short strokes of the axe resounded through the forest. +When these had done their work, and the bungler paused amid his wasteful +_debris_ to watch his toil's result, first was heard a rustle of leaves, +as if a passing whirlwind had alighted there; next came the crack of +bursting sinews; then the groan of a great riving spasm, and the tree, +decapitated at its foot, crashed to earth, with a vain attempt to clutch +for support at the stiff, unpitying arms of its woodland brotherhood. + +Down was the tree,--fallen, but so it should not lie. This tree we +proposed to promote from brute matter, mere lumber, downcast and +dejected, into finer essence: fuel was to be made into fire. + +First, however, the fuel must be put into portable shape. We top-sawyers +went at our prostrate and vanquished non-resistant, and without mercy +mangled and dismembered him, until he was merely a bare trunk, a torso +incapable of restoration. + +While we were thus busy, useful, and happy, the dripping rain, like a +clepsydra, told off the morning moments. The dinner-hour drew nigh. We +had determined on a feast, and trout were to be its daintiest dainty. +But before we cooked our trout, we must, according to sage Kitchener's +advice, catch our trout. They were, we felt confident, awaiting us in +the refrigerate larder at hand. We waited until the confusing pepper of +a shower had passed away and left the water calm. Then softly and deftly +we propelled our bark across to the Ayboljockameegus. We tossed to the +fish humbugs of wool, silk, and feathers, gauds such as captivate the +greedy or the guileless. Again the "gobemouches" trout, the fellows +on the look-out for novelty, dashed up and swallowed disappointing +juiceless morsels, and with them swallowed hooks. + +We caught an apostolic boat-load of beauties fresh and blooming +as Aurora, silver as the morning star, gemmy with eye-spots as a +tiger-lily. + +O feast most festal! Iglesias, of course, was the great artist who +devised and mainly executed it. As well as he could, he covered his pot +and pan from the rain, admitting only enough to season each dish with +gravy direct from the skies. As day had ripened, the banquet grew ripe. +Then as day declined, we reclined on our triclinium of hemlock and +spruce boughs, and made high festival, toasting each other in the +uninebriating flow of our beverages. Jollity reigned. Cancut fattened, +and visibly broadened. Toward the veriest end of the banquet, we seemed +to feel that there had been a slight sameness in its courses. The Bill +of Fare, however, proved the freest variety. And at the close we sat and +sipped our chocolate with uttermost content. No _garçon_, cringing, but +firm, would here intrude with the unhandsome bill. Nothing to pay is the +rarest of pleasures. This dinner we had caught ourselves, we had cooked +ourselves, and had eaten for the benefit of ourselves and no other. +There was nothing to repent of afterwards in the way of extravagance, +and certainly nothing of indigestion. Indigestion in the forest +primeval, in the shadow of Katahdin, is impossible. + +While we dined, we talked of our to-morrow's climb of Katahdin. We were +hopeful. We disbelieved in obstacles. To-morrow would be fine. We would +spring early from our elastic bed and stride topwards. Iglesias nerved +himself and me with a history of his ascent some years before, up the +eastern side of the mountain. He had left the house of Mr. Hunt, the +outsider at that time of Eastern Maine, with a squad of lumbermen, and +with them tramped up the furrow of a land-avalanche to the top, spending +wet and ineffective days in the dripping woods, and vowing then to +return and study the mountain from our present camping-spot. I recalled +also the first recorded ascent of the Natardin or Catardin Mountain by +Mr. Turner in 1804, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's +Collections, and identified the stream up whose valley he climbed with +the Ayboljockameegus. Cancut offered valuable contributions to our +knowledge from his recent ascent with our Boston predecessors. To-morrow +we would verify our recollections and our fancies. + +And so good-night, and to our spruce bed. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +UP KATAHDIN. + + +Next morning, when we awoke, just before the gray of dawn, the sky was +clear and scintillating; but there was a white cotton night-cap on +the head of Katahdin. As we inspected him, he drew his night-cap down +farther, hinting that he did not wish to see the sun that day. When +a mountain is thus in the sulks after a storm, it is as well not to +disturb him: he will not offer the prize of a view. Experience taught us +this: but then experience is only an empiric at the best. + +Besides, whether Katahdin were bare-headed or cloud-capped, it would be +better to blunder upward than lounge all day in camp and eat Sybaritic +dinners. We longed for the nervy climb. We must have it. "Up!" said +tingling blood to brain. "Dash through the forest! Grasp the crag, and +leap the cleft! Sweet flash forth the streamlets from granite fissures. +To breathe the winds that smite the peaks is life." + +As soon as dawn bloomed in the woods we breakfasted, and ferried the +river before sunrise. The ascent subdivides itself into five zones. 1. A +scantily wooded acclivity, where bears abound. 2. A dense, swampy forest +region. 3. Steep, mossy mountain-side, heavily wooded. 4. A belt of +dwarf spruces, nearly impenetrable. 5. Ragged rock. + +Cancut was our leader to-day. There are by far too many blueberries in +the first zone. No one, of course, intends to dally, but the purple +beauties tempted, and too often we were seduced. Still such yielding +spurred us on to hastier speed, when we looked up after delay and saw +the self-denying far ahead. + +To write an epic or climb a mountain is merely a dogged thing; the +result is more interesting to most than the process. Mountains, being +cloud-compellers, are rain-shedders, and the shed water will not always +flow with decorous gayety in dell or glen. Sometimes it stays bewildered +in a bog, and here the climber must plunge. In the moist places great +trees grow, die, fall, rot, and barricade the way with their corpses. +Katahdin has to endure all the ills of mountain being, and we had all +the usual difficulties to fight through doggedly. When we were clumsy, +we tumbled and rose up torn. Still we plodded on, following a path +blazed by the Bostonians, Cancut's late charge, and we grumblingly +thanked them. + +Going up, we got higher and drier. The mountain-side became steeper than +it could stay, and several land-avalanches, ancient or modern, crossed +our path. It would be sad to think that all the eternal hills were +crumbling thus, outwardly, unless we knew that they bubble up inwardly +as fast. Posterity is thus cared for in regard to the picturesque. +Cascading streams also shot by us, carrying light and music. From +them we stole refreshment, and did not find the waters mineral and +astringent, as Mr. Turner, the first climber, calumniously asserts. + +The trees were still large and surprisingly parallel to the mountain +wall. Deep soft moss covered whatever was beneath, and sometimes this +would yield and let the foot measure a crevice. Perilous pitfalls; but +we clambered unharmed. The moss, so rich, deep, soft, and earthily +fragrant, was a springy stair-carpet of a steep stairway. And sometimes +when the carpet slipped and the state of heels over head seemed +imminent, we held to the baluster-trees, as one after wassail clings to +the lamp-post. + +Even on this minor mountain the law of diminishing vegetation can be +studied. The great trees abandoned us, and stayed indolently down in +shelter. Next the little wiry trees ceased to be the comrades of our +climb. They were no longer to be seen planted upon jutting crags, and, +bold as standard-bearers, inciting us to mount higher. Big spruces, +knobby with balls of gum, dwindled away into little ugly dwarf spruces, +hostile, as dwarfs are said to be always, to human comfort. They grew +man-high, and hedged themselves together into a dense thicket. We could +not go under, nor over, nor through. To traverse them at all, we must +recall the period when we were squirrels or cats, in some former state +of being. + +Somehow we pierced, as man does ever, whether he owes it to the beast or +the man in him. From time to time, when in this struggle we came to an +open point of rock, we would remember that we were on high, and turn to +assure ourselves that nether earth was where we had left it. We always +found it _in situ_, in belts green, white, and blue, a tricolor of +woods, water, and sky. Lakes were there without number, forest without +limit. We could not analyze yet, for there was work to do. Also, +whenever we paused, there was the old temptation, blueberries. Every +out-cropping ledge offered store of tonic, ozone-fed blueberries, or +of mountain-cranberries, crimson and of concentrated flavor, or of the +white snowberry, most delicate of fruits that grow. + +As we were creeping over the top of the dwarf wood, Cancut, who was in +advance, suddenly disappeared; he seemed to fall through a gap in the +spruces, and we heard his voice calling in cavernous tones. We crawled +forward and looked over. It was the upper camp of the Bostonians. They +had profited by a hole in the rocks, and chopped away the stunted scrubs +to enlarge it into a snug artificial abyss. It was snug, and so to the +eye is a cell at Sing-Sing. If they were very misshapen Bostonians, they +may have succeeded in lying there comfortably. I looked down ten feet +into the rough chasm, and I saw, _Corpo di Bacco!_ I saw a cork. + +To this station our predecessors had come in an easy day's walk from the +river; here they had tossed through a night, and given a whole day to +finish the ascent, returning hither again for a second night. As we +purposed to put all this travel within one day, we could not stay and +sympathize with the late tenants. A little more squirrel-like skipping +and cat-like creeping over the spruces, and we were out among bulky +boulders and rough _débris_ on a shoulder of the mountain. Alas! the +higher, the more hopeless. Katahdin, as he had taken pains to inform us, +meant to wear the veil all day. He was drawing down the white drapery +about his throat and letting it fall over his shoulders. Sun and wind +struggled mightily with his sulky fit; sunshine rifted off bits of the +veil, and wind seized, whirled them away, and, dragging them over the +spruces below, tore them to rags. Evidently, if we wished to see the +world, we must stop here and survey, before the growing vapor covered +all. We climbed to the edge of Cloudland, and stood fronting the +semicircle of southward view. + +Katahdin's self is finer than what Katahdin sees. Katahdin is distinct, +and its view is indistinct. It is a vague panorama, a mappy, unmethodic +maze of water and woods, very roomy, very vast, very simple,--and these +are capital qualities, but also quite monotonous. A lover of largeness +and scope has the proper emotions stirred, but a lover of variety very +soon finds himself counting the lakes. It is a wide view, and it is a +proud thing for a man six feet or less high, to feel that he himself, +standing on something he himself has climbed, and having Katahdin under +his feet a mere convenience, can see all Maine. It does not make Maine +less, but the spectator more, and that is a useful moral result. Maine's +face, thus exposed, has almost no features: there are no great mountains +visible, none that seem more than green hillocks in the distance. +Besides sky, Katahdin's view contains only the two primal necessities +of wood and water. Nowhere have I seen such breadth of solemn forest, +gloomy, were it not for the cheerful interruption of many fair lakes, +and bright ways of river linking them. + +Far away on the southern horizon we detected the heights of Mount +Desert, our old familiar haunt. All the northern semicircle was lost to +us by the fog. We lost also the view of the mountain itself. All the +bleak, lonely, barren, ancient waste of the bare summit was shrouded +in cold fog. The impressive gray ruin and Titanic havoc of a granite +mountain top, the heaped boulders, the crumbling crags, the crater-like +depression, the long stern reaches of sierra, the dark curving slopes +channelled and polished by the storms and fine drifting mists of aeons, +the downright plunge of precipices, all the savageness of harsh rock, +unsoftened by other vegetation than rusty moss and the dull green +splashes of lichen, all this was hidden, except when the mist, white and +delicate where we stood, but thick and black above, opened whimsically +and delusively, as mountain mists will do, and gave us vistas into the +upper desolation. After such momentary rifts the mist thickened again, +and swooped forward as if to involve our station, but noon sunshine, +reverberated from the plains and valleys and lakes below, was our +ally; sunshine checked the overcoming mist, and it stayed overhead, an +unwelcome parasol, making our August a chilly November. Besides what our +eyes lost, our minds lost, unless they had imagination enough to create +it, the sentiment of triumph and valiant energy that the man of body and +soul feels upon the windy heights, the highest, whence he looks far and +wide, like a master of realms, and knows that the world is his; and they +lost the sentiment of solemn joy that the man of soul recognizes as one +of the surest intimations of immortality, stirring within him, whenever +he is in the unearthly regions, the higher world. + +We stayed studying the pleasant solitude and dreamy breadth of +Katahdin's panorama for a long time, and every moment the mystery of the +mist above grew more enticing. Pride also was awakened. We turned +from sunshine and Cosmos into fog and Chaos. We made ourselves quite +miserable for nought. We clambered up into Nowhere, into a great, white, +ghostly void. We saw nothing but the rough surfaces we trod. We pressed +along crater-like edges, and all below was filled with mist, troubled +and rushing upward like the smoke of a volcano. Up we went,--nothing but +granite and gray dimness. Where we arrived we know not. It was a top, +certainly: that was proved by the fact that there was nothing within +sight. We cannot claim that it was the topmost top; Kimchinjinga might +have towered within pistol-shot; popgun-shot was our extremest range of +vision, except for one instant, when a kind-hearted sunbeam gave us +a vanishing glimpse of a white lake and breadth of forest far in the +unknown North toward Canada. + +When we had thus reached the height of our folly and made nothing by it, +we addressed ourselves to the descent, no wiser for our pains. Descent +is always harder than ascent, for divine ambitions are stronger and +more prevalent than degrading passions. And when Katahdin is befogged, +descent is much more perilous than ascent. We edged along very +cautiously by remembered landmarks the way we had come, and so, after +a dreary march of a mile or so through desolation, issued into welcome +sunshine and warmth at our point of departure. When I said "we," I did +not include the grave-stone peddler. He, like a sensible fellow, had +determined to stay and eat berries rather than breathe fog. While we +wasted our time, he had made the most of his. He had cleared Katahdin's +shoulders of fruit, and now, cuddled in a sunny cleft, slept the sleep +of the well-fed. His red shirt was a cheerful beacon on our weary way. +We took in the landscape with one slow, comprehensive look, and, waking +Cancut suddenly, (who sprang to his feet amazed, and cried "Fire!") we +dashed down the mountain-side. + +It was long after noon; we were some dozen of miles from camp; we must +speed. No glissade was possible, nor plunge such as travellers make down +through the ash-heaps of Vesuvius; but, having once worried through the +wretched little spruces, mean counterfeits of trees, we could fling +ourselves down from mossy step to step, measuring off the distance by +successive leaps of a second each, and alighting, sound after each, on +moss yielding as a cushion. + +On we hastened, retracing our footsteps of the morning across the +avalanches of crumbled granite, through the bogs, along the brooks; +undelayed by the beauty of sunny glade or shady dell, never stopping to +botanize or to classify, we traversed zone after zone, and safely ran +the gantlet of the possible bears on the last level. We found lowland +Nature still the same; Ayboljockameegus was flowing still; so was +Penobscot; no pirate had made way with the birch; we embarked and +paddled to camp. + +The first thing, when we touched _terra firma_, was to look back +regretfully toward the mountain. Regret changed to wrath, when we +perceived its summit all clear and mistless, smiling warmly to the +low summer's sun. The rascal evidently had only waited until we were +out of sight in the woods to throw away his night-cap. + +One long rainy day had somewhat disgusted us with the old +hemlock-covered camp in the glade of the yellow birch, and we were +reasonably and not unreasonably morbid after our disappointment with +Katahdin. We resolved to decamp. In the last hour of sunlight, floating +pleasantly from lovely reach to reach, and view to view, we could choose +a spot of bivouac where no home-scenery would recall any sorry fact of +the past. We loved this gentle gliding by the tender light of evening +over the shadowy river, marking the rhythm of our musical progress by +touches of the paddle. We determined, too, that the balance of bodily +forces should be preserved: legs had been well stretched over the bogs +and boulders; now for the arms. Never did our sylvan sojourn look so +fair as when we quitted it, and seemed to see among the streaming +sunbeams in the shadows the Hamadryads of the spot returned, and +waving us adieux. We forgot how damp and leaks and puddles had forced +themselves upon our intimacy there; we remembered that we were gay, +though wet, and there had known the perfection of Ayboljockameegus +trout. + +As we drifted along the winding river, between the shimmering birches on +either bank, Katahdin watched us well. Sometimes he would show the point +of his violet gray peak over the woods, and sometimes, at a broad bend +of the water, he revealed himself fully--and threw his great image down +beside for our nearer view. We began to forgive him, to disbelieve in +any personal spite of his, and to recall that he himself, seen thus, was +far more precious than any mappy dulness we could have seen from his +summit. One great upright pyramid like this was worth a continent of +grovelling acres. + +Sunset came, and with it we landed at a point below a lake-like stretch +of the river, where the charms of a neighbor and a distant view of the +mountain combined. Cancut the Unwearied roofed with boughs an old frame +for drying moose-hides, while Iglesias sketched, and I worshipped +Katahdin. Has my reader heard enough of it,--a hillock only six thousand +feet high? We are soon to drift away, and owe it here as kindly a +farewell as it gave us in that radiant twilight by the river. + +From our point of view we raked the long stern front tending westward. +Just before sunset, from beneath a belt of clouds evanescing over the +summit, an inconceivably tender, brilliant glow of rosy violet mantled +downward, filling all the valley. Then the violet purpled richer and +richer, and darkened slowly to solemn blue, that blended with the gloom +of the pines and shadowy channelled gorges down the steep. The peak +was still in sunlight, and suddenly, half way down, a band of roseate +clouds, twining and changing like a choir of Bacchantes, soared around +the western edge and hung poised above the unillumined forests at the +mountain-base; light as air they came and went and faded away, ghostly, +after their work of momentary beauty was done. One slight maple, +prematurely ripened to crimson and heralding the pomp of autumn, +repeated the bright cloud-color amid the vivid verdure of a little +island, and its image wavering in the water sent the flame floating +nearly to our feet. + +Such are the transcendent moments of Nature, unseen and disbelieved by +the untaught. The poetic soul lays hold of every such tender pageant of +beauty and keeps it forever. Iglesias, having an additional method of +preservation, did not fail to pencil rapidly the wondrous scene. When +he had finished his dashing sketch of this glory, so transitory, he +peppered the whole with cabalistic cipher, which only he could interpret +into beauty. + +Cancut's camp-fire now began to overpower the faint glimmers of +twilight. The single-minded Cancut, little distracted by emotions, had +heaped together logs enough to heat any mansion for a winter. The warmth +was welcome, and the great flame, with its bright looks of familiar +comradery, and its talk like the complex murmur of a throng, made a +fourth in our party by no means terrible, as some other incorporeal +visitors might have been. Fire was not only a talker, but an important +actor: Fire cooked for us our evening chocolate; Fire held the +candlestick, while we, without much ceremony of undressing, disposed +ourselves upon our spruce-twig couch; and Fire watched over our +slumbers, crouching now as if some stealthy step were approaching, now +lifting up its head and peering across the river into some recess where +the water gleamed and rustled under dark shadows, and now sending far +and wide over the stream and the clearing and into every cleft of the +forest a penetrating illumination, a blaze of light, death to all +treacherous ambush. So Fire watched while we slept, and when safety came +with the earliest gray of morning, it, too, covered itself with ashes +and slept. + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +HOMEWARD. + + +Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful is dawn in the woods. Sweet the first +opalescent stir, as if the vanguard sunbeams shivered as they dashed +along the chilly reaches of night. And the growth of day, through violet +and rose and all its golden glow of promise, is tender and tenderly +strong, as the deepening passions of dawning love. Presently up comes +the sun very peremptory, and says to people, "Go about your business! +Laggards not allowed in Maine! Nothing here to repent of, while you +lie in bed and curse to-day because it cannot shake off the burden of +yesterday; all clear the past here; all serene the future; into it at +once!" + +Birch was ready for us. Objects we travel on, if horses, often stampede +or are stampeded; if wagons, they break down; if shanks, they stiffen; +if feet, they chafe. No such trouble befalls Birch; leak, however, it +will, as ours did this morning. We gently beguiled it into the position +taken tearfully by unwhipped little boys, when they are about to receive +birch. Then, with a firebrand, the pitch of the seams was easily +persuaded to melt and spread a little over the leaky spot, and Birch was +sound as a drum. + +Staunch and sound Birch needed to be, for presently Penobscot, always a +skittish young racer, began to grow lively after he had shaken off the +weighty shadow of Katahdin, and, kicking up his heels, went galloping +down hill, so furiously that we were at last, after sundry frantic +plunges, compelled to get off his back before worse befell us. In the +balmy morning we made our first portage through a wood of spruces. +How light our firkin was growing! its pork, its hard-tack, and its +condiments were diffused among us three, and had passed into muscle. +Lake Degetus, as pretty a pocket lake as there is, followed the carry. +Next came Lake Ambajeejus, larger, but hardly less lovely. Those who +dislike long names may use its shorter Indian title, Umdo. We climbed a +granite crag draped with moss long as the beard of a Druid,--a crag on +the south side of Ambajeejus or Umdo. Thence we saw Katahdin, noble as +ever, unclouded in the sunny morning, near, and yet enchantingly vague, +with the blue sky which surrounded it. It was still an isolate pyramid +rising with no effect from the fair blue lakes and the fair green sea +of the birch-forest,--a brilliant sea of woods, gay as the shallows of +ocean shot through with sunbeams and sunlight reflected upward from +golden sands. + +We sped along all that exquisite day, best of all our poetic voyage. +Sometimes we drifted and basked in sunshine, sometimes we lingered in +the birchen shade; we paddled from river to lake, from lake to river +again; the rapids whirled us along, surging and leaping under us with +magnificent gallop; frequent carries struck in, that we might not lose +the forester in the waterman. It was a fresh world that we traversed +on our beautiful river-path,--new as if no other had ever parted its +overhanging bowers. + +At noon we floated out upon Lake Pemadumcook, the largest bulge of +the Penobscot, and irregular as the verb To Be. Lumbermen name it +Bammydumcook: Iglesias insisted upon this as the proper reading; and as +he was the responsible man of the party, I accepted it. Woods, woody +hills, and woody mountains surround Bammydumcook. I have no doubt parts +of it are pretty and will be famous in good time; but we saw little. By +the time we were fairly out in the lake and away from the sheltering +shore, a black squall to windward, hiding all the West, warned us to +fly, for birches swamp in squalls. We deemed that Birch, having brought +us through handsomely, deserved a better fate: swamped it must not be. +We plied paddle valiantly, and were almost safe behind an arm of the +shore when the storm overtook us, and in a moment more, safe, with a +canoe only half-full of Bammydumcook water. + +It is easy to speak in scoffing tone; but when that great roaring +blackness sprang upon us, and the waves, showing their white teeth, +snarled around, we were far from being in the mood to scoff. It is +impossible to say too much of the charm of this gentle scenery, mingled +with the charm of this adventurous sailing. And then there were no +mosquitoes, no alligators, no serpents uncomfortably hugging the trees, +no miasmas lurking near; and blueberries always. Dust there was none, +nor the things that make dust. But Iglesias and I were breathing AIR, +--Air sweet, tender, strong, and pure as an ennobling love. It was a day +very happy, for Iglesias and I were near what we both love almost best +of all the dearly-beloveds. It is such influence as this that rescues +the thought and the hand of an artist from enervating mannerism. He +cannot be satisfied with vague blotches of paint to convey impressions +so distinct and vivid as those he is forced to take direct from a Nature +like this. He must be true and powerful. + +The storm rolled by and gave us a noble view of Katahdin, beyond a +broad, beautiful scope of water, and rising seemingly directly from it. +We fled before another squall, over another breadth of Bammydumcook, and +made a portage around a great dam below the lake. The world should know +that at this dam the reddest, spiciest, biggest, thickest wintergreen +berries in the world are to be found, beautiful as they are good. + +Birch had hitherto conducted himself with perfect propriety. I, the +novice, had acquired such entire confidence in his stability of +character that I treated him with careless ease, and never listened +to the warnings of my comrades that he would serve me a trick. Cancut +navigated Birch through some white water below the dam, and Birch went +curveting proudly and gracefully along, evidently feeling his oats. +When Iglesias and I came to embark, I, the novice, perhaps a little +intoxicated with wintergreen berries, stepped jauntily into the +laden boat. Birch, alas, failed me. He tilted; he turned; he took in +Penobscot,--took it in by the quart, by the gallon, by the barrel; he +would have sunk without mercy, had not Iglesias and Cancut succeeded +in laying hold of a rock and restoring equilibrium. I could not have +believed it of Birch. I was disappointed, and in consternation; and if +I had not known how entirely it was Birch's fault that everybody +was ducked and everybody now had a wet blanket, I should have felt +personally foolish. I punished myself for another's fault and my own +inexperience by assuming the wet blankets as my share at the next carry. +I suppose few of my readers imagine how many pounds of water a blanket +can absorb. + +After camps at Katahdin, any residence in the woods without a stupendous +mountain before the door would have been tame. It must have been this, +and not any wearying of sylvan life, that made us hasten to reach the +outermost log-house at the Millinoket carry before nightfall. The +sensation of house and in-door life would be a new one, and so +satisfying in itself that we should not demand beautiful objects to meet +our first blink of awakening eyes. + +An hour before sunset, Cancut steered us toward a beach, and pointed out +a vista in the woods, evidently artificial, evidently a road trodden +by feet and hoofs, and ruled by parallel wheels. A road is one of the +kindliest gifts of brother man to man: if a path in the wilderness, it +comes forward like a friendly guide offering experience and proposing +a comrade dash deeper into the unknown world; if a highway, it is the +great, bold, sweeping character with which civilization writes its +autograph upon a continent. Leaving our plunder on the beach, beyond +the reach of plunderers, whose great domain we were about to enter, we +walked on toward the first house, compelled at parting to believe, that, +though we did not love barbarism less, we loved civilization more. In +the morning, Cancut should, with an ox-cart, bring Birch and our traps +over the three miles of the carry. + + +CHAPTER XV. + +OUT OF THE WOODS. + + +What could society do without women and children? Both we found at the +first house, twenty miles from the second. The children buzzed about us; +the mother milked for us one of Maine's vanguard cows. She baked for +us bread, fresh bread,--such bread! not staff of life,--life's +vaulting-pole. She gave us blueberries with cream of cream. Ah, what a +change! We sat on chairs, at a table, and ate from plates. There was a +table-cloth, a salt-cellar made of glass, of glass never seen at +camps near Katahdin. There was a sugar-bowl, a milk-jug, and other +paraphernalia of civilization, including--O memories of Joseph +Bourgogne!--a dome of baked beans, with a crag of pork projecting from +the apex. We partook decorously, with controlled elbows, endeavoring to +appear as if we were accustomed to sit at tables and manage plates. The +men, women, and children of Millinoket were hospitable and delighted to +see strangers, and the men, like all American men in the summer before +a Presidential election, wanted to talk politics. Katahdin's last +full-bodied appearance was here; it rises beyond a breadth of black +forest, a bulkier mass, but not so symmetrical as from the southern +points of view. We slept that night on a feather-bed, and took cold for +want of air, beneath a roof. + +By the time we had breakfasted, Cancut arrived with Birch on an +ox-sledge. Here our well-beloved west branch of the Penobscot, called +of yore Norimbagua, is married to the east branch, and of course by +marriage loses his identity, by-and-by, changing from the wild, free, +reckless rover of the forest to a tamish family-man style of river, +useful to float rafts and turn mills. However, during the first moments +of the honeymoon, the happy pair, Mr. Penobscot and Miss Milly Noket, +now a unit under the marital name, are gay enough, and glide along +bowery reaches and in among fair islands, with infinite endearments and +smiles, making the world very sparkling and musical there. By-and-by +they fall to romping, and, to avoid one of their turbulent frolics, +Cancut landed us, as he supposed, on the mainland, to lighten the canoe. +Just as he was sliding away down-stream, we discovered that he had left +us upon an island in the midst of frantic, impassable rapids. "Stop, +stop, John Gilpin!" and luckily he did stop, otherwise he would have +gone on to tidewater, ever thinking that we were before him, while we, +with our forest appetites, would have been glaring hungrily at each +other, or perhaps drawing lots for a cannibal doom. Once again, as we +were shooting a long rapid, a table-top rock caught us in mid-current. +We were wrecked. It was critical. The waves swayed us perilously this +way and that. Birch would be full of water, or overturned, in a moment. +Small chance for a swimmer in such maelströms! All this we saw, but had +no time to shudder at. Aided by the urgent stream, we carefully and +delicately--for a coarse movement would have been death--wormed our boat +off the rock and went fleeting through a labyrinth of new perils, onward +with a wild exhilaration, like galloping through prairie on fire. Of all +the high distinctive national pleasures of America, chasing buffalo, +stump-speaking, and the like, there is none so intense as shooting +rapids in a birch. Whenever I recall our career down the Penobscot, a +longing comes over me to repeat it. + +We dropped down stream without further adventures. We passed the second +house, the first village, and other villages, very white and wide-awake, +melodiously named Nickertow, Pattagumpus, and Mattascunk. We spent the +first night at Mattawamkeag. We were again elbowed at a tavern table, +and compelled to struggle with real and not ideal pioneers for fried +beefsteak and soggy doughboys. The last river day was tame, but not +tiresome. We paddled stoutly by relays, stopping only once, at the +neatest of farm-houses, to lunch on the most airy-substantial bread and +baked apples and cream. It is surprising how confidential a traveller +always is on the subject of his gastronomic delights. He will have the +world know how he enjoyed his dinner, perhaps hoping that the world by +sympathy will enjoy its own. + +Late in the afternoon of our eighth day from Greenville, Moosehead Lake, +we reached the end of birch-navigation, the great mill-dams of Indian +Oldtown, near Bangor. Acres of great pine logs, marked three crosses and +a dash, were floating here at the boom; we saw what Maine men suppose +timber was made for. According to the view acted upon at Oldtown, +Senaglecouna has been for a century or centuries training up its lordly +pines, that gang-saws, worked by Penobscot, should shriek through their +helpless cylinders, gnashing them into boards and chewing them into +sawdust. + +Poor Birch! how out of its element it looked, hoisted on a freight-car +and travelling by rail to Bangor! There we said adieu to Birch and +Cancut. Peace and plenteous provender be with him! Journeys make friends +or foes; and we remember our fat guide, not as one who from time to time +just did not drown us, but as the jolly comrade of eight days crowded +with novelty and beauty, and fine, vigorous, manly life. END. + + * * * * * + + +A WOMAN. + + + Not perfect, nay! but full of tender wants.--THE PRINCESS + +I sat by my window sewing, one bright autumn day, thinking much of +twenty other things, and very little of the long seam that slipped away +from under my fingers slowly, but steadily, when I heard the front-door +open with a quick push, and directly into my open door entered Laura +Lane, with a degree of impetus that explained the previous sound in the +hall. She threw herself into a chair before me, flung her hat on the +floor, threw her shawl across the window-sill, and looked at me without +speaking: in fact, she was quite too much out of breath to speak. + +I was used to Laura's impetuousness; so I only smiled and said, "Good +morning." + +"Oh!" said Laura, with a long breath, "I have got something to tell you, +Sue." + +"That's nice," said I; "news is worth double here in the country; tell +me slowly, to prolong the pleasure." + +"You must guess first. I want to have you try your powers for once; +guess, do!" + +"Mr. Lincoln defeated?" + +"Oh, no,--at least not that I know of; all the returns from this State +are not in yet, of course not from the others; besides, do you think I'd +make such a fuss about politics?" + +"You might," said I, thinking of all the beautiful and brilliant women +that in other countries and other times had made "fuss" more potent than +Laura's about politics. + +"But I shouldn't," retorted she. + +"Then there is a new novel out?" + +"No!" (with great indignation). + +"Or the parish have resolved to settle Mr. Hermann?" + +"How stupid you are, Sue! Everybody knew that yesterday." + +"But I am not everybody." + +"I shall have to help you, I see," sighed Laura, half provoked. +"Somebody is going to be married." + +"Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle!" + +Laura stared at me. I ought to have remembered she was eighteen, and +not likely to have read Sévigné. I began more seriously, laying down my +seam. + +"Is it anybody I know, Laura?" + +"Of course, or you wouldn't care about it, and it would be no fun to +tell you." + +"Is it you?" + +Laura grew indignant. + +"Do you think I should bounce in, in this way, to tell you _I_ was +engaged?" + +"Why not? shouldn't you be happy about it?" + +"Well, if I were, I should"---- + +Laura dropped her beautiful eyes and colored. + + "The thoughts of youth are long, long + thoughts." + +I am sure she felt as much strange, sweet shyness sealing her girlish +lips at that moment as when she came, very slowly and silently, a year +after, to tell me she was engaged to Mr. Hermann. I had to smile and +sigh both. + +"Tell me, then, Laura; for I cannot guess." + +"I'll tell you the gentleman's name, and perhaps you can guess the +lady's then: it is Frank Addison." + +"Frank Addison!" echoed I, in surprise; for this young man was one I +knew and loved well, and I could not think who in our quiet village had +sufficient attraction for his fastidious taste. + +He was certainly worth marrying, though he had some faults, being as +proud as was endurable, as shy as a child, and altogether endowed with a +full appreciation, to say the least, of his own charms and merits: but +he was sincere, and loyal, and tender; well cultivated, yet not priggish +or pedantic; brave, well-bred, and high-principled; handsome besides. I +knew him thoroughly; I had held him on my lap, fed him with sugar-plums, +soothed his child-sorrows, and scolded his naughtiness, many a time; I +had stood with him by his mother's dying bed and consoled him by my own +tears, for his mother I loved dearly; so, ever since, Frank had been +both near and dear to me, for a mutual sorrow is a tie that may +bind together even a young man and an old maid in close and kindly +friendship. I was the more surprised at his engagement because I thought +he would have been the first to tell me of it; but I reflected that +Laura was his cousin, and relationship has an etiquette of precedence +above any other social link. + +"Yes,--Frank Addison! Now guess, Miss Sue! for he is not here to tell +you,--he is in New York; and here in my pocket I have got a letter for +you, but you shan't have it till you have well guessed." + +I was--I am ashamed to confess it--but I was not a little comforted +at hearing of that letter. One may shake up a woman's heart with every +alloy of life, grind, break, scatter it, till scarce a throb of its +youth beats there, but to its last bit it is feminine still; and I felt +a sudden sweetness of relief to know that my boy had not forgotten me. + +"I don't know whom to guess, Laura; who ever marries after other +people's fancy? If I were to guess Sally Hetheridge, I might come as +near as I shall to the truth." + +Laura laughed. + +"You know better," said she. "Frank Addison is the last man to marry a +dried-up old tailoress." + +"I don't know that he is; according to his theories of women and +marriage, Sally would make him happy. She is true-hearted, I am +sure,--generous, kind, affectionate, sensible, and poor. Frank has +always raved about the beauty of the soul, and the degradation of +marrying money,--therefore, Laura, I believe he is going to marry a +beauty and an heiress. I guess Josephine Bowen." + +"Susan!" exclaimed Laura, with a look of intense astonishment, "how +could you guess it?" + +"Then it is she?" + +"Yes, it is,--and I am so sorry! such a childish, giggling, silly little +creature! I can't think how Frank could fancy her; she is just like Dora +in "David Copperfield,"--a perfect gosling! I am as vexed"---- + +"But she is exquisitely pretty." + +"Pretty! well, that is all; he might as well have bought a nice picture, +or a dolly! I am out of all patience with Frank. I haven't the heart to +congratulate him." + +"Don't be unreasonable, Laura; when you get as old as I am, you will +discover how much better and greater facts are than theories. It's all +very well for men to say,-- + + 'Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,'-- + +the soul is all they love,--the fair, sweet character, the lofty mind, +the tender woman's heart, and gentle loveliness; but when you come down +to the statistics of love and matrimony, you find Sally Hetheridge at +sixty an old maid, and Miss Bowen at nineteen adored by a dozen men and +engaged to one. No, Laura, if I had ten sisters, and a fairy godmother +for each, I should request that ancient dame to endow them all with +beauty and silliness, sure that then they would achieve a woman's best +destiny,--a home." + +Laura's face burned indignantly; she hardly let me finish before she +exclaimed,-- + +"Susan Lee! I am ashamed of you! Here are you, an old maid, as happy as +anybody, decrying all good gifts to a woman, except beauty, because, +indeed, they stand in the way of her marriage! as if a woman was only +made to be a housekeeper!" + +Laura's indignation amused me. I went on. + +"Yes, I am happy enough; but I should have been much happier, had I +married. Don't waste your indignation, dear; you are pretty enough +to excuse your being sensible, and you ought to agree with my ideas, +because they excuse Frank, and yours do not." + +"I don't want to excuse him; I am really angry about it. I can't bear to +have Frank throw himself away; she is pretty now, but what will she be +in ten years?" + +"People in love do not usually enter into such remote calculations; love +is to-day's delirium; it has an element of divine faith in it, in not +caring for the morrow. But, Laura, we can't help this matter, and we +have neither of us any conscience involved in it. Miss Bowen may be +better than we know. At any rate, Frank is happy, and that ought to +satisfy both you and me just now." + +Laura's eyes filled with tears. I could see them glisten on the dark +lashes, as she affected to tie her hat, all the time untying it as fast +as ever the knot slid. She was a sympathetic little creature, and loved +Frank very sincerely, having known him as long as she could remember. +She gave me a silent kiss, and went away, leaving the letter, yet +unopened, lying in my lap. I did not open it just then. I was thinking +of Josephine Bowen. + +Every summer, for three years, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen had come to Ridgefield +for country-air, bringing with them their adopted daughter, whose +baptismal name had resigned in favor of the pet appellation "Kitten,"--a +name better adapted to her nature and aspect than the _Impératrice_ +appellation that belonged to her. She was certainly as charming a little +creature as ever one saw in flesh and blood. Her sweet child's face, her +dimpled, fair cheeks, her rose-bud of a mouth, and great, wistful, blue +eyes, that laughed like flax-flowers in a south-wind, her tiny, round +chin, and low, white forehead, were all adorned by profuse rings and +coils and curls of true gold-yellow, that never would grow long, or be +braided, or stay smooth, or do anything but ripple and twine and push +their shining tendrils out of every bonnet or hat or hood the little +creature wore, like a stray parcel of sunbeams that would shine. Her +delicate, tiny figure was as round as a child's,--her funny hands as +quaint as some fat baby's, with short fingers and dimpled knuckles. She +was a creature as much made to be petted as a King-Charles spaniel,--and +petted she was, far beyond any possibility of a crumpled rose-leaf. Mrs. +Bowen was fat, loving, rather foolish, but the best of friends and the +poorest of enemies; she wanted everybody to be happy, and fat, and well +as she was, and would urge the necessity of wine, and entire idleness, +and horse-exercise, upon a poor minister, just as honestly and +energetically as if he could have afforded them: an idea to the contrary +never crossed her mind spontaneously, but, if introduced there, brought +forth direct results of bottles, bank-bills, and loans of ancient +horses, only to be checked by friendly remonstrance, or the suggestion +that a poor man might be also proud. Mr. Bowen was tall and spare, a +man of much sense and shrewd kindliness, but altogether subject and +submissive to "Kitten's" slightest wish. She never wanted anything; no +princess in a story-book had less to desire; and this entire spoiling +and indulgence seemed to her only the natural course of things. She +took it as an open rose takes sunshine, with so much simplicity, +and heartiness, and beaming content, and perfume of sweet, careless +affection, that she was not given over to any little vanities or +affectations, but was always a dear, good little child, as happy as the +day was long, and quite without a fear or apprehension. I had seen +very little of her in those three summers, for I had been away at the +sea-side, trying to fan the flickering life that alone was left to me +with pungent salt breezes and stinging baptisms of spray, but I had +liked that little pretty well. I did not think her so silly as Laura +did: she seemed to me so purely simple, that I sometimes wondered if her +honest directness and want of guile were folly or not. But I liked to +see her, as she cantered past my door on her pony, the gold tendrils +thick clustered about her throat and under the brim of her black hat, +and her bright blue eyes sparkling with the keen air, and a real +wild-rose bloom on her smiling face. She was a prettier sight even than +my profuse chrysanthemums, whose masses of garnet and yellow and white +nodded languidly to the autumn winds to-day. + +I recalled myself from this dream of recollection, better satisfied with +Miss Bowen than I had been before. I could see just how her beauty had +bewitched Frank,--so bright, so tiny, so loving: one always wants to +gather a little, gay, odor-breathing rose-bud for one's own, and such +she was to him. + +So then I opened his letter. It was dry and stiff: men's letters almost +always are; they cannot say what they feel; they will be fluent of +statistics, or description, or philosophy, or politics, but as to +feeling,--there they are dumb, except in real love-letters, and, of +course, Frank's was unsatisfactory accordingly. Once, toward the end, +came out a natural sentence: "Oh, Sue! if you knew her, you wouldn't +wonder!" So he had, after all, felt the apology he would not speak; he +had some little deference left for his deserted theories. + +Well I knew what touched his pride, and struck that little revealing +spark from his deliberate pen: Josephine Bowen was rich, and he only a +poor lawyer in a country-town: he felt it even in this first flush of +love, and to that feeling I must answer when I wrote him,--not merely to +the announcement, and the delight, and the man's pride. So I answered +his letter at once, and he answered mine in person. I had nothing to say +to him, when I saw him; it was enough to see how perfectly happy and +contented he was,--how the proud, restless eyes, that had always looked +a challenge to all the world, were now tranquil to their depths. Nothing +had interfered with his passion. Mrs. Bowen liked him always, Mr. Bowen +liked him now; nobody had objected, it had not occurred to anybody to +object; money had not been mentioned any more than it would have been in +Arcadia. Strange to say, the good, simple woman, and the good, shrewd +man had both divined Frank's peculiar sensitiveness, and respected it. + +There was no period fixed for the engagement, it was indefinite as yet, +and the winter, with all its excitements of South and North, passed by +at length, and the first of April the Bowens moved out to Ridgefield. It +was earlier than usual; but the city was crazed with excitement, and Mr. +Bowen was tried and worn; he wanted quiet. Then I saw a great deal of +Josephine, and in spite of Laura, and her still restless objections to +the child's childish, laughing, inconsequent manner, I grew into liking +her: not that there seemed any great depth to her; she was not specially +intellectual, or witty, or studious, or practical; she did not try to +be anything: perhaps that was her charm to me. I had seen so many women +laboring at themselves to be something, that one who was content to live +without thinking about it was a real phenomenon to me. Nothing bores me +(though I be stoned for the confession, I must make it!) more than a +woman who is bent on improving her mind, or forming her manners, or +moulding her character, or watching her motives, with that deadly-lively +conscientiousness that makes so many good people disagreeable. Why can't +they consider the lilies, which grow by receiving sun and air and dew +from God, and not hopping about over the lots to find the warmest corner +or the wettest hollow, to see how much bigger and brighter they can +grow? It was real rest to me to have this tiny, bright creature come +in to me every day during Frank's office-hours as unintentionally as a +yellow butterfly would come in at the window. Sometimes she strayed to +the kitchen-porch, and, resting her elbows on the window-sill and her +chin on both palms, looked at me with wondering eyes while I made bread +or cake; sometimes she came by the long parlor-window, and sat down on a +_brioche_ at my feet while I sewed, talking in her direct, unconsidered +way, so fresh, and withal so good and pure, I came to thinking the day +very dull that did not bring "Kitten" to see me. + +The nineteenth of April, in the evening, my door opened again with an +impetuous bang; but this time it was Frank Addison, his eyes blazing, +his dark cheek flushed, his whole aspect fired and furious. + +"Good God, Sue! do you know what they've done in Baltimore?" + +"What?" said I, in vague terror, for I had been an alarmist from the +first: I had once lived at the South. + +"Fired on a Massachusetts regiment, and killed--nobody knows how many +yet; but killed, and wounded." + +I could not speak: it was the lighted train of a powder-magazine burning +before my eyes. Frank began to walk up and down the room. + +"I must go! I must! I must!" came involuntarily from his working lips. + +"Frank! Frank! remember Josephine." + +It was a cowardly thing to do, but I did it. Frank turned ghastly white, +and sat down in a chair opposite me. I had, for the moment, quenched his +ardor; he looked at me with anxious eyes, and drew a long sigh, almost a +groan. + +"Josephine!" he said, as if the name were new to him, so vitally did the +idea seize all his faculties. + +"Well, dear!" said a sweet little voice at the door. + +Frank turned, and seemed to see a ghost; for there in the door-way stood +"Kitten," her face perhaps a shade calmer than ordinary, swinging in one +hand the tasselled hood she wore of an evening, and holding her shawl +together with the other. Over her head we discerned the spare, upright +shape of Mr. Bowen looking grim and penetrative, but not unkindly. + +"What is the matter?" went on the little lady. + +Nobody answered, but Frank and I looked at each other. She came in now +and went toward him, Mr. Bowen following at a respectful distance, as if +he were her footman. + +"I've been looking for you everywhere," said she, with the slightest +possible suggestion of reserve, or perhaps timidity, in her voice. +"Father went first for me, and when you were not at Laura's, or the +office, or the post-office, or Mrs. Sledge's, then I knew you were here; +so I came with him, because--because"--she hesitated the least bit +here--"we love Sue." + +Frank still looked at her with his soul in his eyes, as if he wanted to +absorb her utterly into himself and then die. I never saw such a look +before; I hope I never may again; it haunts me to this day. + +I can pause now to recall and reason about the curious, exalted +atmosphere that seemed suddenly to have surrounded us, as if bare +spirits communed there, not flesh and blood. Frank did not move; he sat +and looked at her standing near him, so near that her shawl trailed +against his chair; but presently when she wanted to grasp something, she +moved aside and took hold of another chair,--not his: it a little thing, +but it interpreted her. + +"Well?" said he, in a hoarse tone. + +Just then she moved, as I said, and laid one hand on the back of a +chair: it was the only symptom of emotion she showed; her voice was as +childish-clear and steady as before. + +"You want to go, Frank, and I thought you would rather be married to me +first; so I came to find you and tell you I would." + +Frank sprang to his feet like a shot man; I cried; Josephine stood +looking at us quite steadily, her head a little bent toward me, her eyes +calm, but very wide open; and Mr. Bowen gave an audible grunt. I suppose +the right thing for Frank to have done in any well-regulated novel would +have been to fall on his knees and call her all sorts of names; but +people never do--that is, any people that I know--just what the +gentlemen in novels do; so he walked off and looked out of the window. +To my aid came the goddess of slang. I stopped snuffling directly. + +"Josephine," said I, solemnly, "you are a brick!" + +"Well, I should think so!" said Mr. Bowen, slightly sarcastic. + +Josey laughed very softly. Frank came back from the window, and then the +three went off together, she holding by her father's arm, Frank on his +other side. I could not but look after them as I stood in the hall-door, +and then I came back and sat down to read the paper Frank had flung on +the floor when he came in. It diverted my mind enough from myself to +enable me to sleep; for I was burning with self-disgust to think of +my cowardice. I, a grown woman, supposed to be more than ordinarily +strong-minded by some people, fairly shamed and routed by a girl Laura +Lane called "Dora"! + +In the morning, Frank came directly after breakfast. He had found his +tongue now, certainly,--for words seemed noway to satisfy him, talking +of Josephine; and presently she came, too, as brave and bright as ever, +sewing busily on a long housewife for Frank; and after her, Mrs. Bowen, +making a huge pin-ball in red, white, and blue, and full of the trunk +she was packing for Frank to carry, to be filled with raspberry-jam, +hard gingerbread, old brandy, clove-cordial, guava-jelly, strong +peppermints, quinine, black cake, cod-liver oil, horehound-candy, +Brandreth's pills, damson-leather, and cherry-pectoral, packed in with +flannel and cotton bandages, lint, lancets, old linen, and cambric +handkerchiefs. + +I could not help laughing, and was about to remonstrate, when Frank +shook his head at me from behind her. He said afterward he let her go +on that way, because it kept her from crying over Josephine. As for +the trunk, he should give it to Miss Dix as soon as ever he reached +Washington. + +In a week, Frank had got his commission as captain of a company in a +volunteer regiment; he went into camp at Dartford, our chief town, and +set to work in earnest at tactics and drill. The Bowens also went to +Dartford, and the last week in May came back for Josey's wedding. I am +a superstitious creature,--most women are,--and it went to my heart +to have them married in May; but I did not say so, for it seemed +imperative, as the regiment were to leave for Washington in June, early. + +The day but one before the wedding was one of those warm, soft days that +so rarely come in May. My windows were open, and the faint scent of +springing grass and opening blossoms came in on every southern breath of +wind. Josey had brought her work over to sit beside me. She was hemming +her wedding-veil,--a long cloud of _tulle_; and as she sat there, +pinching the frail stuff in her fingers, and handling her needle with +such deft little ways, as if they were old friends and understood each +other, there was something so youthful, so unconscious, so wistfully +sweet in her aspect, I could not believe her the same resolute, brave +creature I had seen that night in April. + +"Josey," said I, "I don't know how you can be willing to let Frank go." + +It was a hard thing for me to say, and I said it without thinking. + +She leaned back in her chair, and pinched her hem faster than ever. + +"I don't know, either," said she. "I suppose it was because I ought. I +don't think I am so willing now, Sue: it was easy at first, for I was +so angry and grieved about those Massachusetts men; but now, when I get +time to think, I do ache over it! I never let him know; for it is just +the same right now, and he thinks so. Besides, I never let myself grieve +much, even to myself, lest he might find it out. I must keep bright till +he goes. It would be so very hard on him, Susy, to think I was crying at +home." + +I said no more,--I could not; and happily for me, Frank came in with +a bunch of wild-flowers, that Josey took with a smile as gay as the +columbines, and a blush that outshone the "pinkster-bloomjes," as our +old Dutch "chore-man" called the wild honeysuckle. A perfect shower of +dew fell from them all over her wedding-veil. + +The day of her marriage was showery as April, but a gleam of soft, +fitful sunshine streamed into the little church windows, and fell across +the tiny figure that stood by Frank Addison's side, like a ray of +glory, till the golden curls glittered through her veil, and the fresh +lilies-of-the-valley that crowned her hair and ornamented her simple +dress seemed to send out a fresher fragrance, and glow with more pearly +whiteness. Mrs. Bowen, in a square pew, sobbed, and snuffled, and sopped +her eyes with a lace pocket-handkerchief, and spilt cologne all over +her dress, and mashed the flowers on her French hat against the dusty +pew-rail, and behaved generally like a hen that has lost her sole +chicken. Mr. Bowen sat upright in the pew-corner, uttering sonorous +hems, whenever his wife sobbed audibly; he looked as dry as a stick, and +as grim as Bunyan's giant, and chewed cardamom-seeds, as if he were a +ruminating animal. + +After the wedding came lunch: it was less formal than dinner, and +nobody wanted to sit down before hot dishes and go through with the +accompanying ceremonies. For my part, I always did hate gregarious +eating: it is well enough for animals, in pasture or pen; but a thing +that has so little that is graceful or dignified about it as this taking +food, especially as the thing is done here in America, ought, in my +opinion, to be a solitary act. I never bring my quinine and iron to my +friends and invite them to share it; why should I ask them to partake +of my beef, mutton, and pork, with the accompanying mastication, the +distortion of face, and the suppings and gulpings of fluid dishes that +many respectable people indulge in? No,--let me, at least, eat alone. +But I did not do so to-day; for Josey, with the most unsentimental air +of hunger, sat down at the table and ate two sandwiches, three pickled +mushrooms, a piece of pie, and a glass of jelly, with a tumbler of ale +besides. Laura Lane sat on the other side of the table, her great +dark eyes intently fixed on Josephine, and a look in which wonder was +delicately shaded with disgust quivering about her mouth. She was a +feeling soul, and thought a girl in love ought to live on strawberries, +honey, and spring-water. I believe she really doubted Josey's affection +for Frank, when she saw her eat a real mortal meal on her wedding-day. +As for me, I am a poor, miserable, unhealthy creature, not amenable to +ordinary dietetic rules, and much given to taking any excitement, above +a certain amount in lieu of rational food; so I sustained myself on a +cup of coffee, and saw Frank also make tolerable play of knife and fork, +though he did take some blanc-mange with his cold chicken, and profusely +peppered his Charlotte-Russe! + +Mrs. Bowen alternately wept and ate pie. Mr. Bowen said the jelly tasted +of turpentine, and the chickens must have gone on Noah's voyage, they +were so tough; he growled at the ale, and asked nine questions about the +coffee, all of a derogatory sort, and never once looked at Josephine, +who looked at him every time he was particularly cross, with a rosy +little smile, as if she knew why! The few other people present behaved +after the ordinary fashion; and when we had finished, Frank and +Josephine, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen, Laura Lane and I, all took the train for +Dartford. Laura was to stay two weeks, and I till the regiment left. + +An odd time I had, after we were fairly settled in our quiet hotel, with +those two girls. Laura was sentimental, sensitive, rather high-flown, +very shy, and self-conscious; it was not in her to understand Josey at +all. We had a great deal of shopping to do, as our little bride had put +off buying most of her finery till this time, on account of the few +weeks between the fixing of her marriage-day and its arrival. It was +pretty enough to see the _naïve_ vanity with which she selected her +dresses and shawls and laces,--the quite inconsiderate way in which she +spent her money on whatever she wanted. One day we were in a dry-goods' +shop, looking at silks; among them lay one of Marie-Louise blue,--a +plain silk, rich from its heavy texture only, soft, thick, and perfect +in color. + +"I will have that one," said Josephine, after she had eyed it a moment, +with her head on one side, like a canary-bird. "How much is it?" + +"Two fifty a yard, Miss," said the spruce clerk, with an inaccessible +air. + +"I shall look so nice in it!" Josey murmured. "Sue, will seventeen yards +do? it must be very full and long; I can't wear flounces." + +"Yes, that's plenty," said I, scarce able to keep down a smile at +Laura's face. + +She would as soon have smoked a cigar on the steps of the hotel as have +mentioned before anybody, much less a supercilious clerk, that she +should "look so nice" in anything. Josey never thought of anything +beyond the fact, which was only a fact. So, after getting another dress +of a lavender tint, still self-colored, but corded and rich, because it +went well with her complexion, and a black one, that "father liked to +see against her yellow wig, as he called it," Mrs. Josephine proceeded +to a milliner's, where, to Laura's further astonishment, she bought +bonnets for herself, as if she had been her own doll, with an utter +disregard of proper self-depreciation, trying one after another, and +discarding them for various personal reasons, till at last she fixed on +a little gray straw, trimmed with gray ribbon and white daisies, "for +camp," she said, and another of white lace, a fabric calculated to wear +twice, perhaps, if its floating sprays of clematis did not catch in any +parasol on its first appearance. She called me to see how becoming both +the bonnets were, viewed herself in various ways in the glass, and at +last announced that she looked prettiest in the straw, but the lace was +most elegant. To this succeeded purchases of lace and shawls, that still +farther opened Laura's eyes, and made her face grave. She confided to +me privately, that, after all, I must allow Josephine was silly and +extravagant. I had just come from that little lady's room, where she sat +surrounded by the opened parcels, saying, with the gravity of a child,-- + +"I do like pretty things, Sue! I like them more now than I used to, +because Frank likes me. I am so glad I'm pretty!" + +I don't know how it was, but I could not quite coincide with Laura's +strictures. Josey was extravagant, to be sure; she was vain; but +something so tender and feminine flavored her very faults that they +charmed me. I was not an impartial judge; and I remembered, through all, +that April night, and the calm, resolute, self-poised character that +invested the lovely, girlish face with such dignity, strength, and +simplicity. No, she was not silly; I could not grant that to Laura. + +Every day we drove to the camp, and brought Frank home to dinner. Now +and then he stayed with us till the next day, and even Laura could not +wonder at his "infatuation," as she had once called it, when she saw how +thoroughly Josephine forgot herself in her utter devotion to him; over +this, Laura's eyes filled with sad forebodings. + +"If anything should happen to him, Sue, it will kill her," she said. +"She never can lose him and live. Poor little thing! how could Mr. Bowen +let her marry him?" + +"Mr. Bowen lets her do much as she likes, Laura, and always has, I +imagine." + +"Yes, she has been a spoiled child, I know, but it is such a pity!" + +"_Has_ she been spoiled? I believe, as a general thing, more children +are spoiled by what the Scotch graphically call 'nagging' than by +indulgence. What do you think Josey would have been, if Mrs. Brooks had +been her mother?" + +"I don't know, quite; unhappy, I am sure; for Mrs. Brooks's own children +look as if they had been fed on chopped catechism, and whipped early +every morning, ever since they were born. I never went there without +hearing one or another of them told to sit up, or sit down, or keep +still, or let their aprons alone, or read their Bibles; and Joe Brooks +confided to me in Sunday-school that he called Deacon Smith 'old +bald-head,' one day, in the street, to see if a bear wouldn't come and +eat him up, he was so tired of being a good boy!" + +"That's a case in point, I think, Laura; but what a jolly little boy! he +ought to have a week to be naughty in, directly." + +"He never will, while his mother owns a rod!" said she, emphatically. + +I had beguiled Laura from her subject; for, to tell the truth, it was +one I did not dare to contemplate; it oppressed and distressed me too +much. + +After Laura went home, we stayed in Dartford only a week, and then +followed the regiment to Washington. We had been there but a few days, +before it was ordered into service. Frank came into my room one night to +tell me. + +"We must be off to-morrow, Sue,--and you must take her back to +Ridgefield at once. I can't have her here. I have told Mr. Bowen. If we +should be beaten,--and we may,--raw troops may take a panic, or may +fight like veterans,--but if we should run, they will make a bee-line +for Washington. I should go mad to have her here with a possibility of +Rebel invasion. She must go; there is no question." + +He walked up and down the room, then came back and looked me straight in +the face. + +"Susan, if I never come back, you will be her good friend, too?" + +"Yes," said I, meeting his eye as coolly as it met mine: I had learned a +lesson of Josey. "I shall see you in the morning?" + +"Yes"; and so he went back to her. + +Morning came. Josephine was as bright, as calm, as natural, as the June +day itself. She insisted on fastening "her Captain's" straps on his +shoulders, purloined his cumbrous pin-ball and put it out of sight, and +kept even Mrs. Bowen's sobs in subjection by the intense serenity of +her manner. The minutes seemed to go like beats of a fever-pulse; +ten o'clock smote on a distant bell; Josephine had retreated, as if +accidentally, to a little parlor of her own, opening from our common +sitting-room. Frank shook hands with Mr. Bowen; kissed Mrs. Bowen +dutifully, and cordially too; gave me one strong clasp in his arms, and +one kiss; then went after Josephine. I closed the door softly behind +him. In five minutes by the ticking clock he came out, and strode +through the room without a glance at either of us. I had heard her say +"Good bye" in her sweet, clear tone, just as he opened the door; but +some instinct impelled me to go in to her at once: she lay in a dead +faint on the floor. + +We left Washington that afternoon, and went straight back to Ridgefield. +Josey was in and out of my small house continually: but for her father +and mother, I think she would have stayed with me from choice. Rare +letters came from Frank, and were always reported to me, but, of course, +never shown. If there was any change in her manner, it was more steadily +affectionate to her father and mother than ever; the fitful, playful +ways of her girlhood were subdued, but, except to me, she showed no +symptom of pain, no show of apprehension: with me alone she sometimes +drooped and sighed. Once she laid her little head on my neck, and, +holding me to her tightly, half sobbed,-- + +"Oh, I wish--I wish I could see him just for once!" + +I could not speak to answer her. + +As rumors of a march toward Manassas increased, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen took +her to Dartford: there was no telegraph-line to Ridgefield, and but one +daily mail, and now a day's delay of news might be a vital loss. I could +not go with them; I was too ill. At last came that dreadful day of Bull +Run. Its story of shame and blood, trebly exaggerated, ran like fire +through the land. For twenty-four long hours every heart in Ridgefield +seemed to stand still; then there was the better news of fewer dead +than the first report, and we knew that the enemy had retreated, but no +particulars. Another long, long day, and the papers said Colonel ----'s +regiment was cut to pieces; the fourth mail told another story: the +regiment was safe, but Captains Addison, Black, and--Jones, I think, +were missing. The fifth day brought me a letter from Mr. Bowen. Frank +was dead, shot through the heart, before the panic began, cheering on +his men; he had fallen in the very front rank, and his gallant company, +at the risk of their lives, after losing half their number as wounded or +killed, had brought off his body, and carried it with them in retreat, +to find at last that they had ventured all this for a lifeless corpse! +He did not mention Josephine, but asked me to come to them at once, as +he was obliged to go to Washington. I could not, for I was too ill to +travel without a certainty of being quite useless at my journey's end. I +could but just sit up. Five days after, I had an incoherent sobbing sort +of letter from Mrs. Bowen, to say that they had arranged to have the +funeral at Ridgefield the next day but one,--that Josephine would come +out, with her, the night before, and directly to my house, if I was able +to receive them. I sent word by the morning's mail that I was able, and +went myself to the station to meet them. + +They had come alone, and Josey preceded her mother into the little room, +as if she were impatient to have any meeting with a fresh face over. She +was pale as any pale blossom of spring, and as calm. Her curls, tucked +away under the widow's-cap she wore, and clouded by the mass of crape +that shrouded her, left only a narrow line of gold above the dead quiet +of her brow. Her eyes were like the eyes of a sleep-walker: they seemed +to see, but not to feel sight. She smiled mechanically, and put a cold +hand into mine. For any outward expression of emotion, one might have +thought Mrs. Bowen the widow: her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, her +nose was red, her lips tremulous, her whole face stained and washed with +tears, and the skin seemed wrinkled by their salt floods. She had cried +herself sick,--more over Josephine than Frank, as was natural. + +It was but a short drive over to my house, but an utterly silent one. +Josephine made no sort of demonstration, except that she stooped to pat +my great dog as we went in. I gave her a room that opened out of mine, +and put Mrs. Bowen by herself. Twice in the night I stole in to look at +her: both times I found her waking, her eyes fixed on the open window, +her face set in its unnatural quiet; she smiled, but did not speak. Mrs. +Bowen told me in the morning that she had neither shed a tear nor slept +since the news came; it seemed to strike her at once into this cold +silence, and so she had remained. About ten, a carriage was sent over +from the village to take them to the funeral. This miserable custom of +ours, that demands the presence of women at such ceremonies, Mrs. Bowen +was the last person to evade; and when I suggested to Josey that she +should stay at home with me, she looked surprised, and said, quietly, +but emphatically, "Oh, no!" + +After they were gone, I took my shawl and went out on the lawn. There +was a young pine dense enough to shield me from the sun, sitting under +which I could see the funeral-procession as it wound along the river's +edge up toward the burying-ground, a mile beyond the station. But there +was no sun to trouble me; cool gray clouds brooded ominously over all +the sky; a strong south-wind cried, and wailed, and swept in wild gusts +through the woods, while in its intervals a dreadful quiet brooded over +earth and heaven,--over the broad weltering river, that, swollen by +recent rain, washed the green grass shores with sullen flood,--over +the heavy masses of oak and hickory trees that hung on the farther +hill-side,--over the silent village and its gathering people. The +engine-shriek was borne on the coming wind from far down the valley. +There was an air of hushed expectation and regret in Nature itself that +seemed to fit the hour to its event. + +Soon I saw the crowd about the station begin to move, and presently the +funeral-bell swung out its solemn tones of lamentation; its measured, +lingering strokes, mingled with the woful shrieking of the wind and the +sighing of the pine-tree overhead, made a dirge of inexpressible force +and melancholy. A weight of grief seemed to settle on my very breath: it +was not real sorrow; for, though I knew it well, I had not felt yet that +Frank was dead,--it was not real to me,--I could not take to my stunned +perceptions the fact that he was gone. It is the protest of Nature, +dimly conscious of her original eternity, against this interruption of +death, that it should always be such an interruption, so incredible, so +surprising, so new. No,--the anguish that oppressed me now was not the +true anguish of loss, but merely the effect of these adjuncts; the pain +of want, of separation, of reaching in vain after that which is gone, of +vivid dreams and tearful waking,--all this lay in wait for the future, +to be still renewed, still suffered and endured, till time should be no +more. Let all these pangs of recollection attest it,--these involuntary +bursts of longing for the eyes that are gone and the voice that is +still,--these recoils of baffled feeling seeking for the one perfect +sympathy forever fled,--these pleasures dimmed in their first +resplendence for want of one whose joy would have been keener and +sweeter to us than our own,--these bitter sorrows crying like children +in pain for the heart that should have soothed and shared them! No,-- +there is no such dreary lie as that which prates of consoling Time! You +who are gone, if in heaven you know how we mortals fare, you know that +life took from you no love, no faith,--that bitterer tears fall for you +to-day than ever wet your new graves,--that the gayer words and the +recalled smiles are only like the flowers that grow above you, symbols +of the deeper roots we strike in your past existence,--that to the +true soul there is no such thing as forgetfulness, no such mercy as +diminishing regret! + +Slowly the long procession wound up the river,--here, black with plumed +hearse and sable mourners,--there, gay with regimental band and bright +uniforms,--no stately, proper funeral, ordered by custom and marshalled +by propriety, but a straggling array of vehicles: here, the doctor's old +chaise,--there, an open wagon, a dusty buggy, a long, open omnibus, +such as the village-stable kept for pleasure-parties or for parties of +mourning who wanted to go _en masse_. + +All that knew Frank, in or about Ridgefield, and all who had sons or +brothers in the army, swarmed to do him honor; and the quaint, homely +array crept slowly through the valley, to the sound of tolling bell and +moaning wind and the low rush of the swollen river,--the first taste +of war's desolation that had fallen upon us, the first dark wave of a +whelming tide! + +As it passed out of sight, I heard the wheels cease, one by one, their +crunch and grind on the gravelled road up the slope of the grave-yard. +I knew they had reached that hill-side where the dead of Ridgefield +lie calmer than its living; and presently the long-drawn notes of that +hymn-tune consecrated to such occasions--old China--rose and fell in +despairing cadences on my ear. If ever any music was invented for the +express purpose of making mourners as distracted as any external thing +can make them, it is the bitter, hopeless, unrestrained wail of this +tune. There is neither peace nor resignation in it, but the very +exhaustion of raving sorrow that heeds neither God nor man, but +cries out, with the soulless agony of a wind-harp, its refusal to be +comforted. + +At length it was over, and still in that same dead calm Josephine came +home to me. Mrs. Bowen was frightened, Mr. Bowen distressed. I could not +think what to do, at first; but remembering how sometimes a little thing +had utterly broken me down from a regained calmness after loss, some +homely association, some recall of the past, I begged of Mr. Bowen to +bring up from the village Frank's knapsack, which he had found in one of +his men's hands,--the poor fellow having taken care of that, while he +lost his own: "For the captain's wife," he said. As soon as it came, I +took from it Frank's coat, and his cap and sword. My heart was in my +mouth as I entered Josephine's room, and saw the fixed quiet on her face +where she sat. I walked in, however, with no delay, and laid the things +down on her bed, close to where she sat. She gave one startled look at +them and then at me; her face relaxed from all its quiet lines; she sank +on her knees by the bedside, and, burying her head in her arms, cried, +and cried, and cried, so helplessly, so utterly without restraint, that +I cried, too. It was impossible for me to help it. At last the tears +exhausted themselves; the dreadful sobs ceased to convulse her; all +drenched and tired, she lifted her face from its rest, and held out her +arms to me. I took her up, and put her to bed like a child. I hung the +coat and cap and sword where she could see them. I made her take a cup +of broth, and before long, with her eyes fixed on the things I had hung +up, she fell asleep, and slept heavily, without waking, till the next +morning. + +I feared almost to enter her room when I heard her stir; I had dreaded +her waking,--that terrible hour that all know who have suffered, the dim +awakening shadow that darkens so swiftly to black reality; but I need +not have dreaded it for her. She told me afterward that in all that +sleep she never lost the knowledge of her grief; she did not come into +it as a surprise. Frank had seemed to be with her, distant, sad, yet +consoling; she felt that he was gone, but not utterly,--that there was +drear separation and loneliness, but not forever. + +When I went in, she lay there awake, looking at her trophy, as she came +to call it, her eyes with all their light quenched and sodden out with +crying, her face pale and unalterably sad, but natural in its sweetness +and mobility. She drew me down to her and kissed me. + +"May I get up?" she asked; and then, without waiting for an answer, went +on,--"I have been selfish, Sue; I will try to be better now; I won't +run away from my battle. Oh, how glad I am he didn't run away! It is +dreadful now, dreadful! Perhaps, if I had to choose if he should have +run away or--or this, I should have wanted him to run,--I'm afraid I +should. But I am glad now. If God wanted him, I'm glad he went from the +front ranks. Oh, those poor women whose husbands ran away, and were +killed, too!" + +She seemed to be so comforted by that one thought! It was a strange +trait in the little creature; I could not quite fathom it. + +After this, she came down-stairs and went about among us, busying +herself in various little ways. She never went to the grave-yard; but +whenever she was a little tired, I was sure to find her sitting in her +room with her eyes on that cap and coat and sword. Letters of condolence +poured in, but she would not read them or answer them, and they all fell +into my hands. I could not wonder; for, of all cruel conventionalities, +visits and letters of condolence seem to me the most cruel. If friends +can be useful in lifting off the little painful cares that throng in the +house of death till its presence is banished, let them go and do their +work quietly and cheerfully; but to make a call or write a note, to +measure your sorrow and express theirs, seems to me on a par with +pulling a wounded man's bandages off and probing his hurt, to hear him +cry out and hear yourself say how bad it must be! + +Laura Lane was admitted, for Frank's sake, as she had been his closest +and dearest relative. The day she came, Josey had a severe headache, and +looked wretchedly. Laura was shocked, and showed it so obviously, that, +had there been any real cause for her alarm, I should have turned her +out of the room without ceremony, almost before she was fairly in it. As +soon as she left, Josey looked at me and smiled. + +"Laura thinks I am going to die," said she; "but I'm not. If I could, +I wouldn't, Sue; for poor father and mother want me, and so will the +soldiers by-and-by." A weary, heart-breaking look quivered in her face +as she went on, half whispering,--"But I should--I _should_ like to see +him!" + +In September she went away. I had expected it ever since she spoke of +the soldiers needing her. Mrs. Bowen went to the sea-side for her annual +asthma. Mr. Bowen went with Josephine to Washington. There, by some +talismanic influence, she got admission to the hospitals, though she +was very pretty, and under thirty. I think perhaps her pale face and +widow's-dress, and her sad, quiet manner, were her secret of success. +She worked here like a sprite; nothing daunted or disgusted her. She +followed the army to Yorktown, and nursed on the transport-ships. One +man said, I was told, that it was "jes' like havin' an apple-tree blow +raound, to see that Mis' Addison; she was so kinder cheery an' pooty, +an' knew sech a sight abaout nussin', it did a feller lots of good only +to look at her chirpin' abaout." + +Now and then she wrote to me, and almost always ended by declaring she +was "quite well, and almost happy." If ever she met with one of Frank's +men,--and all who were left reënlisted for the war,--he was sure to be +nursed like a prince, and petted with all sorts of luxuries, and told +it was for his old captain's sake. Mr. and Mrs. Bowen followed her +everywhere, as near as they could get to her, and afforded unfailing +supplies of such extra hospital-stores as she wanted; they lavished on +her time and money and love enough to have satisfied three women, but +Josey found use for it all--for her work. Two months ago, they all came +back to Dartford. A hospital had been set up there, and some one was +needed to put it in operation; her experience would be doubly useful +there, and it was pleasant for her to be so near Frank's home, to be +among his friends and hers. + +I went in, to do what I could, being stronger than usual, and found +her hard at work. Her face retained its rounded outline, her lips had +recovered their bloom, her curls now and then strayed from the net under +which she carefully tucked them, and made her look as girlish as ever, +but the girl's expression was gone; that tender, patient, resolute look +was born of a woman's stern experience; and though she had laid aside +her widow's-cap, because it was inconvenient, her face was so sad in its +repose, so lonely and inexpectant, she scarce needed any outward symbol +to proclaim her widowhood. Yet under all this new character lay still +some of those childish tastes that made, as it were, the "fresh perfume" +of her nature: everything that came in her way was petted; a little +white kitten followed her about the wards, and ran to meet her, whenever +she came in, with joyful demonstrations; a great dog waited for her at +home, and escorted her to and from the hospital; and three canaries hung +in her chamber;--and I confess here, what I would not to Laura, that she +retains yet a strong taste for sugar-plums, gingerbread, and the "Lady's +Book." She kept only so much of what Laura called her vanity as to be +exquisitely neat and particular in every detail of dress; and though a +black gown, and a white linen apron, collar, and cuffs do not afford +much room for display, yet these were always so speckless and spotless +that her whole aspect was refreshing. + +Last week there was a severe operation performed in the hospital, and +Josephine had to be present. She held the poor fellow's hand till he +was insensible from the kindly chloroform they gave him, and, after the +surgeons were through, sat by him till night, with such a calm, cheerful +face, giving him wine and broth, and watching every indication of pulse +or skin, till he really rallied, and is now doing well. + +As I came over, the next day, I met Doctor Rivers at the door of her +ward. + +"Really," said he, "that little Mrs. Addison is a true heroine!" + +The kitten purred about my feet, and as I smiled assent to him, I said +inwardly to myself,-- + +"Really, she is a true woman!" + + + + +ABOUT WARWICK. + + +Between bright, new Leamington, the growth of the present century, +and rusty Warwick, founded by King Cymbeline in the twilight ages, a +thousand years before the mediaeval darkness, there are two roads, +either of which may be measured by a sober-paced pedestrian in less than +half an hour. + +One of these avenues flows out of the midst of the smart parades and +crescents of the former town,--along by hedges and beneath the shadow of +great elms, past stuccoed Elizabethan villas and wayside ale-houses, and +through a hamlet of modern aspect,--and runs straight into the principal +thoroughfare of Warwick. The battlemented turrets of the castle, +embowered half-way up in foliage, and the tall, slender tower of St. +Mary's Church, rising from among clustered roofs, have been visible +almost from the commencement of the walk. Near the entrance of the town +stands St. John's School-House, a picturesque old edifice of stone, with +four peaked gables in a row, alternately plain and ornamented, and wide, +projecting windows, and a spacious and venerable porch, all overgrown +with moss and ivy, and shut in from the world by a high stone fence, not +less mossy than the gabled front. There is an iron gate, through the +rusty open-work of which you see a grassy lawn, and almost expect to +meet the shy, curious eyes of the little boys of past generations, +peeping forth from their infantile antiquity into the strangeness of our +present life. I find a peculiar charm in these long-established English +schools, where the school-boy of to-day sits side by side, as it were, +with his great-grandsire, on the same old benches, and often, I believe, +thumbs a later, but unimproved edition of the same old grammar or +arithmetic. The new-fangled notions of a Yankee school-committee would +madden many a pedagogue, and shake down the roof of many a time-honored +seat of learning, in the mother-country. + +At this point, however, we will turn back, in order to follow up the +other road from Leamington, which was the one that I loved best to take. +It pursues a straight and level course, bordered by wide gravel-walks +and overhung by the frequent elm, with here a cottage and there a villa, +on one side a wooded plantation, and on the other a rich field of grass +or grain, until, turning at right angles, it brings you to an arched +bridge over the Avon. Its parapet is a balustrade carved out of +freestone, into the soft substance of which a multitude of persons have +engraved their names or initials, many of them now illegible, while +others, more deeply cut, are illuminated with fresh green moss. These +tokens indicate a famous spot; and casting our eyes along the smooth +gleam and shadow of the quiet stream, through a vista of willows that +droop on either side into the water, we behold the gray magnificence of +Warwick Castle, uplifting itself among stately trees, and rearing its +turrets high above their loftiest branches. We can scarcely think the +scene real, so completely do those machicolated towers, the long line of +battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out +our indistinct ideas of the antique time. It might rather seem as if the +sleepy river (being Shakspeare's Avon, and often, no doubt, the mirror +of his gorgeous visions) were dreaming now of a lordly residence that +stood here many centuries ago; and this fantasy is strengthened, +when you observe that the image in the tranquil water has all the +distinctness of the actual structure. Either might be the reflection of +the other. Wherever Time has gnawed one of the stones, you see the +mark of his tooth just as plainly in the sunken reflection. Each is so +perfect, that the upper vision seems a castle in the air, and the lower +one an old stronghold of feudalism, miraculously kept from decay in an +enchanted river. + +A ruinous and ivy-grown bridge, that projects from the bank a little on +the hither side of the castle, has the effect of making the scene appear +more entirely apart from the every-day world, for it ends abruptly in +the middle of the stream,--so that, if a cavalcade of the knights and +ladies of romance should issue from the old walls, they could never +tread on earthly ground, any more than we, approaching from the side of +modern realism, can overleap the gulf between our domain and theirs. +Yet, if we seek to disenchant ourselves, it may readily be done. +Crossing the bridge on which we stand, and passing a little farther on, +we come to the entrance of the castle, abutting on the highway, and +hospitably open at certain hours to all curious pilgrims who choose to +disburse half a crown or so towards the support of the Earl's domestics. +The sight of that long series of historic rooms, full of such splendors +and rarities as a great English family necessarily gathers about itself, +in its hereditary abode, and in the lapse of ages, is well worth the +money, or ten times as much, if indeed the value of the spectacle could +be reckoned in money's-worth. But after the attendant has hurried you +from end to end of the edifice, repeating a guide-book by rote, and +exorcising each successive hall of its poetic glamour and witchcraft +by the mere tone in which he talks about it, you will make the doleful +discovery that Warwick Castle has ceased to be a dream. It is better, +methinks, to linger on the bridge, gazing at Caesar's Tower and Guy's +Tower in the dim English sunshine above, and in the placid Avon below, +and still keep them as thoughts in your own mind, than climb to their +summits, or touch even a stone of their actual substance. They will have +all the more reality for you, as stalwart relics of immemorial time, if +you are reverent enough to leave them in the intangible sanctity of a +poetic vision. + +From the bridge over the Avon, the road passes in front of the +castle-gate, and soon enters the principal street of Warwick, a little +beyond St. John's School-House, already described. Chester itself, most +antique of English towns, can hardly show quainter architectural shapes +than many of the buildings that border this street. They are mostly of +the timber-and-plaster kind, with bowed and decrepit ridge-poles, and a +whole chronology of various patchwork in their walls; their low-browed +door-ways open upon a sunken floor; their projecting stories peep, as +it were, over one another's shoulders, and rise into a multiplicity of +peaked gables; they have curious windows, breaking out irregularly all +over the house, some even in the roof, set in their own little peaks, +opening lattice-wise, and furnished with twenty small panes of +lozenge-shaped glass. The architecture of these edifices (a visible +oaken framework, showing the whole skeleton of the house,--as if a man's +bones should be arranged on his outside, and his flesh seen through the +interstices) is often imitated by modern builders, and with sufficiently +picturesque effect. The objection is, that such houses, like all +imitations of by-gone styles, have an air of affectation; they do not +seem to be built in earnest; they are no better than playthings, or +overgrown baby-houses, in which nobody should be expected to encounter +the serious realities of either birth or death. Besides, originating +nothing, we leave no fashions for another age to copy, when we ourselves +shall have grown antique. + +Old as it looks, all this portion of Warwick has overbrimmed, as it +were, from the original settlement, being outside of the ancient wall. +The street soon runs under an arched gateway, with a church or some +other venerable structure above it, and admits us into the heart of +the town. At one of my first visits, I witnessed a military display. A +regiment of Warwickshire militia, probably commanded by the Earl, was +going through its drill in the market-place; and on the collar of one of +the officers was embroidered the Bear and Ragged Staff, which has been +the cognizance of the Warwick earldom from time immemorial. The soldiers +were sturdy young men, with the simple, stolid, yet kindly, faces of +English rustics, looking exceedingly well in a body, but slouching into +a yeoman-like carriage and appearance, the moment they were dismissed +from drill. Squads of them were distributed everywhere about the +streets, and sentinels were posted at various points; and I saw a +sergeant, with a great key in his hand, (big enough to have been the key +of the castle's main entrance when the gate was thickest and heaviest,) +apparently setting a guard. Thus, centuries after feudal times are +past, we find warriors still gathering under the old castle-walls, and +commanded by a feudal lord, just as in the days of the King-Maker, who, +no doubt, often mustered his retainers in the same market-place where I +beheld this modern regiment. + +The interior of the town wears a less old-fashioned aspect than the +suburbs through which we approach it; and the High Street has shops with +modern plate-glass, and buildings with stuccoed fronts, exhibiting as +few projections to hang a thought or sentiment upon as if an architect +of to-day had planned them. And, indeed, so far as their surface goes, +they are perhaps new enough to stand unabashed in an American street; +but behind these renovated faces, with their monotonous lack of +expression, there is probably the substance of the same old town that +wore a Gothic exterior in the Middle Ages. The street is an emblem of +England itself. What seems new in it is chiefly a skilful and fortunate +adaptation of what such a people as ourselves would destroy. The new +things are based and supported on sturdy old things, and derive a +massive strength from their deep and immemorial foundations, though with +such limitations and impediments as only an Englishman could endure. +But he likes to feel the weight of all the past upon his back; and, +moreover, the antiquity that overburdens him has taken root in his +being, and has grown to be rather a hump than a pack, so that there is +no getting rid of it without tearing his whole structure to pieces. In +my judgment, as he appears to be sufficiently comfortable under the +mouldy accretion, he had better stumble on with it as long as he can. +He presents a spectacle which is by no means without its charm for a +disinterested and unincumbered observer. + +When the old edifice, or the antiquated custom or institution, appears +in its pristine form, without any attempt at intermarrying it with +modern fashions, an American cannot but admire the picturesque effect +produced by the sudden cropping up of an apparently dead-and-buried +state of society into the actual present, of which he is himself a part. +We need not go far in Warwick without encountering an instance of the +kind. Proceeding westward through the town, we find ourselves confronted +by a huge mass of natural rock, hewn into something like architectural +shape, and penetrated by a vaulted passage, which may well have been one +of King Cymbeline's original gateways; and on the top of the rock, over +the archway, sits a small, old church, communicating with an ancient +edifice, or assemblage of edifices, that look down from a similar +elevation on the side of the street. A range of trees half hides the +latter establishment from the sun. It presents a curious and venerable +specimen of the timber-and-plaster style of building, in which some of +the finest old houses in England are constructed; the front projects +into porticos and vestibules, and rises into many gables, some in a row, +and others crowning semi-detached portions of the structure; the windows +mostly open on hinges, but show a delightful irregularity of shape and +position; a multiplicity of chimneys break through the roof at their own +will, or, at least, without any settled purpose of the architect. The +whole affair looks very old,--so old, indeed, that the front bulges +forth, as if the timber framework were a little weary, at last, of +standing erect so long; but the state of repair is so perfect, and there +is such an indescribable aspect of continuous vitality within the system +of this aged house, that you feel confident that there may be safe +shelter yet, and perhaps for centuries to come, under its time-honored +roof. And on a bench, sluggishly enjoying the sunshine, and looking into +the street of Warwick as from a life apart, a few old men are generally +to be seen, wrapped in long cloaks, on which you may detect the +glistening of a silver badge representing the Bear and Ragged Staff. +These decorated worthies are some of the twelve brethren of Leicester's +Hospital,--a community which subsists to-day under the identical modes +that were established for it in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and of +course retains many features of a social life that has vanished almost +everywhere else. + +The edifice itself dates from a much older period than the charitable +institution of which it is now the home. It was the seat of a religious +fraternity far back in the Middle Ages, and continued so till Henry +VIII. turned all the priesthood of England out-of-doors, and put the +most unscrupulous of his favorites into their vacant abodes. In many +instances, the old monks had chosen the sites of their domiciles so +well, and built them on such a broad system of beauty and convenience, +that their lay-occupants found it easy to convert them into stately and +comfortable homes; and as such they still exist, with something of the +antique reverence lingering about them. The structure now before us +seems to have been first granted to Sir Nicholas Lestrange, who perhaps +intended, like other men, to establish his household gods in the niches +whence he had thrown down the images of saints, and to lay his hearth +where an altar had stood. But there was probably a natural reluctance +in those days (when Catholicism, so lately repudiated, must needs Lave +retained an influence over all but the most obdurate characters) to +bring one's hopes of domestic prosperity and a fortunate lineage into +direct hostility with the awful claims of the ancient religion. At all +events, there is still a superstitious idea, betwixt a fantasy and a +belief, that the possession of former Church-property has drawn a curse +along with it, not only among the posterity of those to whom it was +originally granted, but wherever it has subsequently been transferred, +even if honestly bought and paid for. There are families, now inhabiting +some of the beautiful old abbeys, who appear to indulge a species of +pride in recording the strange deaths and ugly shapes of misfortune that +have occurred among their predecessors, and may be supposed likely to +dog their own pathway down the ages of futurity. Whether Sir Nicholas +Lestrange, in the beef-eating days of Old Harry and Elizabeth, was a +nervous man, and subject to apprehensions of this kind, I cannot tell; +but it is certain that he speedily rid himself of the spoils of the +Church, and that, within twenty years afterwards, the edifice became the +property of the famous Dudley, Earl of Leicester, brother of the Earl of +Warwick. He devoted the ancient religious precinct to a charitable use, +endowing it with an ample revenue, and making it the perpetual home of +twelve poor, honest, and war-broken soldiers, mostly his own retainers, +and natives either of Warwickshire or Gloucestershire. These veterans, +or others wonderfully like them, still occupy their monkish dormitories +and haunt the time-darkened corridors and galleries of the hospital, +leading a life of old-fashioned comfort, wearing the old-fashioned +cloaks, and burnishing the identical silver badges which the Earl of +Leicester gave to the original twelve. He is said to have been a bad man +in his day; but he has succeeded in prolonging one good deed into what +was to him a distant future. + +On the projecting story, over the arched entrance, there is the date, +1571, and several coats-of-arms, either the Earl's or those of his +kindred, and immediately above the door-way a stone sculpture of the +Bear and Ragged Staff. + +Passing through the arch, we find ourselves in a quadrangle, or +inclosed court, such as always formed the central part of a great +family-residence in Queen Elizabeth's time, and earlier. There can +hardly be a more perfect specimen of such an establishment than +Leicester's Hospital. The quadrangle is a sort of sky-roofed hall, to +which there is convenient access from all parts of the house. The four +inner fronts, with their high, steep roofs and sharp gables, look into +it from antique windows, and through open corridors and galleries along +the sides; and there seems to be a richer display of architectural +devices and ornaments, quainter carvings in oak, and more fantastic +shapes of the timber framework, than on the side towards the street. On +the wall opposite the arched entrance are the following inscriptions, +comprising such moral rules, I presume, as were deemed most essential +for the daily observance of the community: "HONOR ALL MEN"--"FEAR +GOD"--"HONOR THE KING"--"LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD"; and again, as if this +latter injunction needed emphasis and repetition among a household of +aged people soured with the hard fortune of their previous lives,--"BE +KINDLY AFFECTIONED ONE TO ANOTHER." One sentence, over a door +communicating with the Master's side of the house, is addressed to +that dignitary,--"HE THAT RULETH OVER MEN MUST BE JUST." All these +are charactered in black-letter, and form part of the elaborate +ornamentation of the Louse. Everywhere--on the walls, over windows and +doors, and at all points where there is room to place them--appear +escutcheons of arms, cognizances, and crests, emblazoned in their proper +colors, and illuminating the ancient quadrangle with their splendor. One +of these devices is a large image of a porcupine on an heraldic wreath, +being the crest of the Lords de Lisle. But especially is the cognizance +of the Bear and Ragged Staff repeated over and over, and over again and +again, in a great variety of attitudes, at full-length and half-length, +in paint and in oaken sculpture, in bas-relief and rounded image. +The founder of the hospital was certainly disposed to reckon his own +beneficence as among the hereditary glories of his race; and had he +lived and died a half-century earlier, he would have kept up an old +Catholic custom by enjoining the twelve bedesmen to pray for the welfare +of his soul. + +At my first visit, some of the brethren were seated on the bench outside +of the edifice, looking down into the street; but they did not vouchsafe +me a word, and seemed so estranged from modern life, so enveloped in +antique customs and old-fashioned cloaks, that to converse with them +would have been like shouting across the gulf between our age and +Queen Elizabeth's. So I passed into the quadrangle, and found it quite +solitary, except that a plain and neat old woman happened to be crossing +it, with an aspect of business and carefulness that bespoke her a woman +of this world, and not merely a shadow of the past. Asking her if I +could come in, she answered very readily and civilly that I might, and +said that I was free to look about me, hinting a hope, however, that I +would not open the private doors of the brotherhood, as some visitors +were in the habit of doing. Under her guidance, I went into what was +formerly the great hall of the establishment, where King James I. had +once been feasted by an Earl of Warwick, as is commemorated by an +inscription on the cobwebbed and dingy wall. It is a very spacious and +barn-like apartment, with a brick floor, and a vaulted roof, the rafters +of which are oaken beams, wonderfully carved, but hardly visible in +the duskiness that broods aloft. The hall may have made a splendid +appearance, when it was decorated with rich tapestry, and illuminated +with chandeliers, cressets, and torches glistening upon silver dishes, +while King James sat at supper among his brilliantly dressed nobles; +but it has come to base uses in these latter days,--being improved, +in Yankee phrase, as a brewery and wash-room, and as a cellar for the +brethren's separate allotments of coal. + +The old lady here left me to myself, and I returned into the quadrangle. +It was very quiet, very handsome, in its own obsolete style, and must be +an exceedingly comfortable place for the old people to lounge in, when +the inclement winds render it inexpedient to walk abroad. There are +shrubs against the wall, on one side; and on another is a cloistered +walk, adorned with stags' heads and antlers, and running beneath a +covered gallery, up to which ascends a balustraded staircase. In the +portion of the edifice opposite the entrance-arch are the apartments +of the Master; and looking into the window, (as the old woman, at no +request of mine, had specially informed me that I might,) I saw a low, +but vastly comfortable parlor, very handsomely furnished, and altogether +a luxurious place. It had a fireplace with an immense arch, the antique +breadth of which extended almost from wall to wall of the room, though +now fitted up in such a way that the modern coal-grate looked very +diminutive in the midst. Gazing into this pleasant interior, it seemed +to me, that, among these venerable surroundings, availing himself of +whatever was good in former things, and eking out their imperfection +with the results of modern ingenuity, the Master might lead a not +unenviable life. On the cloistered side of the quadrangle, where the +dark oak panels made the inclosed space dusky, I beheld a curtained +window reddened by a great blaze from within, and heard the bubbling and +squeaking of something--doubtless very nice and succulent--that was +being cooked at the kitchen-fire. I think, indeed, that a whiff or +two of the savory fragrance reached my nostrils; at all events, the +impression grew upon me that Leicester's Hospital is one of the jolliest +old domiciles in England. + +I was about to depart, when another old woman, very plainly dressed, +but fat, comfortable, and with a cheerful twinkle in her eyes, came in +through the arch, and looked curiously at me. This repeated apparition +of the gentle sex (though by no means under its loveliest guise) had +still an agreeable effect in modifying my ideas of an institution which +I had supposed to be of a stern and monastic character. She asked +whether I wished to see the hospital, and said that the porter, whose +office it was to attend to visitors, was dead, and would be buried that +very day, so that the whole establishment could not conveniently be +shown me. She kindly invited me, however, to visit the apartment +occupied by her husband and herself; so I followed her up the antique +staircase, along the gallery, and into a small, oak-panelled parlor, +where sat an old man in a long blue garment, who arose and saluted me +with much courtesy. He seemed a very quiet person, and yet had a look of +travel and adventure, and gray experience, such as I could have fancied +in a palmer of ancient times, who might likewise have worn a similar +costume. The little room was carpeted and neatly furnished; a portrait +of its occupant was hanging on the wall; and on a table were two swords +crossed,--one, probably, his own battle-weapon, and the other, which +I drew half out of the scabbard, had an inscription on the blade, +purporting that it had been taken from the field of Waterloo. My +kind old hostess was anxious to exhibit all the particulars of their +housekeeping, and led me into the bed-room, which was in the nicest +order, with a snow-white quilt upon the bed; and in a little intervening +room was a washing and bathing apparatus,--a convenience (judging from +the personal aspect and atmosphere of such parties) seldom to be met +with in the humbler ranks of British life. + +The old soldier and his wife both seemed glad of somebody to talk with; +but the good woman availed herself of the privilege far more copiously +than the veteran himself, insomuch that he felt it expedient to give her +an occasional nudge with his elbow in her well-padded ribs. "Don't you +be so talkative!" quoth he; and, indeed, he could hardly find space for +a word, and quite as little after his admonition as before. Her nimble +tongue ran over the whole system of life in the hospital. The brethren, +she said, had a yearly stipend, (the amount of which she did not +mention,) and such decent lodgings as I saw, and some other advantages, +free; and instead of being pestered with a great many rules, and made +to dine together at a great table, they could manage their little +household-matters as they liked, buying their own dinners, and having +them cooked in the general kitchen, and eating them snugly in their own +parlors. "And," added she, rightly deeming this the crowning privilege, +"with the Master's permission, they can have their wives to take care of +them; and no harm comes of it; and what more can an old man desire?" +It was evident enough that the good dame found herself in what she +considered very rich clover, and, moreover, had plenty of small +occupations to keep her from getting rusty and dull; but the veteran +impressed me as deriving far less enjoyment from the monotonous ease, +without fear of change or hope of improvement, that had followed upon +thirty years of peril and vicissitude. I fancied, too, that, while +pleased with the novelty of a stranger's visit, he was still a little +shy of becoming a spectacle for the stranger's curiosity; for, if he +chose to be morbid about the matter, the establishment was but an +almshouse, in spite of its old-fashioned magnificence, and his fine blue +cloak only a pauper's garment, with a silver badge on it that perhaps +galled his shoulder. In truth, the badge and the peculiar garb, though +quite in accordance with the manners of the Earl of Leicester's age, +are repugnant to modern prejudices, and might fitly and humanely be +abolished. + +A year or two afterwards I paid another visit to the hospital, and found +a new porter established in office, and already capable of talking like +a guide-book about the history, antiquities, and present condition of +the charity. He informed me that the twelve brethren are selected from +among old soldiers of good character, whose private resources must +not exceed an income of five pounds; thus excluding all commissioned +officers, whose half-pay would of course be more than that amount. They +receive from the hospital an annuity of eighty pounds each, besides +their apartments, a garment of fine blue cloth, an annual abundance of +ale, and a privilege at the kitchen-fire; so that, considering the class +from which they are taken, they may well reckon themselves among the +fortunate of the earth. Furthermore, they are invested with political +rights, acquiring a vote for member of Parliament in virtue either +of their income or brotherhood. On the other hand, as regards their +personal freedom and conduct, they are subject to a supervision which +the Master of the hospital might render extremely annoying, were he so +inclined; but the military restraint under which they have spent the +active portion of their lives makes it easier for them to endure the +domestic discipline here imposed upon their age. The porter bore his +testimony (whatever were its value) to their being as contented and +happy as such a set of old people could possibly be, and affirmed that +they spent much time in burnishing their silver badges, and were as +proud of them as a nobleman of his star. These badges, by-the-by, except +one that was stolen and replaced in Queen Anne's time, are the very same +that decorated the original twelve brethren. + +I have seldom met with a better guide than my friend the porter. +He appeared to take a genuine interest in the peculiarities of the +establishment, and yet had an existence apart from them, so that he +could the better estimate what those peculiarities were. To be sure, his +knowledge and observation were confined to external things, but, so +far, had a sufficiently extensive scope. He led me up the staircase +and exhibited portions of the timber framework of the edifice that are +reckoned to be eight or nine hundred years old, and are still neither +worm-eaten nor decayed; and traced out what had been a great hall, in +the days of the Catholic fraternity, though its area is now filled up +with the apartments of the twelve brethren; and pointed to ornaments of +sculptured oak, done in an ancient religious style of art, but hardly +visible amid the vaulted dimness of the roof. Thence we went to the +chapel--the Gothic church which I noted several pages back--surmounting +the gateway that stretches half across the street. Here the brethren +attend daily prayer, and have each a prayer-book of the finest paper, +with a fair, large type for their old eyes. The interior of the chapel +is very plain, with a picture of no merit for an altar-piece, and +a single old pane of painted glass in the great eastern window, +representing--no saint, nor angel, as is customary in such cases--but +that grim sinner, the Earl of Leicester. Nevertheless, amid so many +tangible proofs of his human sympathy, one comes to doubt whether the +Earl could have been such a hardened reprobate, after all. + +We ascended the tower of the chapel, and looked down between its +battlements into the street, a hundred feet below us; while clambering +half-way up were foxglove-flowers, weeds, small shrubs, and tufts of +grass, that had rooted themselves into the roughnesses of the stone +foundation. Far around us lay a rich and lovely English landscape, with +many a church-spire and noble country-seat, and several objects of high +historic interest. Edge Hill, where the Puritans defeated Charles I., is +in sight on the edge of the horizon, and much nearer stands the house +where Cromwell lodged on the night before the battle. Right under our +eyes, and half-enveloping the town with its high-shouldering wall, so +that all the closely compacted streets seemed but a precinct of the +estate, was the Earl of Warwick's delightful park, a wide extent of +sunny lawns, interspersed with broad contiguities of forest-shade. Some +of the cedars of Lebanon were there,--a growth of trees in which the +Warwick family take an hereditary pride. The two highest towers of the +castle heave themselves up out of a mass of foliage, and look down in a +lordly manner upon the plebeian roofs of the town, a part of which are +slate-covered, (these are the modern houses,) and a part are coated with +old red tiles, denoting the more ancient edifices. A hundred and sixty +or seventy years ago, a great fire destroyed a considerable portion +of the town, and doubtless annihilated many structures of a remote +antiquity; at least, there was a possibility of very old houses in the +long past of Warwick, which King Cymbeline is said to have founded in +the year ONE of the Christian era! + +And this historic fact or poetic fiction, whichever it may be, brings to +mind a more indestructible reality than anything else that has occurred +within the present field of our vision; though this includes the scene +of Guy of Warwick's legendary exploits, and some of those of the Round +Table, to say nothing of the Battle of Edge Hill. For perhaps it was +in the landscape now under our eyes that Post-humus wandered with the +King's daughter, the sweet, chaste, faithful, and courageous Imogen, the +tenderest and womanliest woman that Shakspeare ever made immortal in +the world. The silver Avon, which we see flowing so quietly by the gray +castle, may have held their images in its bosom. + +The day, though it began brightly, had long been overcast, and the +clouds now spat down a few spiteful drops upon us, besides that the +east-wind was very chill; so we descended the winding tower-stair, and +went next into the garden, one side of which is shut in by almost the +only remaining portion of the old city-wall. A part of the garden-ground +is devoted to grass and shrubbery, and permeated by gravel-walks, in the +centre of one of which is a beautiful stone vase of Egyptian sculpture, +having formerly stood on the top of a Nilometer, or graduated pillar +for measuring the rise and fall of the River Nile. On the pedestal is +a Latin inscription by Dr. Parr, who (his vicarage of Hatton being so +close at hand) was probably often the Master's guest, and smoked his +interminable pipe along these garden-walks. Of the vegetable-garden, +which lies adjacent, the lion's share is appropriated to the Master, and +twelve small, separate patches to the individual brethren, who cultivate +them at their own judgment and by their own labor; and their beans +and cauliflowers have a better flavor, I doubt not, than if they had +received them directly from the dead hand of the Earl of Leicester, like +the rest of their food. In the farther part of the garden is an arbor +for the old men's pleasure and convenience, and I should like well to +sit down among them there, and find out what is really the bitter and +the sweet of such a sort of life. As for the old gentlemen themselves, +they put me queerly in mind of the Salem Custom-House, and the venerable +personages whom I found so quietly at anchor there. + +The Master's residence, forming one entire side of the quadrangle, +fronts on the garden, and wears an aspect at once stately and homely. +It can hardly have undergone any perceptible change with in three +centuries; but the garden, into which its old windows look, has probably +put off a great many eccentricities and quaintnesses, in the way of +cunningly clipped shrubbery, since the gardener of Queen Elizabeth's +reign threw down his rusty shears and took his departure. The present +Master's name is Harris; he is a descendant of the founder's family, a +gentleman of independent fortune, and a clergyman of the Established +Church, as the regulations of the hospital require him to be. I know +not what are his official emoluments; but, according to all English +precedent, an ancient charitable fund is certain to be held directly for +the behoof of those who administer it, and perhaps incidentally, in a +moderate way, for the nominal beneficiaries; and, in the case before us, +the brethren being so comfortably provided for, the Master is likely to +be at least as comfortable as all the twelve together. Yet I ought not, +even in a distant land, to fling an idle gibe against a gentleman of +whom I really know nothing, except that the people under his charge bear +all possible tokens of being tended and cared for as sedulously as if +each of them sat by a warm fireside of his own, with a daughter bustling +round the hearth to make ready his porridge and his titbits. It is +delightful to think of the good life which a suitable man, in the +Master's position, has an opportunity to lead,--linked to time-honored +customs, welded in with an ancient system, never dreaming of radical +change, and bringing all the mellowness and richness of the past down +into these railway-days, which do not compel him or his community +to move a whit quicker than of yore. Everybody can appreciate the +advantages of going ahead; it might be well, sometimes, to think whether +there is not a word or two to be said in favor of standing still, or +going to sleep. + +From the garden we went into the kitchen, where the fire was burning +hospitably, and diffused a genial warmth far and wide, together with the +fragrance of some old English roast-beef, which, I think must at that +moment have been nearly to a turn. The kitchen is a lofty, spacious, +and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace by a sort of +semicircular oaken screen, or, rather, an arrangement of heavy and +high-backed settles, with an ever open entrance between them, on either +side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff, +three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and +unctuous kitchen-smoke. The ponderous mantel-piece, likewise of carved +oak, towers high towards the dusky ceiling, and extends its mighty +breadth to take in a vast area of hearth, the arch of the fireplace +being positively so immense that I could compare it to nothing but the +city-gateway. Above its cavernous opening were crossed two ancient +halberds, the weapons, possibly, of soldiers who had fought under +Leicester in the Low Countries; and elsewhere on the walls were +displayed several muskets, which some of the present inmates of the +hospital may have levelled against the French. Another ornament of the +mantel-piece was a square of silken needlework or embroidery, faded +nearly white, but dimly representing that wearisome Bear and Ragged +Staff, which we should hardly look twice at, only that it was wrought by +the fair fingers of poor Amy Robsart, and beautifully framed in oak from +Kenilworth Castle at the expense of a Mr. Conner, a countryman of our +own. Certainly, no Englishman would be capable of this little bit of +enthusiasm. Finally, the kitchen-firelight glistens on a splendid +display of copper flagons, all of generous capacity, and one of them +about as big as a half-barrel; the smaller vessels contain the customary +allowance of ale, and the larger one is filled with that foaming liquor +on four festive occasions of the year, and emptied amain by the jolly +brotherhood. I should be glad to see them do it; but it would be an +exploit fitter for Queen Elizabeth's age than these degenerate times. + +The kitchen is the social hall of the twelve brethren. In the day-time, +they bring their little messes to be cooked here, and eat them in their +own parlors; but after a certain hour, the great hearth is cleared and +swept, and the old men assemble round its blaze, each with his tankard +and his pipe, and hold high converse through the evening. If the Master +be a fit man for his office, methinks he will sometimes sit down +sociably among them; for there is an elbow-chair by the fireside which +it would not demean his dignity to fill, since it was occupied by King +James at the great festival of nearly three centuries ago. A sip of the +ale and a whiff of the tobacco-pipe would put him in friendly relations +with his venerable household; and then we can fancy him instructing them +by pithy apothegms and religious texts which were first uttered here by +some Catholic priest and have impregnated the atmosphere ever since. If +a joke goes round, it shall be of an elder coinage than Joe Miller's, as +old as Lord Bacon's collection, or as the jest-book that Master Slender +asked for when he lacked small-talk for sweet Anne Page. No news shall +be spoken of, later than the drifting ashore, on the northern coast, +of sonic stern-post or figure-head, a barnacled fragment of one of the +great galleons of the Spanish Armada. What a tremor would pass through +the antique group, if a damp newspaper should suddenly be spread to dry +before the fire! They would feel as if either that printed sheet or they +themselves must be an unreality. What a mysterious awe, if the shriek +of the railway-train, as it reaches the Warwick station, should ever so +faintly invade their ears! Movement of any kind seems inconsistent with +the stability of such an institution. Nevertheless, I trust that the +ages will carry it along with them; because it is such a pleasant kind +of dream for an American to find his way thither, and behold a piece of +the sixteenth century set into our prosaic times, and then to depart, +and think of its arched door-way as a spell-guarded entrance which will +never be accessible or visible to him any more. + +Not far from the market-place of Warwick stands the great church of St. +Mary's: a vast edifice, indeed, and almost worthy to be a cathedral. +People who pretend to skill in such matters say that it is in a poor +style of architecture, though designed (or, at least, extensively +restored) by Sir Christopher Wren; but I thought it very striking, with +its wide, high, and elaborate windows, its tall tower, its immense +length, and (for it was long before I outgrew this Americanism, the +love of an old thing merely for the sake of its age) the tinge of gray +antiquity over the whole. Once, while I stood gazing up at the tower, +the clock struck twelve with a very deep intonation, and immediately +some chimes began to play, and kept up their resounding music for five +minutes, as measured by the hand upon the dial. It was a very delightful +harmony, as airy as the notes of birds, and seemed a not unbecoming +freak of half-sportive fancy in the huge, ancient, and solemn church; +although I have seen an old-fashioned parlor-clock that did precisely +the same thing, in its small way. + +The great attraction of this edifice is the Beauchamp (or, as the +English, who delight in vulgarizing their fine old Norman names, call +it, the Beechum) Chapel, where the Earls of Warwick and their kindred +have been buried, from four hundred years back till within a recent +period. It is a stately and very elaborate chapel, with a large window +of ancient painted glass, as perfectly preserved as any that I remember +seeing in England, and remarkably vivid in its colors. Here are several +monuments with marble figures recumbent upon them, representing the +Earls in their knightly armor, and their dames in the ruffs and +court-finery of their day, looking hardly stiffer in stone than they +must needs have been in their starched linen and embroidery. The +renowned Earl of Leicester of Queen Elizabeth's time, the benefactor +of the hospital, reclines at full length on the tablet of one of these +tombs, side by side with his Countess,--not Amy Robsart, but a lady who +(unless I have confused the story with some other mouldy scandal) is +said to have avenged poor Amy's murder by poisoning the Earl himself. +Be that as it may, both figures, and especially the Earl, look like the +very types of ancient Honor and Conjugal Faith. In consideration of +his long-enduring kindness to the twelve brethren, I cannot consent to +believe him as wicked as he is usually depicted; and it seems a marvel, +now that so many well-established historical verdicts have been +reversed, why some enterprising writer does not make out Leicester to +have been the pattern nobleman of his age. + +In the centre of the chapel is the magnificent memorial of its founder, +Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI. On a richly +ornamented altar-tomb of gray marble lies the bronze figure of a knight +in gilded armor, most admirably executed: for the sculptors of those +days had wonderful skill in their own style, and could make so life-like +an image of a warrior, in brass or marble, that, if a trumpet were +sounded over his tomb, you would expect him to start up and handle his +sword. The Earl whom we now speak of, however, has slept soundly in +spite of a more serious disturbance than any blast of a trumpet, unless +it were the final one. Some centuries after his death, the floor of the +chapel fell down and broke open the stone coffin in which he was buried; +and among the fragments appeared the Earl of Warwick, with the color +scarcely faded out of his checks, his eyes a little sunken, but in other +respects looking as natural as if he had died yesterday. But exposure to +the atmosphere appeared to begin and finish the long-delayed process of +decay in a moment, causing him to vanish like a bubble; so that, almost +before there had been time to wonder at him, there was nothing left of +the stalwart Earl save his hair. This sole relic the ladies of Warwick +made prize of, and braided it into rings and brooches for their own +adornment; and thus, with a chapel and a ponderous tomb built on purpose +to protect his remains, this great nobleman could not help being brought +untimely to the light of day, nor even keep his love-locks on his skull +after he had so long done with love. There seems to be a fatality that +disturbs people in their sepulchres, when they have been over-careful to +render them magnificent and impregnable,--as witness the builders of +the Pyramids, and Hadrian, Augustus, and the Scipios, and most other +personages whose mausoleums have been conspicuous enough to attract the +violator; and as for dead men's hair, I have seen a lock of King Edward +the Fourth's, of a reddish-brown color, which perhaps was once twisted +round the delicate forefinger of Mistress Shore. + +The direct lineage of the renowned characters that lie buried in this +splendid chapel has long been extinct. The earldom is now held by +the Grevilles, descendants of the Lord Brooke who was slain in the +Parliamentary War; and they have recently (that is to say, within +a century) built a burial-vault on the other side of the church, +calculated (as the sexton assured me, with a nod as if be were pleased) +to afford suitable and respectful accommodation to as many as fourscore +coffins. Thank Heaven, the old man did not call them "CASKETS"!--a vile +modern phrase, which compels a person of sense and good taste to shrink +more disgustfully than ever before from the idea of being buried at +all. But as regards those eighty coffins, only sixteen have as yet +been contributed; and it may be a question with some minds, not merely +whether the Grevilles will hold the earldom of Warwick until the +full number shall be made up, but whether earldoms and all manner of +lordships will not have faded out of England long before those many +generations shall have passed from the castle to the vault. I hope not. +A titled and landed aristocracy, if anywise an evil and an incumbrance, +is so only to the nation which is doomed to bear it on its shoulders; +and an American, whose sole relation to it is to admire its picturesque +effect upon society, ought to be the last man to quarrel with what +affords him so much gratuitous enjoyment. Nevertheless, conservative +as England is, and though I scarce ever found an Englishman who seemed +really to desire change, there was continually a dull sound in my ears +as if the old foundations of things were crumbling away. Some time or +other,--by no irreverent effort of violence, but, rather, in spite of +all pious efforts to uphold a heterogeneous pile of institutions that +will have outlasted their vitality,--at some unexpected moment, there +must come a terrible crash. The sole reason why I should desire it to +happen in my day is, that I might be there to see! But the ruin of my +own country is, perhaps, all that I am destined to witness; and that +immense catastrophe (though I am strong in the faith that there is a +national lifetime of a thousand years in us yet) would serve any man +well enough as his final spectacle on earth. + +If the visitor is inclined to carry away any little memorial of Warwick, +he had better go to an Old Curiosity Shop in the High Street, where +there is a vast quantity of obsolete gewgaws, great and small, and many +of them so pretty and ingenious that you wonder how they came to be +thrown aside and forgotten. As regards its minor tastes, the world +changes, but does not improve; it appears to me, indeed, that there have +been epochs of far more exquisite fancy than the present one, in matters +of personal ornament, and such delicate trifles as we put upon a +drawing-room table, a mantel-piece, or a what-not. The shop in question +is near the East Gate, but is hardly to be found without careful +search, being denoted only by the name of "REDFERN," painted not very +conspicuously in the top-light of the door. Immediately on entering, we +find ourselves among a confusion of old rubbish and valuables, ancient +armor, historic portraits, ebony cabinets inlaid with pearl, tall, +ghostly clocks, hideous old China, dim looking-glasses in frames of +tarnished magnificence,--a thousand objects of strange aspect, and +others that almost frighten you by their likeness in unlikeness to +things now in use. It is impossible to give an idea of the variety of +articles, so thickly strewn about that we can scarcely move without +overthrowing some great curiosity with a crash, or sweeping away some +small one hitched to our sleeves. Three stories of the entire house are +crowded in like manner. The collection, even as we see it exposed to +view, must have been got together at great cost; but the real treasures +of the establishment lie in secret repositories, whence they are not +likely to be drawn forth at an ordinary summons; though, if a gentleman +with a competently long purse should call for them, I doubt not that +the signet-ring of Joseph's friend Pharaoh, or the Duke of Alva's +leading-staff, or the dagger that killed the Duke of Buckingham, or +any other almost incredible thing, might make its appearance. Gold +snuff-boxes, antique gems, jewelled goblets, Venetian wine-glasses, +(which burst when poison is poured into them, and therefore must not be +used for modern wine-drinking,) jasper-handled knives, painted Sevres +teacups,--in short, there are all sorts of things that a virtuoso +ransacks the world to discover. + +It would be easier to spend a hundred pounds in Mr. Redfern's shop than +to keep it in one's pocket; but, for my part, I contented myself with +buying a little old spoon of silver-gilt, and fantastically shaped, and +got it at all the more reasonable rate because there happened to be no +legend attached to it. I could supply any deficiency of that kind at +much less expense than re-gilding the spoon! + + * * * * * + + +LYRICS OF THE STREET. + + +III. + +THE CHARITABLE VISITOR. + + + She carries no flag of fashion, her clothes are but passing plain, + Though she comes from a city palace all jubilant with her reign. + She threads a bewildering alley, with ashes and dust thrown out, + And fighting and cursing children, who mock as she moves about. + + Why walk you this way, my lady, in the snow and slippery ice? + These are not the shrines of virtue,--here misery lives, and vice: + Rum helps the heart of starvation to a courage bold and bad; + And women are loud and brawling, while men sit maudlin and mad. + + I see in the corner yonder the boy with the broken arm, + And the mother whose blind wrath did it, strange guardian from childish + harm. + That face will grow bright at your coming, but your steward might come + as well, + Or better the Sunday teacher that helped him to read and spell. + + Oh! I do not come of my willing, with froward and restless feet; + I have pleasant tasks in my chamber, and friends well-beloved to greet. + To follow the dear Lord Jesus I walk in the storm and snow; + Where I find the trace of His footsteps, there lilies and roses grow. + + He said that to give was blessed, more blessed than to receive; + But what could He take, dear angels, of all that we had to give, + Save a little pause of attention, and a little thrill of delight, + When the dead were waked from their slumbers, and the blind recalled to + sight? + + Say, the King came forth with the morning, and opened His palace-doors, + Thence flinging His gifts like sunbeams that break upon marble floors; + But the wind with wild pinions caught them, and carried them round + about: + Though I looked till mine eyes were dazzled, I never could make them out. + + But He bade me go far and find them, "go seek them with zeal and pain; + The hand is most welcome to me that brings me mine own again; + And those who follow them farthest, with faithful searching and sight, + Are brought with joy to my presence, and sit at my feet all night." + + So, hither and thither walking, I gather them broadly cast; + Where yonder young face doth sicken, it may be the best and last. + In no void or vague of duty I come to his aid to-day; + I bring God's love to his bed-side, and carry God's gift away. + + + + +MR. AXTELL. + +PART V. + + +"Miss Anna! Miss Anna! Doctor Percival is waiting for you," were the +opening words of the next day's life. Its bells had had no influence in +restoring me to consciousness of existence. I never have liked metallic +commanders. Now Jeffy's Ethiopian tones were inspiriting, and to their +music I began the mystic march of another day. + +Doctor Percival was not out of patience, it seemed, with waiting; for, +as I went in, he was so engrossed with a morning paper that he did not +even look up, or notice me, until I made myself vocal, and then only to +say,-- + +"Ring for breakfast, Anna; I shall have done by the time it comes." + +"It is here, father"; and he dropped the newspaper, turned his chair to +the table, leaned his arms upon it, covered his precious face with two +thin, quivering hands, and remained thus, whilst I prepared coffee, and +lingered as long as possible in the seeming occupation. + +Jeffy--and I suspect that the mischievous African designed the +act--overturned the coffee in handing it to my father, who is not +endowed with the most equable temper ever consigned to mortals; but this +morning he did not give Jeffy even a severe look, for his eyes were full +of tender pity, such as I had never seen in them in all the past. + +"How is your patient?" I asked. + +"Better, thank God!" he replied. + +"Were you with him all night?" + +"Yes, all night. I must go out this morning to see some patients. I'll +send up a nurse from the hospital on my way. I don't think the delirium +will return before mid-day; can you watch him till then, Anna?"--and +he asked with a seeming doubt either of my willingness or my ability, +perhaps a mingling of both. + +I did not like to recount my serious failures with Miss Axtell, but I +answered,-- + +"I will try." + +Before he went, he took me in to the place of my watching. The gentleman +was asleep. The housekeeper was quite willing to relinquish her office. +The good physician gave me orders concerning the febrifuge to be +administered in case of increase of febrile symptoms, and saying that +"it wouldn't be long ere some one came to relieve me," he bent over the +sleeping patient for an instant, and the next was gone. + +I think a half-hour must have fled in silence, when Jeffy stole in, his +eyes opening as Chloe's had done not many days agone, when the vision +of myself was painted thereon. I upheld a cautionary index, and he was +still as a mouse, but like a mouse he proceeded to investigate; he +opened a bureau-drawer the least way, and pushing his arm in where my +laces were wont to dwell, he drew out, with exultant delight, the wig +before mentioned. + +"What _do_ you s'pose _he_ wants with this thing'?" whispered Jeffy; and +he pointed to the soft, fair masses of curling hair that rested against +the pillow. + +Jeffy was a spoiled boy,--"my doing," everybody said, and it may +have been truly. He was Chloe's son, and had inherited her ways and +affectionate heart, and for these I forgave him much. + +I said, "Hush!"--whereupon he lifted up the wig and deposited it upon +the top of his tangled circlets of hair before I could stay him. + +I reached out my hand for it, not venturing on words, for fear of +disturbing the patient; but Jeffy, with unpardonable wilfulness, danced +out of my circuit, and at the same instant the sick man turned his head, +and beheld Jeffy in the possession of his property. Jeffy looked very +repentant, said in low, deprecatory tones, "I'm sorry," and, depositing +the wig in the drawer, hastened to escape, which I know he would not +have done but for the disabled condition of the invalid, who could only +look his wrath. I had so hoped that he would sleep until some one came; +but this unfortunate Jeffy had dissipated my hope, and left me in +pitiable dilemma. + +In the vain endeavor to restore the scattered influence of Morpheus, +I flew to one of the aids of the mystic god, and beseeching its +assistance, I prepared to administer the draught. I could not find a +spoon on the instant. When I did, I made a mistake in dropping the +opiate, and was obliged to commence anew, and all the while that +handsome face, with large, pleading eyes in it, held me in painful +duress. When I turned towards him and held the glass to his lips, I +trembled, as I had not done, even in the church, when Abraham Axtell and +I stood before the opened entrance into earth. All the words that I that +day had heard in the tower were ringing like clarions in the air, and +they shook me with their vibrant forces. + +"Am _I_ in heaven?" + +It was the same voice that had said to Miss Axtell, "Will you send me +out again?" that spake these words. + +Was he going into delirium again? I was desirous of keeping him upon our +planet, and I said,-- + +"Oh, no,--they don't need morphine in heaven." + +"They need _you_ there, though. You must go _now_," he said; and he made +an effort to take the glass from my hand. + +"I have never been in heaven," I said. + +"Then they deceive, they deceive, and there isn't any heaven! Oh, what +if after all there shouldn't be such a place?" + +He lifted up his one usable hand in agony. + +"We wait until we die, before going there," I said; "I am alive, don't +you see?" + +"Alive, and not dead? you! whom I killed eighteen years ago, have you +come to reproach me now? Oh, I have suffered, even to atonement, for it! +You would pardon, if you only knew what I have suffered for you." + +Surely delirium had returned. I urged the poor man to take the contents +of the glass. + +He promised, upon condition of my forgiveness,--forgiveness for having +killed me, who never had been killed, who was surely alive. Jeffy had +come in again, and had listened to the pleading. + +"Why don't you tell him yes, Miss Anna? He doesn't know a word he's +sayin'. It'll keep him quiet like; he's like a baby," he whispered, with +a covert pull at my dress by way of impressment. + +And so, guided by Chloe's boy, I said, "I forgive." + +"Why don't you go, if you forgive me? I don't like to keep you here, +when you belong up there"; and he pointed his words by the aid of his +available hand. + +I knew then _why_ Miss Axtell had loved this man: it was simply one of +those cruel, compulsory offerings up of self, that allure one, in open +sight of torture, on to the altar. Oh, poor woman! why hath thy Maker +so forsaken thee? And in mute wonder at this most wondrous wrong, that +crept into mortal life when the serpent went out through Eden and +left an opening in the Garden, I forgot for the while my present +responsibility, in compassionate pity for the pale, beautiful lady in +Redleaf, into whose heart this man had come,--unwillingly, I knew, when +I looked into his face, and yet, _having come, must grow into its Eden, +even unto the time that Eternity shadows;_ and I sent out the arms of my +spirit, and twined them invisibly around her, who truly had spoken when +she said, "I want you," with such hungry tones. God, the Infinite, +has given me comprehension of such women, has given me His own loving +pity,--in little human grains, it is true, but they come from "the +shining shore." "Miss Axtell does want me," I thought; "she is right,--I +am gladness to her." + +"Will you go?" came from the invalid. + +"A woman, loving thus, never comes alone into a friend's heart," +something said; "you must receive her shadow"; and I looked at the +person who had said, "Will you go?" + +There are various words used in the dictionary of life, descriptive +of men such as him now before me. They mostly are formed in syllables +numbering four and five, which all integrate in the one word +_irresistible_: how pitifully I abhor that word!--every letter has a +serpent-coil in it. "Love thy neighbor even as thyself." It is good that +these words came just here to wall themselves before the torrent that +might not have been stayed until I had laid the mountain of my thought +upon the sycophantic syllabication that the world loves to "lip" unto +the world,--the false world, that, blinded, blinds to blinder blindness +those that fain would behold. There is a crying out in the earth for +a place of torment; there are sins for which we want what God hath +prepared for the wicked. + +"Are you going?"--and this time there was plaintive moaning in the +accents. + +"You must take him in, too," my spirit whispered; and I acted the "I +will" that formed in the mental court where my soul sat enthroned,--my +own judge. + +"Oh, no, I am not going away," I said; "I am come to stay with you, +until some one else comes." + +A certain resignment of opposition seemed to be effected. I knew it +would be so,--it is in all such natures,--and he seemed intent upon +making atonement for his imaginary wrong, since I would stay. + +"Mary, I didn't mean to kill you," he said; "I wouldn't have destroyed +your young life; oh! I wouldn't;--but I did! I did!" + +"You make some strange mistake; you ought not to talk," I urged, +surprised at this second time being called Mary. + +"Yes, I guess 'twas a mistake,--you're right, all a mistake,--I didn't +mean to kill you; but I did _him_, though. Oh! I wanted to destroy +him,--_he hadn't any pity, he wouldn't yield_. But it's _you_, Mary, +_you_ oughtn't to hear me say such things of _him_." + +"I am not Mary, I am Miss Percival; and you may tell me." + +"I beg pardon, I had no right to call you Mary; but it is there, now, on +your tomb-stone in the old church-yard,--Mary Percival,--there isn't any +Miss there. Do they call you Miss Percival in heaven?"--and he began to +sing, deep, stirring songs of rhythmic melody, that catch up individual +existences and bear them to congregated continents, where mountains sing +and seas respond, amid the _encore_ of starry spheres. + +O Music! if we could but divine thee, dear divinity, thou mightst be +less divine! then let us be content to be divinized in thee!--and I was. +I let him sing, knowing that it was in delirium; and for the moment my +wonder ceased concerning Miss Axtell's love for Herbert. + +This while, Jeffy stood speechless, transfused into melody. Whence came +this love of Africans for harmonious measure? Oh, I remember: the scroll +of song whereon were written the accents of the joyed morning-stars, +when they grew jubilant that earth stood create, was let fall by an +angel upon Afric's soil. No one of the children of the land was found of +wisdom sufficient to read the hieroglyphs; therefore the sacred roll was +divided among the souls in the nation: unto each was given one note from +the divine whole. + +"Jeffy must have received a semi-breve as his portion," I thought, for +he was rapt in ecstasy. + +"Oh, sing again!" he said, unconsciously, when, exhausted, the invalid +reached the shore of Silence,--where he did not long linger, for he +changed his song to lament that he could not reach his ship, that would +sail before he could recover; and he made an effort to rise. He fell +back, fainting. + +It seemed a great blessing that at this moment the housekeeper +introduced the person Doctor Percival had sent. + +That night, and for many after, it seemed, my father looked extremely +anxious. I did not see the patient again until the eventful twenty-fifth +of March was past. + +Two days only was I permitted for my visit. Would Miss Axtell expect me? +or had she, it might be, forgotten that she had asked my presence? + +My father had not forgotten the obligation of the ring of gold; he made +allusion to it in the moment of parting, and I felt it tightening about +me more and more as the miles of sea and land rolled back over our +separation; and a question, asked long ago and unanswered yet, was +repeated in my mental realm,--"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of +the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" and I said, "I will not +try." + +It was evening when I arrived at the parsonage. Sophie was full of sweet +sisterly joy on seeing me, and of surprise when I told her what had +occurred in our father's house. It was so unprecedented, this taking in +a stranger whose name and home were unknown; for I could not tell Sophie +my conviction that father had discovered who the patient was. + +"Miss Axtell is almost well." Sophie gave the information before I found +time to ask. "She pleases to be quite charming to me. I hope she will be +equally gracious to you." And so I hoped. + +From out the ark of the round year God sends some day-doves of summer +into the barren spring-time, to sing of coming joys and peck the buds +into opening. One of His sending brooded over Redleaf when I walked +forth in its morning-time to redeem my promise. + +"Miss Percival! I'm so glad!" + +Katie showed me into the room that once I had been so much afraid of. +She did not long leave me there. + +"Miss Lettie would like to see you in her room." + +Sophie was right. She is almost well. + +"Come!" was the sole word that met my entering in; then followed two +small acts, supposed to be conventionalities. Isn't it good that all +suppositions are _not_ based upon truth? I thought it good then. I hope +I may away on to the dawning of the new life. + +This was my first seeing of Miss Axtell in her self-light. She said,-- + +"This is the only day that I have been down in time for +breakfast,"--she, who looked as if the fair Dead-Sea fruits had been all +of sustenance that had dropped through the leaden waves for her; and +an emotion of awe swept past me, borne upon the renewal of the +consciousness that I had been made essential to her. + +"I knew that you would come," she continued. "Oh! I have great +confidence in you; you must never disappoint me,--will you?"--and, +playfully, she motioned me to the footstool where she had appointed me a +place on the first night when she told me of her mother, dead. + +I assured her that I should. I must begin that moment by mentioning the +time of my visit's duration. + +"How long?" and there was import in the tone of her voice. + +"I must be at home to-morrow morning." + +"No reprieve?" + +I answered, "None,"--and turned the circlet of obligation upon my +finger. + +"I am glad you told me; I like limits; I wish to know the precise moment +when my rainbows will disband. It's very nice, meeting Fate half-way; +there's consolation in knowing that it will have as far to go as you on +the return voyage." + +I smiled; a little inward ripple of gladness sent muscle-waves to my +lips. She noticed it, and her tone changed. + +"I see, I see, my good little Anemone! You don't know how exultant it +is to stand alone, above the forest of your fellows,--to lift up your +highest bough of feeling,--to meet the Northland's fiercest courser that +thinks to lay you low. Did you ever turn to see the expression with +which the last leap of wind is met, the peculiar suavity of the bowing +of the boughs, that says as plainly as ever did speaking leaves, '_You +have left me myself_'? You don't understand these things, you small +wind-flower, that have grown sheltered from all storms!" + +"One would think not, Miss Axtell, but"--and I paused until she bade me +"Go on." + +"Perhaps it is vanity,--I hope not,--but it seems to me that I have a +mirror of all Nature set into the frame of my soul. It isn't a part of +myself; it is a mental telescope, that resolves the actions of all the +people around me into myriads of motives, atomies of inducement, that I +see woven and webbed around them, by the sight-power given. Besides, I +am not an anemone,--oh, no! I am something more substantial." + +"I see, very"; and before I could divine her intent, she had lifted up +my face in both her hands and held my eyes in her own intensity of gaze, +as, oh, long ago! I remember my mother to have done, when she doubted my +perfect truth. + +Miss Axtell was engaged in looking over old treasured letters, bits of +memory-memoranda, when I arrived. She had laid them aside to greet me, +somewhat hastily, and a rustling commotion testified their feeling at +their summary disposal. Now she sat framed in by the yellow-and-white +foam, that had settled to motionlessness,--an island in the midst of +waves of memory. + +"Did you bring my treasures?" were the first words, after investigating +my truth. + +"They are safely here." + +I gave the package. + +She made no mention of former occurrences. She trusted me implicitly, +with that far-deep of confidence that says, "Explanation would be +useless; your spirit recognizes mine." She only said, drooping her regal +head with the slightest dip into motion,-- + +"I want to tell you a story; it is of people who are, some in heaven and +some upon the earth;--a story with which you must have something to do +for me, because I cannot do it for myself. I did not intend telling so +soon, but my disbanded rainbow lies in the future." + +Before commencing, she wandered up and down the room a little, stopped +before the dressing-bureau, brushed back the hair, with many repetitions +of stroke, from the temples wherein so much of worship had been +gathered, smoothed down the swollen arches of veinery that fretted +across either temple's dome, looked one moment into the censers of +incense that burned always with emotionary fires, flashed out a little +superabundant flame into the cold quicksilver, turned the key, fastening +our two selves in, examined the integrity of the latch leading into the +dressing-room beyond, threw up the window-sash,--the same one that Mr. +Axtell had lifted to look out into the night for her,--asked, "should I +be cold, if she left it open?" looked contentment at my negative answer, +rolled the lounge out to where her easy-chair was still vibrating in +memory of her late presence, made me its occupant, reached out for the +package over which I had been guardian, pinioned it between her two +beautiful hands, laid it down one moment to wrap a shawl around me, +then, resuming it, sat where she had when she said, "I want to tell you +a story," and perhaps she was praying. I may never know, but it was many +moments before she made answer to my slight touch, "Yes, child, I have +not forgotten," and with face hidden from me she told me her story. + + +MISS AXTELL'S STORY. + + +"Alice Axtell was my sister. Eighteen years ago last August-time she was +here. + +"There has been beauty in the Axtell race; in her it was radiant. It +would have been truth to say, 'She is beautiful.' + +"I said that it was August-time,--the twenty-seventh day of the month. +Alice and I had been out in the little bay outside of Redcliff beach, +with your sister. You don't remember her: she was like you. Doctor +Percival had given Mary a boat, taught her to row it, and she had that +afternoon given Alice a first lesson in the art. The day went down hot +and sultry; we lingered on the cooler beach until near evening. We +saw clouds lying dark along the western horizon, and that voiceless +lightnings played in them. Then we came home. The air was tiresome, the +walk seemed endless; still Alice and Mary lingered at the gate of your +father's house to say their last words. The mid-summer weariness was +over us both, as we reached home. We came up to this room,--our room +then. Alice said,-- + +"'I think I shall go to bed, I'm so tired.' + +"She closed the blinds. As she did so, a crash of thunder came. + +"'We're going to have a thunder-shower, after all,' she said; 'how +quickly it is coming up! Come and see.' + +"I looked a moment out. Jet masses of vapor were curling up amid the +stars, blotting out, one by one, their brightness from the sky. Alice +was always timid in thunder-storms. She shuddered, as a second flash +pealed out its thunder, and crept up to me. I put my arms around her, +and rested my cheek against her head. She was trembling violently. + +"'Lie down, Allie; let me close the other blinds; don't look out any +longer.' + +"Our mother came in. + +"'I came to see if the windows were all down,' she said; 'it will rain +in a moment'; and she hurried away, and I heard her closing, one after +another, the windows that had been all day open. + +"Alice lay for a long time quietly. The storm uprose with fearful might; +it shook the house in its passing grasp, and I sat by this table, +listening to the music wrought out of the thunderous echoes. + +"'Couldn't we have a window open?' Alice asked; 'I feel stifled in +here'; and she went across the room and lifted the sash before I was +aware. + +"I looked around, when I heard the noise. The same instant there came a +blinding, dazzling light; then, that awful vacuous rattle in the throat +of thunder that tells it comes in the name of Death the destroyer. + +"'Oh, Allie, come away!' I screamed. + +"In obedience to my wish, she leaned towards me; but, oh, her face! I +caught her, ere she fell, even. I sent out the wings of my voice, but no +one heard me, no one came. I could not lift her in my arms, so I laid +her upon the floor, and ran down. + +"'Go to Alice,--the lightning!' was all I could say, and it was enough. +I heard groans before I gained the street. + +"My pale, silent sister was stronger than the storm which flapped its +wings around me and threatened to take me to its eyry; but it did not; +it permitted me to gain Doctor Percival's door. I was dazzled with the +lightning, only my brain was distinct with 'its skeleton of woe,' when I +found myself in your father's house. + +"I could not see the faces that were there. I asked for Doctor Percival. +Some one answered, 'He is not come home. What has happened?' and Mary +ran forward in alarm. + +"'It is lightning! Oh, come!' was all that I could utter; and with me +there went out into the pouring rain every soul that was there when I +went in. + +"'She is dead; there is nothing to be done.' + +"Three hours after the stroke, these words came. Then I looked up. +Alice, with her little white face of perfect beauty, lay upon that bed. +Thunder-storms would never more make her tremble, never awake to fear +the spirit gone. It was Doctor Percival from whom these fateful words +came. I had had so much hope! In very desperation of feeling, I strove +to look up to his face. My eyes were arrested before they reached him. + +"'By what?' did you ask?" + +Her long silence had incited me to question, and she turned her face to +me, and slowly said,-- + +"By the Lightning of Life. + +"Two sisters, in one night,--one unto Death, the other unto Life. Beside +Doctor Percival was standing one. I do not know what he was like, I +cannot tell you; but, believe me, it is solemnly true, that, that +instant, this human being flashed into my heart and soul. I saw, and +felt, and have heard the rolling thunder that followed the flash to this +very hour. It was very hard, over my Alice. If I had only been she, how +much, how much happier it would have been!--and yet it must have been +wiser. She could not have endured to the end. She would have failed in +the bitterness of the trial. + +"My Alice! I am devoutly thankful that you are safe in heaven!"--and for +a moment the hands were lifted up from the treasured packet; they closed +over it, and she went on. + +"Alice was wrapped up in earth. In the moment when the first fold of the +clod-mantle, that trails about us all at the last, fell protectingly +over her, I was in that condition of superlative misery that cries out +for something to the very welkin that sends down such harsh hardness; +and I hurried my eyes out of the open grave, only to find them again +arrested by the same soul that had stood beside Doctor Percival and +Alice in her death. They said something to me, kinder than ever came out +of the blue vault, and yet they awoke the fever of resistance. I would +have no thought but that of Alice. What right had any other to come in +then and there? + +"September came. Its days brought my sorrow to me ever anew. The early +dew baptized it; the great sun laid his hot hand upon its brow and named +it Death, in the name of the Mighty God; and the evening stars looked +down on me, rocking Alice in my soul, and singing lamentful lullabies +to her, sleeping, till such time as Lethean vapors curled through the +horizon of my mind, and hid its formless shadows of suffering. + +"Mary Percival was Alice's best friend; as such, she came to comfort and +to mourn with me. One day, it was the latest of September's thirty, Mary +lured me on to the sea-shore, and into her small boat once more. Little +echoes of gladness sprang up from the sea; voices from Alice's silence +floated on the unbroken waves. + +"'You look a little like yourself again; I'm so glad to see it!' Mary +said. 'There comes Mr. McKey. I wonder what brings him here.' + +"I looked up, and saw, slowly walking on to the point at which Mary was +securing her boat, the possessor of the existence that had come into +mine. There was no way for me to flee, except seaward; and of two +suicides I chose the pleasanter, and I stayed. + +"'Who is it, Mary?' I had time to question, and she to answer. + +"'It is Bernard McKey; he has come to study medicine in papa's office; +he came the night Alice died.' + +"He was too near to permit of questioning more, and so I stood upon the +seashore and saw my fate coming close. + +"Mary simply said, 'Good evening,' to him, followed by the requisite +introductory words that form the basis of acquaintance. + +"'I think Miss Axtell and I scarcely need an introduction,' he said; +nevertheless he looked the pleasure it had strewed into his field, and +guarded it, as a careful husbandman would choicest seed. + +"He asked the style of question which monosyllables can never answer, to +which responding, one has to offer somewhat of herself; and all the +time of that sombre autumn, there grew from out the chasm of the +lightning-stroke luxuriant foliage. I gave it all the resistance of my +nature, yet I knew, as the consumptive knows, that I should be conquered +by my conqueror. It was only the old story of the captive polishing +chains to wear them away; and yet Mr. McKey was simply very civil and +intentionally kind, where he might have been courteously indifferent. +Abraham was away when Bernard McKey came to Redleaf. For more than +twelve months this terrible something had been working its power into +my soul. Yet we were not lovers,"--and Miss Axtell made the +_pronunciamiento_ as if she held the race mentioned in utmost +veneration. "Day by day brought to me new reasons why Bernard McKey must +be unto me only a medical student in Doctor Percival's office, and the +stars sealed all that the day had done; whilst no night of sky was +without a wandering comet, whereon was inscribed, in letters that +flashed every way, the sentence that came with the lightning-stroke; +even storms drowned it not; winter's cold did not freeze it. Verily, +little friend, _I know that God had put it into Creation for me, and yet +there seemed His own law written against it_"; and Miss Axtell's tones +grew very soft and tremulously low, as she said,-- + +"Mr. McKey had faults that could not, existing in action, make any woman +happy: do you think happiness was meant for woman?" + +She waited my answer in the same way that she had done when she was +ill and asked if I liked bitters concealed. She waited as long without +reply. The pause grew oppressive, and I spanned it by an assurance of +individual possessive happiness. + +"Anemones never know which way the wind blows, until it comes down close +to the ground," she said; "but souls which are on bleak mountain-summits +_must_ watch whirlwinds, poised in space, and note their airy march. So +I saw, clearly cut into the rock of the future, my own face, with all +the lines and carvings wrought into it that the life of Bernard McKey +would chisel out, and I only waited. I might have waited on forever, for +Mr. McKey had not cast one pebbly word that must send up wavy ripples +from deep spirit-waters; he only wandered, as any other might have +done, upon the shore of my life, along its quiet, dewy sands, above its +chalk-cliffs, and by the side of its green, sloping shores. He never +questioned why rose and fell the waves; he never went down where 'tide, +the moon-slave, sleeps,' to find the foundations of my heart's mainland. +I had only seen him standing at times, as one sees a person upon a +ship's deck, peering off over Earth's blue ocean-cheek, simply in mute, +solemn wonder at what may be beyond, without one wish to speed the ship +on. + +"It might have been forever thus, but Abraham came home. He is my +brother, you know. If he made me suffer, he has been made to suffer +with me. Bernard McKey was Doctor Percival's favorite. He made him his +friend, and was everything to him that friend could be. I cannot tell +you my story without mention of my brother, he has been so woven into +every part of it. An unaccountable fancy for the study of medicine +developed itself in his erratic nature soon after he came home; and he +relinquished his brilliant prospects and devoted himself to the little +white office near Doctor Percival's house, with Bernard McKey for his +hourly companion. The two had scarce a thought in common: one was +impulsive, prone to throw himself on the stream of circumstance, to waft +with the wind, and blossom with the spring; the other was the great +mountain-pine, distilling the same aroma in all atmospheres, extending +fibrous roots against Nature's granite, whenceever it comes up. How +could the two harmonize? They could not, and a time of trial came. We +knew, before it came, why Doctor Percival's little white office held +Abraham so many hours in the day. It was because the Mountain-Pine found +in the moss of Redleaf the sweet Trailing-Arbutus." + +She asked me if I knew the flower; and when I answered her with my words +of love of it, she said, "she had always thought it was one of Eden's +own bits of blossomry, that, missing man from the hallowed grounds, +crept out to know his fate, and, finding him so forlornly unblest, had +sacrificed its emerald leaves, left in the Garden, and, creeping into +mosses, lived, waiting for man's redemption. We used to call Mary +'The Arbutus,' and it was pleasant to see the great rough branches of +Abraham's nature drooping down, more and more, toward the pink-and-white +pale flower that looked into the sky, from a level as lofty as the +Pine's highest crown. Abraham goes out to search for the type of Mary +every spring"; and rising, she brought to me the waxen buds that were +yet unopened. + +I took them in my hands, with the same feeling that I would have done a +tress of Mary's hair, or a fragment that she had handled. I think Miss +Axtell divined this feeling; for she cautiously opened the door leading +into her brother's room, and finding that he was not there, she bade me +"come and see." It was Mary's portrait that once more I looked upon; +framed in a wreath of the trailing-arbutus, it was hanging just where he +could look at it at night, as I my strange tower-key. + +We went back. Miss Axtell closed the sash; she was looking weary and +pale. I was afraid she would suffer harm from the continued recital. She +said "No," to my fear,--that "it must all be spoken now, once, and that +forever,"--and I listened unto the story's end. + +"One year had passed since Alice's death before Abraham's coming. +Another had almost fled before the eventful time when I began to feel +the weight of my cross. I know not how it came to Abraham's knowledge +that Bernard McKey felt in his soul my presence. I only know that +he came home one night, with a storm of rage whitening his lips and +furrowing his forehead. He came up here, where I was sitting. I had +watched his figure coming through tree-openings from Doctor Percival's +house, and mingled with the memories of the fair young girl whom I had +seen dead by lightning were fears for Mary Percival. For several days +she had been ill, and I knew that Abraham felt anxious; therefore I did +not wonder at his hasty coming in and instant seeking of me. He came +quite close. He wound his face in between me and the darkening sky; he +whispered hoarsely,-- + +"'Do you care for him?' + +"'What is it, Abraham?' I asked, startled by his words and manner, but +with not the faintest idea of the meaning entering in with his words. + +"'Bernard McKey, is he anything to you?' + +"'You've no right to question me thus,' I said. + +"'And you will not answer me?' + +"'I will not, Abraham.' + +"The next morning Abraham was gone. He had not told me of his intended +absence. He had only left a note, stating the time of his return. + +"It was a week ere he came. Mary had not improved in his absence, yet no +one deemed her very ill. + +"I dreaded Abraham's coming home, because he had left me in silent +anger; but how could I have replied to his question otherwise than I +did? No one, not Mr. McKey himself, had asked me; and should I give him, +my brother, my answer first? + +"Lazily the village-clock swung out the hours that summer's afternoon. +The stroke of three awakened me. I had not seen Mary that day. + +"'I would go and see her,' I decided. + +"'She was sleeping, the dear child,' Chloe said. 'She would come and +tell me when she was awake, if I would wait.' + +"I said that I would stay awhile, and I wandered out under the shade of +the great whispering trees, to wait the waking hour. + +"I remember the events of that afternoon, as Mary and Martha must have +remembered the day on which Lazarus came up from the grave unto them. + +"The air was still, save a humming in the very tree-tops that must have +been only echoes tangled there, breezes that once blew past. The long +grape-arbor at the end of the lawn looked viny and cool. I walked up and +down under the green archway, until Chloe's words summoned me. + +"Mary was 'better,' she said; 'a few days, and she should feel quite +strong, she hoped'; but she looked weary, and I only waited a little +while, until her father and mother came in, and then I went. + +"Mr. McKey was sitting in the door of the little white office. He came +out to meet me ere I had reached the street,--asked if I was on my way +home. + +"I said 'Yes,' with the lazy sort of languor born of the indolence of +the hour. + +"'Have you energy enough for a walk to the sea-shore?' he asked. + +"It had been my wish that very day. I had not been there since Mary's +illness. I hesitated in giving an answer. Abraham would be home at +sunset. + +"'Don't go, if it is only to please me,' he said. + +"'I am going to please myself,' I answered; 'only I wish to be at home +on Abraham's coming.' + +"That afternoon, Bernard McKey for the first time told me of himself, +and what the two years in Redleaf had done for him. One month more, and +he should leave it. He put into words the memory of that first look +across the dead. He talked to me, until the sea lost its sunlight +sheen,--until I no longer heard its beat of incoming tide,--until I +forgot the hour for Abraham's coming. It was he who reminded me of it. +Once more we paced the sands, already sown with our many footsteps, +that the advancing waters would soon overwhelm. After that we went +village-ward. The gloaming had come down when we reached home. + +"'Abraham must have been an hour here,' I thought, as alone I went in. + +"He met me in the hall. + +"'Where have you been, Lettie?' was his greeting. + +"'On the sands.' + +"'Not alone?' + +"'No, Abraham; Bernard McKey has been with me.' + +"'By what right?' he demanded, with that mighty power of voice that is +laid up within him for especial occasions. + +"'By the right that I gave him, by the right that is his to walk with +me,' I said; for I grew defiant, and felt a renewal of strength, enough +to tell Abraham the truth. + +"Don't start so, Anemone," she said to me. "You think defiance +unwomanly, and so do I; but it was for once only, and I felt that my +brother had no right to question me. + +"But one word came from his lips, as he confronted me there, with folded +arms; it was,-- + +"'When?' + +"'This very afternoon, Abraham.' + +"Mother came out at the moment. She saw the cloud on Abraham's brow even +in the dim light. She asked, 'What is it?' and Abraham answered us both +at the same time. + +"He had been to the home of Bernard McKey. He proved to my mother's +utmost satisfaction that her daughter had no right to care for one like +Bernard McKey. He did not know the right that came on that night almost +two years before. He saw that his proofs were idle to me; but he said +'he had another, one that I would accept, for I was an Axtell.' + +"'Yes, Abraham, I am an Axtell, and I shall prove my right to the name, +come what will'; and without waiting to hear more, I glided into the +darkness up-stairs. + +"For a long time I heard mother and Abraham talking together; it seemed +as if they would never cease. At last, mother sent up to know if I was +not coming to take my tea. I had forgotten its absence till then. I went +down. A half-hour later, during which time a momentous mist of silence +hung over the house, I heard steps approaching. You know that it was +summer time, and the windows were all thrown open, after the heat of the +day. I had been wondering where every one was gone. I recognized both of +the comers, as their footsteps fell upon the walk, but I heard no words. +Oh, would there had been none to come! I heard Abraham go on up the +stairs, and knew that he was searching for me. I knew who had come in +with him, and I arose from my concealment in the unlighted library, and +went into the parlor. It was Mr. McKey who sat there. + +"'What is it?' I asked,--for a gnome of ill was walking up and down in +my brain, as we had walked on the sands so few hours before. + +"'What is it? I don't know,' he said. 'Your brother asked me to come +over for a few minutes.' + +"Evidently Abraham had not shown him one coal of the fire that burned +under his cool seeming. That is the way with these mountain pine-trees: +one never knows how deep into volcanic fires their roots are plunged. + +"'Something has happened,' I whispered. 'Whatever comes, bear it +bravely.' + +"He laughed, a low, rippling laugh, like the breaking up of ever so many +songs all at once; and the notes had not floated down to rest, when +mother and Abraham came in. Mr. McKey arose to greet my mother. She +stood proudly erect, her regal head unbending, her eyes straight on, +into an endless future, in which he must have no part,--that I saw. +Whatever he discerned there, he, too, stood before her and my brother. +Abraham handed me a letter, saying, 'Read that, for your proof.' + +"And I read. The letter bore the signature of Bernard McKey. The date +was the night of Alice's death. The words descriptive of the scene +chiselled into my brain were on that fair paper-surface; and there were +others, words which only one man may write to one woman. I read it on to +the end. + +"'You are right, Abraham,' I said, 'and I thank you for my proof'; and +without one word for the pale, handsome face that stood beseechingly +between me and the great future, through which I gazed, I went forth +alone into the starry night. Anywhere, to be alone with God, leaving +that trio of souls in there; and as I fled past the windows, I heard my +mother speak terrible words to one that was, yes, even then, myself. +Some angel must have come down the starry way to guide me; for, without +seeking it, without consciousness of whither I fled, I found myself near +the old church, where, from the day of my solemn baptism within its +walls, I had gone up to the weekly worship. I crept up close to the +door. In the shadow there no one would see me; and so, upon the hard +stones, I writhed through the anguish of the fire and iceberg that made +war in my heart. + +"Then came unto me the old inheritance, the gift of towering pride; and +I said unto myself, 'No one shall think I sorrow; no one shall know that +an Axtell has sipped from a poisoned cup; no one shall see a leaf of +myrtle in my garden of life'; and from off the friendly granite steps +that had received me in my hour of bitterness, I went back to my home. + +"What, could have happened there, that I had not been missed? Father was +absent from Redleaf. Bernard McKey was coming down the walk. I hid in +the shrubbery, and let him pass. Oh, would that I had spoken to him, +then, there! It would have saved so much misery on the round globe! + +"But I did not. I stood breathless until he entered Doctor Percival's +house; then I waited a moment to determine my own course; I wanted to +gain my room undiscovered. I saw the same figure come out; I knew it by +the light that the open door threw around it; and a moment later, in the +still air,--I knew the sound, it was the unlocking of the little white +office. Then I stole in, and fled to my refuge. No one had discovered my +absence. + +"The night went by. I did not sleep. I did not weep,--oh, no! it was not +a case for tears; there are some sorrows that cannot be counted out in +drops; a flood comes, a great freshet rises in the soul, and whirls +spirit, mind, and body on, on, until the Mighty Hand comes down and +lifts the poor wreck out of the flood, and dries it in the sun of His +absorption. + +"It was morning at last. Slowly up the ascent, to heights of glory, +walked the stars, waving toward earth, as they went, their wafting of +golden light, and sending messages of love to the dark, round world, +over which they had kept such solemn watch,--sending them down, borne +by rays of early morning; and still I sat beside the window, where all +through the night I had suffered. My mother and Abraham had sought to +see me, but I had answered, with calm words, that I chose to be alone; +and they had left me there, and gone to their nightly rest." + +Miss Axtell hid her face a little while; then, lifting it up, she went +to the window so often mentioned, beckoned me thither, pointed to the +house where my life had commenced, to a door opening out on the eastern +side, and said,-- + +"I wish you to look at that door one moment; out of it came my doom that +midsummer's morning. Light had just gained ascendency over darkness, +when I saw Chloe come out. I knew instantly that something had happened +there. The poor creature crept out of the house,--I saw her go,--and +kneeling down behind that great maple-tree, she lifted up her arms to +heaven, and I heard, or thought I heard her, moaning. Then, whilst I +watched, she got up, looked over at our house, from window to window; +once more she raised her hands, as if invoking some power for help, and +went in. + +"I brushed back the hair that my fingers had idly threaded in unrest, +looked one moment, in the dim twilight of morning, to see what changes +my war-fare had wrought, then, cautiously, breathlessly, for fear of +awakening some one, I went out. The night-dew lay heavy on the lawn. I +heeded it not. I knew that trouble had come to Doctor Percival's house. +I went to the door that Chloe had opened. No one seemed awake; deep +stillness brooded over and in the dwelling. Could I have been mistaken? +Whilst I stood in doubt whether to go or stay, there came a long, +sobbing moan, that peopled the dwelling with woe. + +"It came from Mary's room. Thither I went. There stood Doctor and Mrs. +Percival beside Mary, and she--was dead. + +"I shudder now, as I did then, though eighteen years have rolled their +wheels of misery between,--shudder, as I look in memory into that room +again, and see your father standing in the awful grief that has no +voice, see your mother lifting up her words of moaning, up where I so +late had watched the feet of stars walking into heaven. I don't know how +long it was, I had lost the noting of time, but I remember growing into +rigidness. I remember Bernard McKey's wild, wretched face in the room; I +remember hearing him ask if it was all over. I remember Abraham's coming +in; I _felt_, when through his life the east-wind went, withering it up +within him. I do not know how I went home. I asked no questions. Mary +was dead; she had gone whither Alice went. It seemed little consolation +to me to ask when or how she died. + +"Father came home that day. Mother forgot me for Abraham: love of him +was her life. Father did not know, no one had told him, the events of +the night before; he thought me sorrowing for Mary, and so I was; my +grief seemed weak and small before this reality of sorrow. + +"It was late in the day, and I was trying to get some sleep, when Chloe +sent a request to see me. I had not seen her since I knew why she had +hid her suffering behind the tree in the morning. I saw that she had +something to say beside telling me of Mary; for she looked cautiously +around the room, as if fearing other ears might be there to hear. + +"'Oh! oh! Miss Lettie,' she said, 'I stayed with Miss Mary last night. I +must have gone to sleep when she went away; but I'm afraid, I'm afraid +it wasn't the sickness that killed her.' + +"'What then? what was it, Chloe?' I asked, whilst the tears fell fast +from her eyes. + +"'Doctor Percival gave her some medicine just afore he went to bed, +and she said she was "very sick"; she said so a good many times, Miss +Lettie, afore I went to sleep.' + +"'You don't think it was the medicine that killed her?'--for a horrible +thought had come in to me. + +"'I hope not, but I'm afraid'; and with a still lower, whispering tone, +and another frightened look about the room, Chloe took from under her +shawl a small cup. She held it up close to me, and her voice penetrated +with its meaning all the folds of my thought,--'Chloe's afraid Miss Mary +drank her death in here.' + +"'Give it to me,' I said; and I snatched at the cup. Catching it from +her, I looked into it. The draught had been taken; the sediment only lay +dried upon it. + +"'You think so, Chloe? How could it have been? You say Doctor Percival +gave it to her?' + +"She said that 'Mr. Abraham had been in to see her a little while,--only +a few moments. Something was the matter with him. Miss Mary talked, +just a few words; what they were she did not hear,--she was in the next +room,--only, when he went away, she heard her say, "Don't do it; you may +be wrong, and then you'll be sorry as long as you live"; and then +Mr. Abraham shut the door heavy-like and was gone. Afterwards Doctor +Percival came up,--said Miss Mary must sleep, she had more fever; asked +her so many kind questions, and was just going down to go to the office +for something to give her, when he met Master McKey coming in. I heard +my master ask him to go for it. And I doesn't know anything more, Miss +Lettie. I came to tell you.' + +"I asked her 'if she had told any one else? if any one had seen the +cup?' + +"She said, 'No'; and I made her promise me that she would never mention +it, never speak of it to any living soul. + +"She promised, and she has kept her promise faithfully to this day." + +I thought, at this pause in the story, of Chloe's hiding chloroform from +me. + +"I had myself seen Bernard McKey go out to the office that night. Had +he given poison to Mary Percival? And with the question the hot answer +came, 'Never!--he did not do it!' + +"Chloe went, leaving the cup with me. + +"I knew that I must see Bernard. How? The household were absorbed in +Abraham. His condition perilled his reason. Doctor Percival came over +every hour to see him, and I was sure that his hair whitened from time +to time. It was terrible to hear Abraham declaring that he had killed +Mary,--that he might have granted her request. And as often as his eyes +fell upon me, his words changed to, 'It was for you that I did it,--for +my sister!' And whilst all sorrowed and watched him, I sought my +opportunity. 'It would never come to me,' I thought, 'I must go to it'; +and under cover of looking upon the face of Mary, I went out to seek +Bernard. + +"We met before I reached the house; we should have passed in silence, +had I not spoken. It was the same hour as that in which we had come from +the sands the night before. What a horrible lifetime had intervened! I +said that 'I had some words for him.' He stood still in the air that +throbbed in waves over me. He was speechlessly calm just then. + +"'I expected no words after my judgment,' at length he said,--for I knew +not how to open my terrible theme; 'will you tell me on what evidence +you judge?' + +"What a trifle then seemed any merely human love in the presence of +Death! I was almost angry that he should once think of it. + +"'It is something of more importance than the human affection with which +you play,' I said. 'It is a life, the life of Mary Percival, that last +night went out,--and how? Was it by this cup?'--and I handed the cup to +him. + +"He looked simple amazement, as he would have done, had it been a rock +or flower; he did not offer to take it,--still I held it out. + +"'Will you examine the contents,' I asked, 'and report to me the +result?' + +"'Certainly I will, Miss Axtell,' he said; and with it he walked to the +office. + +"I watched him through the window. I saw him coolly apply various tests. +The third one seemed satisfactory. + +"He came to the door. I was very near, and went in + +"'This is nothing Miss Mary had,--it is poison,' he said. + +"He was innocent; I knew it in the very depth of my soul. How could I +tell him the deed his hand had done? But I must, and I did. I told him +how Chloe had brought the cup to me. When I had done, he said,-- + +"'You believe this of me?' + +"I answered,-- + +"'The cup is now in your hand; judge you of its work'; and I told him +how I had seen him come out the night before,--that I was in the +shrubbery when he went to the office. + +"The words of his answer came; they were iron in my heart, though spoken +not to me. + +"'O my God, why hast Thou let me do this?' he cried, and went past me +out of the little white office,--out, as I had done, into the open air, +in my sorrow, the night before. + +"I would not lose sight of him; I followed on; and, as I went, I thought +I heard a rustling in the leaves. A momentary horror swept past me, lest +some one had been watching,--listening, perhaps,--but I did not pause. +I must know how, where, Bernard would hide his misery. It was not quite +dark; I could not run through the night, as I had done before; I must +follow on at a respectable pace, stop to greet the village-people who +were come out in the cool of the evening, and all the while keep in view +that figure, hastening, for what I knew not, but on to the sands, whilst +those whom I met stayed me to ask how Mary Percival died. I passed the +last of the village-houses. There was nothing before me now but Nature +and this unhappy soul. I lost sight of him; I came to the sands; I saw +only long, low flats stretching far out,--beyond them the line of foam. +The moon was not yet gone; but its crescent momently lessened its light. +I went up and down the shore two or three times, going on a little +farther each time, meeting nothing,--nothing but the fear that stood on +the sands before me, whichever way I turned. It bent down from the sky +to tell me of its presence; it came surging up behind me; and one awful +word was on its face and in its voice. I remember shutting my eyes to +keep it out; I remember putting my fingers into my ears to still its +voice. I was so helpless, so alone to do, so threadless of action, +that--_I prayed_. + +"People pray in this world from so many causes,--it matters not what +or how; the hour for prayer comes into every life at some time of its +earthly course, whether softly falling and refreshing as the early rain, +or by the north-wind's icy path. Mine came then, on the sands; my spirit +went out of my mortality unto God for help,--solely because that which I +wanted was not in me, not in all the earth. + +"I stooped down to see if the figure I sought was outlined on the rim of +sky that brightened at the sea's edge: it was not there, not seaward. +I tried to call: the air refused the weight of my voice; it went no +farther than the lips, out of which it quivered and fell: I could not +call. I took the dark tide-mark for my guide, and began searching +landward. I went a little way, then stopped to look and listen: no +sight, no sound. The long sedge-grass gave rustling sighs of motion, as +I passed near, and disturbed the air for a moment. A night-bird uttered +its cry out of the tall reeds. The moon went down. The tide began to +come in; with it came up the wind. The memory of Alice, of Mary, walked +with and did not leave me, until I gained the little cove wherein Mary's +boat lay secure. The tide had not reached it. Mary's boat! I remember +thinking--a mere drop of thought it was, as I hurried on, but it held +all the animalcules of emotion that round out a lifetime--that Mary +never more would come to unloose the bound boat, never more in it go +forth to meet the joys that wander in from unknown shores. I saw the +boat lying dark along the water's edge. 'I would run down a moment,' I +thought, 'run down to speak a word of comfort, as if it were a living +thing.' + +"Mary's boat was not alone; it had a companion. I thought it was +Bernard. I drew near and spoke his name. Doctor Percival answered me. +I do not think that he recognized my voice. He turned around with a +startled movement, for I was quite close, and asked, 'Who is it?' + +"I did not answer. I turned and fled away into the darkness, across the +sands, that answer no footsteps with echoes. It was a comfort to feel +that he was out there, between me and the boundless space of sea. + +"When I draw near the confines of Hereafter's shore, I think I shall +feel the same kind of comfort, if some soul that I knew has gone out +just before me; it will cape the boundary-line of 'all-aloneness.'" + +Miss Axtell must have forgotten that she was talking to me, as she +retraced her steps and thoughts of that night, for, with this thought, +she seemed to "wander out into silence." + +Katie brought her back by coming up to say that "Mr. Abraham was waiting +to know if she would go out a little while, it was so fine." + +Miss Axtell said that "she would not go,--she would wait." + +Katie went to carry the message. Miss Axtell wandered a little. Between +her words and memories I picked up the thread for her, and she went on +before me. + +"I took the direction of the village-pier, when I fled from Doctor +Percival. An unusual number of boats had come in. I heard noises amid +the shipping. At any other time I should have avoided the place. Now I +drew near. + +"Two men were slowly walking down the way. I heard one of them ask, 'Do +you know who it is?' + +"The other replied, 'No, I never saw him before; we had better watch +him; he went on in a desperate way. I've seen it before, and it ended +in'---- + +"He did not finish, although I was thirsting for the words; they both +seemed arrested suddenly, then started on, and I watched whither they +went. + +"There was now no light, save that of the stars. I could scarcely keep +them in sight. I went nearer,--hid myself behind one of the posts on the +pier. They had gone upon one of the boats,--that which lay farthest down +the stream. It was Bernard that they watched. I found him with my eyes +before they reached where he stood. A boy came singing from his daily +work; he passed close beside me, and, as he went, he beat upon the post +with a boat's oar. I waited until I could come from my hiding-place +without his seeing; then I went after him. I sent him for 'the gentleman +that had gone down there,' telling him to say that 'a lady wished to see +him.' + +"Bernard came. I told him that I had been searching for him on the +sands,--that I wanted to talk to him; and he and I walked on again, +village-ward, as we had done on the last night. It was very hard to +begin, to open the cruel theme,--to say to this person, who walked with +folded arms, and eyes that I knew had no external sight, what I thought; +but I must. When I had said all that I would have said to any other +human soul, under like darkness, he lighted up the night of his sin with +strange fires. He poured upon his family's past the light hereditary. +Abraham had been true in his statements. Bernard McKey was not +well-born. He told me this: that his father had been a destroyer of +life; that God had been his Judge, and had now set the seal of the +father's sin into the son's heart. Oh, it was fearful, this tide of +agony with which that soul was overwhelmed! He pictured his deed. +Abraham had found out the crime of his father, had cruelly sent it home +on his own head, had said that a murderer's son could never find rest in +the family of Axtell, had sent him forth, with hatred in his heart, to +work out in shadow the very deed his father had wrought in substance, to +destroy Mary Percival, the child of his best friend, and to strike from +off the earth Abraham's arch of light. It was wonderful: a chance, a +change, had killed Mary. + +"Doctor Percival had that very afternoon, while we were gone, wrought +changes in the little white office; hence the fatal mistake. Bernard had +gone in, taken up a bottle from the very place where the article wanted +had stood for two years, poured its contents into the cup, carried it +in, and no hand stayed him. He was too blinded by suffering to see for +himself. Doctor Percival's hand gave the draught, and Mary was dead. +What should be done? + +"'What shall I do? What would you have me to do?' asked Bernard. + +"We were come to the church on our way. I stayed my steps, and thought +of the letter that Abraham had given me; it came up for the first time +since I knew of Mary's death. But I did not allude to it. I could not +acknowledge, even to him, that I knew another had received the words +that should have been spoken only to me; and sincerely I told him that +he must go away, at once and for always,--that the deed his hand had +unknowingly done must be borne in swift, solemn current through his +life,--that he must live beside it until it reached the ocean to come: +it could do no good to reveal it; it could arouse only new misery; it +seemed better that it should be written on marble and in memory that +'God took her.' + +"He took up the silence that came after my words, and filled it with an +echoing question:-- + +"'If I go out, and bear this deed, as you say bear it, in silence and in +suffering, will you,--you, to whom God has given a good inheritance, who +know not the rush and roar of any evil in your soul, whose spring rises +far back in ancestral natures,--will you stand between me and all this +that I must bear? Will you be my rock, set here, in this village? May I +come back at times, and tell you how I endure? If you will promise me +this, I will go.' + +"Why should he come to me? why not to the other one, to whom he told of +Alice's death two years ago? He did not know that pride was the ever +vernal sin of _my_ race, that I had it to battle with. But I conquered, +and promised I would help him, since it was all I had to do. A few more +words were spoken; he was to write to me when he would come; and we +parted, there, at the old church-door,--he promising to live, to try and +make atonement for his sin,--I to hold his deed in keeping, alone of all +the world, save Chloe, and in her I had trust. I did not see him again: +he left the following day. + +"You remember that I heard a rustling in the shrubbery, when Bernard +fled from the office. It was my mother, watching me. She had seen and +heard sufficient to convince her of what had been done. Mothers are +endowed with wonderful intuitive perception. Abraham had been her one +love from his childhood. Now came a strife in her nature. Bernard McKey +had wronged Abraham, had taken the light out of his life, and a great +longing for his punishment came up. How should it be effected? She +believed that open judgment would awaken resistance in me,--that I would +stand beside him then, in the face of all the world, and recompense him +for his punishment,--I, an Axtell, her daughter. So she came to me with +a compromise. She told me that she had heard what had been said,--that +she knew the deed, had seen the cup,--that Abraham, knowing the act, +would never forgive it, though done, as she acknowledged, in error; +and she, my mother, to save the family, made conditions. Her knowledge +should remain hers only, if Bernard McKey should remain such as he now +was to me,--never to be more. + +"'An easy condition,' I thought, 'since the letter Abraham gave'; and I +said the two words to my mother,-- + +"'I promise.' + +"'My daughter,' was her only answer; and she touched her child's +forehead with two burning lips, and went away to watch Abraham through +the night,--watch him tread the dark way, without Mary. + +"Where now was the Mountain-Pine? higher than the Arbutus? + +"Our mother had her trial. When she heard Abraham reproaching himself +with having brought on a return of fever by refusing Mary's wish, of +having been the means of her death, I know her heart ached to say, 'It +was not you, Abraham, it was Bernard McKey who killed her.' But no, she +did not; family pride towered above affection, and she was true to her +promise, true to the last. She died with the secret hers. + +"Bernard McKey's absence was much wondered at, although it began only +one month earlier than the appointed time. Doctor Percival mourned his +going as if he had been his son; he spoke to me of it. Mary was buried. +I remember your little face on her burial-day; it was bright, and +unconscious of the sad scene"; and Miss Axtell now sought to look into +it, but it was not to be seen. I think she must have forgotten, at +times, that it was to Mary's sister that she was telling her story. She +waited a little, until I asked her to "tell me more." + +"The face of that Autumn grew rosy, wrinkled, and died upon Winter's +snowy bed; and yet I lived, and Abraham, and Bernard McKey perhaps,--I +knew not. The year was nearly gone since Mary died, and no ray of +knowledge had come from him. Every day I re-read those words written to +some fair woman-soul, until after so many readings they began to take +root in my heart. I found it out one day, and I began vigorously to tear +them up. It was on the evening of the same day that Abraham came home: +he had been away for several weeks. He left, with intentional seeming, a +paper where I should see it; he had read with almost careless eyes what +mine fell upon, for he believed that Bernard McKey was forgotten by me; +he had kindly forborne to mention his name, since that one night wherein +all our misery grew. I found there what I believed to be his death: +the name and age were his own; the place was nothing,--_he_ might be +anywhere. My mother saw it, and a gladness, yes, a gladness came into +her face: I watched its coming up. She thought she might now tell +Abraham; but no, I held her to the promise. It had but two conditions: +mine was to be perpetual; hers must be so. + +"After that I grew pitiful for the poor heart that must have been made +sorrowful by these words that never more would come into it, and so I +picked up the trembling little roots that had been cast out, put them +back into the warm soil, and let them grow: they might join hers now, +for together they could twine around immortal bowers; and, as they grew, +a great longing came up to go out and find this woman-soul who had drawn +out such words from lips sealed forever. But no chance happened: no one +came to our quiet village from the remote town in which she was when +these words, that now were become mine, were penned." + + + + +MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." + + +In the dead of the night which closed upon the bloody field of Antietam, +my household was startled from its slumbers by the loud summons of a +telegraphic messenger. The air had been heavy all day with rumors of +battle, and thousands and tens of thousands had walked the streets with +throbbing hearts, in dread anticipation of the tidings any hour might +bring. + +We rose hastily, and presently the messenger was admitted. I took the +envelope from his hand, opened it, and read:-- + +Hagerstown 17th + +To---- H---- + +Capt. H---- wounded shot through the neck thought not mortal at +Keedysville + +WILLIAM G LEDUC + +_Through_ the neck,--no bullet left in wound. Windpipe, food-pipe, +carotid, jugular, half a dozen smaller, but still formidable, vessels, a +great braid of nerves, each as big as a lamp-wick, spinal cord,--ought +to kill at once, if at all. _Thought not_ mortal, or _not thought_ +mortal,--which was it? The first; that is better than the second would +be.--"Keedysville, a post-office, Washington Co., Maryland." Leduc? +Leduc? Don't remember that name.--The boy is waiting for his money. A +dollar and thirteen cents. Has nobody got thirteen cents? Don't keep +that boy waiting,--how do we know what messages he has got to carry? + +The boy _had_ another message to carry. It was to the father of +Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder Dwight, informing him that his son was +grievously wounded in the same battle, and was lying at Boonsborough, +a town a few miles this side of Keedysville. This I learned the +next morning from the civil and attentive officials at the Central +Telegraph-Office. + +Calling upon this gentleman, I found that he meant to leave in the +quarter past two o'clock train, taking with him Dr. George H. Gay, an +accomplished and energetic surgeon, equal to any difficult question or +pressing emergency. I agreed to accompany them, and we met in the cars. +I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in having companions whose society +would be a pleasure, whose feelings would harmonize with my own, and +whose assistance I might, in case of need, be glad to claim. + +It is of the journey which we began together, and which I finished +apart, that I mean to give my "Atlantic" readers an account. They must +let me tell my story in my own way, speaking of many little matters that +interested or amused me, and which a certain leisurely class of elderly +persons, who sit at their firesides and never travel, will, I hope, +follow with a kind of interest. For, besides the main object of my +excursion, I could not help being excited by the incidental sights +and occurrences of a trip which to a commercial traveller or a +newspaper-reporter would seem quite commonplace and undeserving of +record. There are periods in which all places and people seem to be in +a conspiracy to impress us with their individuality,--in which every +ordinary locality seems to assume a special significance and to claim +a particular notice,--in which every person we meet is either an old +acquaintance or a character; days in which the strangest coincidences +are continually happening, so that they get to be the rule, and not the +exception. Some might naturally think that anxiety and the weariness of +a prolonged search after a near relative would have prevented my taking +any interest in or paying any regard to the little matters around me. +Perhaps it had just the contrary effect, and acted like a diffused +stimulus upon the attention. When all the faculties are wide-awake +in pursuit of a single object, or fixed in the spasm of an absorbing +emotion, they are often-times clairvoyant in a marvellous degree in +respect to many collateral things, as Wordsworth has so forcibly +illustrated in his sonnet on the Boy of Windermere, and as Hawthorne +has developed with such metaphysical accuracy in that chapter of his +wondrous story where Hester walks forth to meet her punishment. + +Be that as it may,--though I set out with a full and heavy heart, though +many times my blood chilled with what were perhaps needless and unwise +fears, though I broke through all my habits without thinking about them, +which is almost as hard in certain circumstances as for one of our young +fellows to leave his sweet-heart and go into a Peninsular campaign, +though I did not always know when I was hungry nor discover that I was +thirsting, though I had a worrying ache and inward tremor underlying all +the outward play of the senses and the mind, yet it is the simple truth +that I did look out of the car-windows with an eye for all that passed, +that I did take cognizance of strange sights and singular people, that I +did act much as persons act from the ordinary promptings of curiosity, +and from time to time even laugh very nearly as those do who are +attacked with a convulsive sense of the ridiculous, the epilepsy of the +diaphragm. + +By a mutual compact, we talked little in the cars. A communicative +friend is the greatest nuisance to have at one's side during a +railroad-journey, especially if his conversation is stimulating and in. +itself agreeable. "A fast train and a 'slow' neighbor," is my motto. +Many times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized +into an hour or two of blissful reverie, my thoughts shaken up by the +vibrations into all sorts of new and pleasing patterns, arranging +themselves in curves and nodal points, like the grains of sand in +Chladni's famous experiment,--fresh ideas coming up to the surface, +as the kernels do when a measure of corn is jolted in a farmer's +wagon,--all this without volition, the mechanical impulse alone keeping +the thoughts in motion, as the mere act of carrying certain watches in +the pocket keeps them wound up,--many times, I say, just as my brain was +beginning to creep and hum with this delicious locomotive intoxication, +some dear detestable friend, cordial, intelligent, social, radiant, has +come up and sat down by me and opened a conversation which has broken +my day-dream, unharnessed the flying horses that were whirling along +my fancies and hitched on the old weary omnibus-team of every-day +associations, fatigued my hearing and attention, exhausted my voice, and +milked the breasts of my thought dry during the hour when they should +have been filling themselves full of fresh juices. My friends spared me +this trial. + +So, then, I sat by the window and enjoyed the slight tipsiness +produced by short, limited, rapid oscillations, which I take to be the +exhilarating stage of that condition which reaches hopeless inebriety +in what we know as sea-sickness. Where the horizon opened widely, it +pleased me to watch the curious effect of the rapid movement of near +objects contrasted with the slow motion of distant ones. Looking from +a right-hand window, for instance, the fences close by glide swiftly +backward, or to the right, while the distant hills not only do not +appear to move backward, but look by contrast with the fences near at +hand as if they were moving forward, or to the left; and thus the whole +landscape becomes a mighty wheel revolving about an imaginary axis +somewhere in the middle-distance. + +My companions proposed to stay at one of the best-known and +longest-established of the New-York caravansaries, and I accompanied +them. We were particularly well lodged, and not uncivilly treated. The +traveller who supposes that he is to repeat the melancholy experience of +Shenstone, and have to sigh over the reflection that he has found "his +warmest welcome at an inn," has something to learn at the offices of +the great city-hotels. The unheralded guest who is honored by mere +indifference may think himself blest with singular good-fortune. + +If the despot of the Patent Annunciator is only mildly contemptuous in +his manner, let the victim look upon it as a personal favor. The coldest +welcome that a threadbare curate ever got at the door of a bishop's +palace, the most icy reception that a country-cousin ever received +at the city-mansion of a mushroom millionnaire, is agreeably tepid, +compared to that which the Rhadamanthus who dooms you to the more or +less elevated circle of his inverted Inferno vouchsafes, as you step up +to enter your name on his dog's-eared register. I have less hesitation +in unburdening myself of this uncomfortable statement, as on this +particular trip I met with more than one exception to the rule. +Officials become brutalized, I suppose, as a matter of course. One +cannot expect an office-clerk to embrace tenderly every stranger who +comes in with a carpet-bag, or a telegraph-operator to burst into tears +over every unpleasant message he receives for transmission. Still, +humanity is not always totally extinguished in these persons. I +discovered a youth in the telegraph-office of the Continental Hotel, in +Philadelphia, who was as pleasant in conversation, and as graciously +responsive to inoffensive questions, as if I had been his childless +opulent uncle, and my will not made. + +On the road again the next morning, over the ferry, into the cars with +sliding panels and fixed windows, so that in summer the whole side of +the car may be made transparent. New Jersey is, to the apprehension of a +traveller, a double-headed suburb rather than a State. Its dull red dust +looks like the dried and powdered mud of a battle-field. Peach-trees are +common, and champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, drawn by mules, swim by, +feeling their way along like blind men led by dogs. I had a mighty +passion come over me to be the captain of one,--to glide back and +forward upon a sea never roughened by storms,--to float where I could +not sink,--to navigate where there is no shipwreck,--to lie languidly +on the deck and govern the huge craft by a word or the movement of a +finger: there was something of railroad intoxication in the fancy, but +who has not often envied a cobbler in his stall? + +The boys cry the "N'-York _Heddle_," instead of "Herald"; I remember +that years ago in Philadelphia; we must be getting near the farther end +of the dumb-bell suburb. A bridge has been swept away by a rise of the +waters, so we must approach Philadelphia by the river. Her physiognomy +is not distinguished; _nez camus_, as a Frenchman would say; no +illustrious steeple, no imposing tower; the water-edge of the town +looking bedraggled, like the flounce of a vulgar rich woman's dress that +trails on the sidewalk. The New Ironsides lies at one of the wharves, +elephantine in bulk and color, her sides narrowing as they rise, like +the walls of a hock-glass. + +I went straight to the house in Walnut Street where the Captain would be +heard of, if anywhere in this region. His lieutenant-colonel was there, +gravely wounded; his college-friend and comrade in arms, a son of the +house, was there, injured in a similar way; another soldier, brother +of the last, was there, prostrate with fever. A fourth bed was waiting +ready for the Captain, but not one word had been heard of him, though +inquiries had been made in the towns from and through which the father +had brought his two sons and the lieutenant-colonel. And so my search +is, like a "Ledger" story, to be continued. + +I rejoined my companions in time to take the noon-train for Baltimore. +Our company was gaining in number as it moved onwards. We had found upon +the train from New York a lovely, lonely lady, the wife of one of our +most spirited Massachusetts officers, the brave Colonel of the ----th +Regiment, going to seek her wounded husband at Middletown, a place lying +directly in our track. She was the light of our party while we were +together on our pilgrimage, a fair, gracious woman, gentle, but +courageous, + + --"ful plesant and amiable of port, + --estatelich of manere, + And to ben holden digne of reverence." + +On the road from Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party +Dr. William Hunt, of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully +attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at +Ball's Bluff, which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an +errand of mercy to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book +the name of our lady-companion's husband, who had been commended to his +particular attention. + +Not long after leaving Philadelphia, we passed a solitary sentry keeping +guard over a short railroad-bridge. It was the first evidence that we +were approaching the perilous borders, the marches where the North and +the South mingle their angry hosts, where the extremes of our so-called +civilization meet in conflict, and the fierce slave-driver of the Lower +Mississippi stares into the stern eyes of the forest-feller from the +banks of the Aroostook. All the way along, the bridges were guarded more +or less strongly. In a vast country like ours, communications play a far +more complex part than in Europe, where the whole territory available +for strategic purposes is so comparatively limited. Belgium, for +instance, has long been the bowling-alley where kings roll cannon-balls +at each other's armies; but here we are playing the game of live +ninepins _without any alley_. + +We were obliged to stay in Baltimore over-night, as we were too late for +the train to Frederick. At the Eutaw House, where we found both comfort +and courtesy, we met a number of friends, who beguiled the evening hours +for us in the most agreeable manner. We devoted some time to procuring +surgical and other articles, such as might be useful to our friends, or +to others, if our friends should not need them. In the morning, I found +myself seated at the breakfast-table next to General Wool. It did not +surprise me to find the General very far from expansive. With Fort +McHenry on his shoulders and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, and the +weight of a military department loading down his social safety-valves, I +thought it a great deal for an officer in his trying position to select +so very obliging and affable an aid as the gentleman who relieved him of +the burden of attending to strangers. + +We left the Eutaw House, to take the cars for Frederick. As we stood +waiting on the platform, a telegraphic message was handed in silence to +my companion. Sad news: the lifeless body of the son he was hastening +to see was even now on its way to him in Baltimore. It was no time for +empty words of consolation: I knew what he had lost, and that now was +not the time to intrude upon a grief borne as men bear it, felt as women +feel it. + +Colonel Wilder Dwight was first made known to me as the friend of a +beloved relative of my own, who was with him during a severe illness in +Switzerland, and for whom while living, and for whose memory when dead, +he retained the warmest affection. Since that, the story of his noble +deeds of daring, of his capture and escape, and a brief visit home +before he was able to rejoin his regiment, had made his name familiar to +many among us, myself among the number. His memory has been honored by +those who had the largest opportunity of knowing his rare promise, as a +man of talents and energy of nature. His abounding vitality must have +produced its impression on all who met him; there was a still fire about +him which any one could see would blaze up to melt all difficulties and +recast obstacles into implements in the mould of an heroic will. These +elements of his character many had the chance of knowing; but I shall +always associate him with the memory of that pure and noble friendship +which made me feel that I knew him before I looked upon his face, and +added a personal tenderness to the sense of loss which I share with the +whole community. + +Here, then, I parted, sorrowfully, from the companions with whom I set +out on my journey. + +In one of the cars, at the same station, we met General Shriver, of +Frederick, a most loyal Unionist, whose name is synonymous with a hearty +welcome to all whom he can aid by his counsel and his hospitality. He +took great pains to give us all the information we needed, and expressed +the hope, which was afterwards fulfilled, to the great gratification +of some of us, that we should meet again, when he should return to his +home. + +There was nothing worthy of special note in the trip to Frederick, +except our passing a squad of Rebel prisoners, whom I missed seeing, as +they flashed by, but who were said to be a most forlorn-looking crowd of +scarecrows. Arrived at the Monocacy River, about three miles this side +of Frederick, we came to a halt, for the railroad-bridge had been blown +up by the Rebels, and its iron pillars and arches were lying in the bed +of the river. The unfortunate wretch who fired the train was killed by +the explosion, and lay buried hard by, his hands sticking out of the +shallow grave into which he had been huddled. This was the story they +told us, but whether true or no I must leave to the correspondents of +"Notes and Queries" to settle. + +There was a great confusion of carriages and wagons at the +stopping-place of the train, so that it was a long time before I could +get anything that would carry us. At last I was lucky enough to light on +a sturdy wagon, drawn by a pair of serviceable bays, and driven by +James Grayden, with whom I was destined to have a somewhat continued +acquaintance. We took up a little girl who had been in Baltimore during +the late Rebel inroad. It made me think of the time when my own mother, +at that time six years old, was hurried off from Boston, then occupied +by the British soldiers, to Newburyport, and heard the people saying +that "the red-coats were coming, killing and murdering everybody as they +went along." Frederick looked cheerful for a place that had so recently +been in an enemy's hands. Here and there a house or shop was shut up, +but the national colors were waving in all directions, and the general +aspect was peaceful and contented. I saw no bullet-marks or other sign +of the fighting which had gone on in the streets. My lady-companion was +taken in charge by a daughter of that hospitable family to which we +had been commended by its head, and I proceeded to inquire for wounded +officers at the various temporary hospitals. + +At the United States Hotel, where many were lying, I heard mention of an +officer in an upper chamber, and, going there, found Lieutenant Abbott, +of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers, lying ill with what looked +like typhoid fever. While there, who should come in but the ubiquitous +Lieutenant Wilkins, of the same Twentieth, often confounded with his +namesake who visited the Flying Island, and with some reason, for he +must have a pair of wings under his military upper garment, or he could +never be in so many places at once. He was going to Boston in charge of +the lamented Dr. Revere's body. From his lips I learned something of the +mishaps of the regiment. My Captain's wound he spoke of as less grave +than at first thought; but he mentioned incidentally having heard +a story recently that he was _killed_,--a fiction, doubtless,--a +mistake,--a palpable absurdity,--not to be remembered or made any +account of. Oh, no! but what dull ache is this in that obscurely +sensitive region, somewhere below the heart, where the nervous centre +called the _semilunar ganglion_ lies unconscious of itself until a great +grief or a mastering anxiety reaches it through all the non-conductors +which isolate it from ordinary impressions? I talked awhile with +Lieutenant Abbott, who lay prostrate, feeble, but soldier-like and +uncomplaining, carefully waited upon by a most excellent lady, a +captain's wife, New-England-born, loyal as the Liberty on a golden +ten-dollar piece, and of lofty bearing enough to have sat for that +goddess's portrait. She had stayed in Frederick through the Rebel +inroad, and kept the star-spangled banner where it would be safe, to +unroll it as the last Rebel hoofs clattered off from the pavement of the +town. + +Near by Lieutenant Abbott was an unhappy gentleman, occupying a small +chamber, and filling it with his troubles. When he gets well and plump, +I know he will forgive me, if I confess that I could not help smiling +in the midst of my sympathy for him. He had been a well-favored man, +he said, sweeping his hand in a semicircle, which implied that his +acute-angled countenance had once filled the goodly curve he described. +He was now a perfect Don Quixote to look upon. Weakness had made him +querulous, as it does all of us, and he piped his grievances to me in a +thin voice with that finish of detail which chronic invalidism alone can +command. He was starving,--he could not get what he wanted to eat. He +was in need of stimulants, and he held up a pitiful two-ounce phial +containing three thimblefuls of brandy,--his whole stock of that +encouraging article. Him I consoled to the best of my ability, and +afterwards, in some slight measure, supplied his wants. Feed this poor +gentleman up, as these good people soon will, and I should not know him, +nor he himself. We are all egotists in sickness and debility. An animal +has been defined as "a stomach ministered to by organs"; and the +greatest man comes very near this simple formula after a month or two of +fever and starvation. + +James Grayden and his team pleased me well enough, and so I made a +bargain with him to take us, the lady and myself, on our further journey +as far as Middletown. As we were about starting from the front of the +United States Hotel, two gentlemen presented themselves and expressed +a wish to be allowed to share our conveyance. I looked at them and +convinced myself that they were neither Rebels in disguise, nor +deserters, nor camp-followers, nor miscreants, but plain, honest men on +a proper errand. The first of them I will pass over briefly. He was +a young man, of mild and modest demeanor, chaplain to a Pennsylvania +regiment, which he was going to rejoin. He belonged to the Moravian +Church, of which I had the misfortune to know little more than what I +had learned from Southey's "Life of Wesley," and from the exquisite +hymns we have borrowed from its rhapsodists. The other stranger was a +New-Englander of respectable appearance, with a grave, hard, honest, +hay-bearded face, who had come to serve the sick and wounded on the +battle-field and in its immediate neighborhood. There is no reason why I +should not mention his name, but I shall content myself with calling him +the Philanthropist. + +So we set forth, the sturdy wagon, the serviceable bays, with James +Grayden their driver, the gentle lady, whose serene patience bore up +through all delays and discomforts, the Chaplain, the Philanthropist, +and myself, the teller of this story. + +And now, as we emerged from Frederick, we struck at once upon the trail +from the great battle-field. The road was filled with straggling and +wounded soldiers. All who could travel on foot--multitudes with slight +wounds of the upper limbs, the head or face--were told to take up their +beds--a light burden, or none at all--and walk. Just as the battle-field +sucks everything into its red vortex for the conflict, so does it drive +everything off in long, diverging rays after the fierce centripetal +forces have met and neutralized each other. For more than a week there +had been sharp fighting all along this road. Through the streets of +Frederick, through Crampton's Gap, over South Mountain, sweeping at last +the hills and the woods that skirt the windings of the Antietam, the +long battle had travelled, like one of those tornadoes which tear their +path through our fields and villages. The slain of higher condition, +"embalmed" and iron-cased, were sliding off on the railways to their +far homes; the dead of the rank-and-file were being gathered up and +committed hastily to the earth; the gravely wounded were cared for +hard by the scene of conflict, or pushed a little way along to the +neighboring villages; while those who could walk were meeting us, as I +have said, at every step in the road. It was a pitiable sight, truly +pitiable, yet so vast, so far beyond the possibility of relief, that +many single sorrows of small dimensions have wrought upon my feelings +more than the sight of this great caravan of maimed pilgrims. The +companionship of so many seemed to make a joint-stock of their +suffering; it was next to impossible to individualize it, and so bring +it home as one can do with a single broken limb or aching wound. Then +they were all of the male sex, and in the freshness or the prime of +their strength. Though they tramped so wearily along, yet there was rest +and kind nursing in store for them. These wounds they bore would be the +medals they would show their children and grandchildren by-and-by. Who +would not rather wear his decorations beneath his uniform than on it? + +Yet among them were figures which arrested our attention and sympathy. +Delicate boys, with more spirit than strength, flushed with fever or +pale with exhaustion or haggard with suffering, dragged their weary +limbs along as if each step would exhaust their slender store of +strength. At the road-side sat or lay others, quite spent with their +journey. Here and there was a house at which the wayfarers would stop, +in the hope, I fear often vain, of getting refreshment; and in one place +was a clear, cool spring, where the little bands of the long procession +halted for a few moments, as the trains that traverse the desert rest by +its fountains. My companions had brought a few peaches along with them, +which the Philanthropist bestowed upon the tired and thirsty soldiers +with a satisfaction which we all shared. I had with me a small flask of +strong waters, to be used as a medicine in case of inward grief. From +this, also, he dispensed relief, without hesitation, to a poor fellow +who looked as if he needed it. I rather admired the simplicity with +which he applied my limited means of solace to the first-comer who +wanted it more than I; a genuine benevolent impulse does not stand on +ceremony, and had I perished of colic for want of a stimulus that night, +I should not have reproached my friend the Philanthropist any more than +I grudged my other ardent friend the two dollars and more which it cost +me to send the charitable message he left in my hands. + +It was a lovely country through which we were riding. The hill-sides +rolled away into the distance, slanting up fair and broad to the sun, +as one sees them in the open parts of the Berkshire valley, at +Lanesborough, for instance, or in the many-hued mountain-chalice at the +bottom of which the Shaker houses of Lebanon have shaped themselves like +a sediment of cubical crystals. The wheat was all garnered, and the land +ploughed for a new crop. There was Indian-corn standing, but I saw no +pumpkins warming their yellow carapaces in the sunshine like so many +turtles; only in a single instance did I notice some wretched little +miniature specimens in form and hue not unlike those colossal oranges of +our cornfields. The rail-fences were somewhat disturbed, and the cinders +of extinguished fires showed the use to which they had been applied. +The houses along the road were not for the most part neatly kept; the +garden-fences were poorly built of laths or long slats, and very rarely +of trim aspect. The men of this region seemed to ride in the saddle very +generally, rather than drive. They looked sober and stern, less curious +and lively than Yankees, and I fancied that a type of features familiar +to us in the countenance of the late John Tyler, our accidental +President, was frequently met with. The women were still more +distinguishable from our New-England pattern. Soft, sallow, succulent, +delicately finished about the mouth and firmly shaped about the chin, +dark-eyed, full-throated, they looked as if they had been grown in a +land of olives. There was a little toss in their movement, full of +muliebrity. I fancied there was something more of the duck and less of +the chicken about them, as compared with the daughters of our leaner +soil; but these are mere impressions caught from stray glances, and if +there is any offence in them, my fair readers may consider them all +retracted. + +At intervals, a dead horse lay by the road-side, or in the fields, +unburied, not grateful to gods or men, I saw no bird of prey, no +ill-omened fowl, on my way to the carnival of death, or at the place +where it was held. The vulture of story, the crow of Talavera, the "twa +corbies" of the ghastly ballad, are all from Nature, doubtless; but +no black wing was spread over these animal ruins, and no call to the +banquet pierced through the heavy-laden and sickening air. + +Full in the middle of the road, caring little for whom or what they met, +came long strings of army-wagons, returning empty from the front after +supplies. James Grayden stated it as his conviction that they had a +little rather run into a fellow than not. I liked the looks of these +equipages and their drivers; they meant business. Drawn by mules mostly, +six, I think, to a wagon, powdered well with dust, wagon, beast, and +driver, they came jogging along the road, turning neither to right nor +left,--some driven by bearded, solemn white men, some by careless, +saucy-looking negroes, of a blackness like that of anthracite or +obsidian. There seemed to be nothing about them, dead or alive, that was +not serviceable. Sometimes a mule would give out on the road; then he +was left where he lay, until by-and-by he would think better of it, and +get up, when the first public wagon that came along would hitch him on, +and restore him to the sphere of duty. + +It was evening when we got to Middletown. The gentle lady--who had +graced our homely conveyance with her company here left us. She found +her husband, the gallant Colonel, in very comfortable quarters, well +cared for, very weak from the effects of the fearful operation he had +been compelled to undergo, but showing the same calm courage to endure +as he had shown manly energy to act. It was a meeting full of heroism +and tenderness, of which I heard more than there is need to tell. Health +to the brave soldier, and peace to the household over which go fair a +spirit presides! + +Dr. Thompson, the very active and intelligent surgical director of the +hospitals of the place, took me in charge. He carried me to the house of +a worthy and benevolent clergyman of the German Reformed Church, where I +was to take tea and pass the night. What became of the Moravian chaplain +I did not know; but my friend the Philanthropist had evidently made up +his mind to adhere to my fortunes. He followed me, therefore, to the +house of the "Dominic," as a newspaper-correspondent calls my kind host, +and partook of the fare there furnished me. He withdrew with me to the +apartment assigned for my slumbers, and slept sweetly on the same pillow +where I waked and tossed. Nay, I do affirm that he did, unconsciously, +I believe, encroach on that moiety of the couch which I had flattered +myself was to be my own through the watches of the night, and that I +was in serious doubt at one time whether I should not be gradually, but +irresistibly, expelled from the bed which I had supposed destined for +my sole possession. As Ruth clave unto Naomi, so my friend the +Philanthropist clave unto me. "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where +thou lodgest, I will lodge." A really kind, good man, full of zeal, +determined to help somebody, and absorbed in his one thought, he doubted +nobody's willingness to serve him, going, as he was, on a purely +benevolent errand. When he reads this, as I hope he will, let him be +assured of my esteem and respect; and if he gained any accommodation +from being in my company, let me tell him that I learned a lesson from +his active benevolence. I could, however, have wished to hear him laugh +once before we parted, perhaps forever. He did not, to the best of +my recollection, even smile during the whole period that we were in +company. I am afraid that a lightsome disposition and a relish for humor +are not so common in those whose benevolence takes an active turn as in +people of sentiment who are always ready with their tears and abounding +in passionate expressions of sympathy. Working philanthropy is a +practical specialty, requiring not a mere impulse, but a talent, with +its peculiar sagacity for finding its objects, a tact for selecting its +agencies, an organizing and arranging faculty, a steady set of nerves, +and a constitution such as Sallust describes in Catiline, patient of +cold, of hunger, and of watching. Philanthropists are commonly grave, +occasionally grim, and not very rarely morose. Their expansive social +force is imprisoned as a working power, to show itself only through +its legitimate pistons and cranks. The tighter the boiler, the less it +whistles and sings at its work. When Dr. Waterhouse, in 1780, travelled +with Howard, on his tour among the Dutch prisons and hospitals, he +found his temper and manners very different from what would have been +expected. My benevolent companion having already made a preliminary +exploration of the hospitals of the place, before sharing my bed with +him, as above mentioned, I joined him in a second tour through them. The +authorities of Middletown are evidently leagued with the surgeons of +that place, for such a break-neck succession of pitfalls and chasms I +have never seen in the streets of a civilized town. It was getting late +in the evening when we began our rounds. The principal collections of +the wounded were in the churches. Boards were laid over the tops of the +pews, on these some straw was spread, and on this the wounded lay, with +little or no covering other than such scanty clothes as they had on. +There were wounds of all degrees of severity, but I heard no groans +or murmurs. Most of the sufferers were hurt in the limbs, some had +undergone amputation, and all had, I presume, received such attention as +was required. Still, it was but a rough and dreary kind of comfort that +the extemporized hospitals suggested. I could not help thinking the +patients must be cold; but they were used to camp-life, and did not +complain. The men who watched were not of the soft-handed variety of the +race. One of them was smoking his pipe as he went from bed to bed. I saw +one poor fellow who had been shot through the breast; his breathing was +labored, and he was tossing, anxious and restless. The men were debating +about the opiate he was to take, and I was thankful that I happened +there at the right moment to see that he was well narcotized for the +night. Was it possible that my Captain could be lying on the straw in +one of these places? Certainly _possible_, but not probable; but as the +lantern was held over each bed, it was with a kind of thrill that I +looked upon the features it illuminated. Many times, as I went from +hospital to hospital in my wanderings, I started as some faint +resemblance--the shade of a young man's hair, the outline of his +half-turned face-recalled the presence I was in search of. The face +would turn towards me and the momentary illusion would pass away, but +still the fancy clung to me. There was no figure huddled up on its rude +couch, none stretched at the road-side, none toiling languidly along +the dusty pike, none passing in car or in ambulance, that I did not +scrutinize, as if it might be that for which I was making my pilgrimage +to the battle-field. + +"There are two wounded Secesh," said my companion. I walked to the +bedside of the first, who was an officer, a lieutenant, if I remember +right, from North Carolina. He was of good family, son of a judge in +one of the higher courts of his State, educated, pleasant, gentle, +intelligent. One moment's intercourse with such an enemy, lying helpless +and wounded among strangers, takes away all personal bitterness towards +those with whom we or our children have been but a few hours before in +deadly strife. The basest lie which the murderous contrivers of this +Rebellion have told is that which tries to make out a difference of race +in the men of the North and South, It would be worth a year of battles +to abolish this delusion, though the great sponge of war that wiped it +out were moistened with the best blood of the land. My Rebel was of +slight, scholastic habit, and spoke as one accustomed to tread carefully +among the parts of speech. It made my heart ache to see him, a man +finished in the humanities and Christian culture, whom the sin of his +forefathers and the crime of his rulers had set in barbarous conflict +against others of like training with his own,--a man who, but for the +curse that it is laid on our generation to expiate, would have been +a fellow-worker with them in the beneficent task of shaping the +intelligence and lifting the moral standard of a peaceful and united +people. + +On Sunday morning, the twenty-first, having engaged James Grayden +and his team, I set out with the Chaplain and the Philanthropist for +Keedysville. Our track lay through the South Mountain Gap and led us +first to the town of Boonsborough, where, it will be remembered, Colonel +Dwight had been brought after the battle. We saw the positions occupied +in the Battle of South Mountain, and many traces of the conflict. In one +situation a group of young trees was marked with shot, hardly one having +escaped. As we walked by the side of the wagon, the Philanthropist left +us for a while and climbed a hill, where along the line of a fence he +found traces of the most desperate fighting. A ride of some three hours +brought us to Boonsborough, where I roused the unfortunate army-surgeon +who had charge of the hospitals, and who was trying to get a little +sleep after his fatigues and watchings. He bore this cross very +creditably, and helped me to explore all places where my soldier might +be lying among the crowds of wounded. After the useless search, I +resumed my journey, fortified with a note of introduction to Dr. +Letterman, also with a bale of oakum which I was to carry to that +gentleman, this substance being employed as a substitute for lint. +We were obliged also to procure a pass to Keedysville from the +Provost-Marshal of Boonsborough. As we came near the place, we learned +that General McClellan's headquarters had been removed from this village +some miles farther to the front. + +On entering the small settlement of Keedysville, a familiar face and +figure blocked the way, like one of Bunyan's giants. The tall form and +benevolent countenance, set off by long, flowing hair, belonged to the +excellent Mayor Frank B. Fay, of Chelsea, who, like my Philanthropist, +only still more promptly, had come to succor the wounded of the great +battle. It was wonderful to see how his single personality pervaded this +torpid little village; he seemed to be the centre of all its activities. +All my questions he answered clearly and decisively, as one who knew +everything that was going on in the place. But the one question I had +come five hundred miles to ask,--_Where is Captain H.?_--he could not +answer. There were some thousands of wounded in the place, he told +me, scattered about everywhere. It would be a long job to hunt up my +Captain; the only way would be to go to every house and ask for him. +Just then, a medical officer came up. + +"Do you know anything of Captain H., of the Massachusetts Twentieth?" + +"Oh, yes; he is staying in that house. I saw him there, doing very +well." + +A chorus of hallelujahs arose in my soul, but I kept them to myself. +Now, then, for our twice-wounded volunteer, our young centurion whose +double-barred shoulder-straps we have never yet looked upon. Let us +observe the proprieties, however; no swelling upward of the mother,--no +_hysterica passio,_--we do not like scenes. A calm salutation,--then +swallow and bold hard. That is about the programme. + +A cottage of squared logs, filled in with plaster, and white-washed. A +little yard before it, with a gate swinging. The door of the cottage +ajar,--no one visible as yet. I push open the door and enter. An old +woman, _Margaret Kitzmuller_ her name proves to be, is the first person +I see. + +"Captain H. here?" + +"Oh, no, Sir,--left yesterday morning for Hagerstown--in a milk-cart." + +The Kitzmuller is a beady-eyed, cheery-looking ancient woman, answers +questions with a rising inflection, and gives a good account of the +Captain, who got into the vehicle without assistance, and was in +excellent spirits.--Of course he had struck for Hagerstown as the +terminus of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and was on his way to +Philadelphia _viâ_ Chambersburg and Harrisburg, if he were not already +in the hospitable home of Walnut Street, where his friends were +expecting him. + +I might follow on his track or return upon my own; the distance was die +same to Philadelphia through Harrisburg as through Baltimore. But it was +very difficult, Mr. Fay told me, to procure any kind of conveyance to +Hagerstown, and on the other hand I had James Grayden and his wagon to +carry me back to Frederick. It was not likely that I should overtake the +object of my pursuit with nearly thirty-six hours start, even if I +could procure a conveyance that day, In the mean time James was getting +impatient to be on his return, according to the direction of his +employers. So I decided to go back with him. + +But there was the great battle-field only about three miles from +Keedysville, and it was impossible to go without seeing that. James +Grayden's directions were peremptory, but it was a case for the higher +law. I must make a good offer for an extra couple of hours, such as +would satisfy the owners of the wagon, and enforce it by a personal +motive. I did this handsomely, and succeeded without difficulty. To +add brilliancy to my enterprise, I invited the Chaplain and the +Philanthropist to take a free passage with me. + +We followed the road through the village for a space, then turned off +to the right, and wandered somewhat vaguely, for want of precise +directions, over the hills. Inquiring as we went, we forded a wide creek +in which soldiers were washing their clothes, the name of which we did +not then know, but which must have been the Antietam. At one point we +met a party, women among them, bringing off various trophies they had +picked up on the battle-field. Still wandering along, we were at last +pointed to a hill in the distance, a part of the summit of which was +covered with Indian-corn. There, we were told, some of the fiercest +fighting of the day had been done. The fences were taken down so as to +make a passage across the fields, and the tracks worn within the last +few days looked like old roads. We passed a fresh grave under a tree +near the road. A board was nailed to the tree, bearing the name, as well +as I could make it out, of Gardiner, of a New-Hampshire regiment. + +On coming near the brow of the hill, we met a party carrying picks and +spades. "How many?" "Only one." The dead were nearly all buried, then, +in this region of the field of strife. We stopped the wagon, and, +getting out, began to look around us. Hard by was a large pile of +muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which had been picked up and were +guarded for the Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose before us. +A board stuck up in front of it bore this inscription, the first part of +which was, I believe, not correct:--"The Rebel General Anderson and 80 +Rebels are buried in this hole." Other smaller ridges were marked with +the number of dead lying under them. The whole ground was strewed +with fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, cap-boxes, bullets, +cartridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and +meat. I saw two soldiers' caps that looked as though their owners had +been shot through the head. In several places I noticed dark red patches +where a pool of blood had curdled and caked, as some poor fellow poured +his life out on the sod. I then wandered about in the cornfield. It +surprised me to notice, that, though there was every mark of hard +fighting having taken place here, the Indian-corn was not generally +trodden down. One of our cornfields is a kind of forest, and even when +fighting, men avoid the tall stalks as if they were trees. At the edge +of this cornfield lay a gray horse, said to have belonged to a Rebel +colonel, who was killed near the same place. Not far off were two dead +artillery-horses in their harness. Another had been attended to by +a burying-party, who had thrown some earth over him; but his last +bed-clothes were too short, and his legs stuck out stark and stiff +from beneath the gravel coverlet. It was a great pity that we had no +intelligent guide to explain to us the position of that portion of the +two armies which fought over this ground. There was a shallow trench +before we came to the cornfield, too narrow for a road, as I should +think, too elevated for a water-course, and which seemed to have been +used as a rifle-pit; at any rate, there had been hard fighting in and +about it. This and the cornfield may serve to identify the part of the +ground we visited, if any who fought there should ever look over this +paper. The opposing tides of battle must have blended their waves at +this point, for portions of gray uniform were mingled with the "garments +rolled in blood" torn from our own dead and wounded soldiers. I picked +up a Rebel canteen, and one of our own,--but there was something +repulsive about the trodden and stained relics of the stale +battle-field. It was like the table of some hideous orgy left uncleared, +and one turned away disgusted from its broken fragments and muddy +heel-taps. A bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a soldier's +belt, served well enough for mementos of my visit, with a letter which +I picked up, directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal unbroken. "N.C. +Cleaveland County. E. Wright to J. Wright." On the other side, "A few +lines from W.L. Vaughn," who has just been writing for the wife to her +husband, and continues on his own account. The postscript, "tell John +that nancy's folks are all well and has a verry good Little Crop of corn +a growing." I wonder, if, by one of those strange chances of which I +have seen so many, this number or leaf of the "Atlantic" will not sooner +or later find its way to Cleveland County, North Carolina, and E. +Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy's folks get from these +sentences the last glimpse of husband and friend as he threw up his arms +and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam? I will keep this stained +letter for them until peace comes back, if it comes in my time, and my +pleasant North-Carolina Rebel of the Middletown Hospital will, perhaps, +look these poor people up, and tell them where to send for it. + +On the battle-field I parted with my two companions, the Chaplain and +the Philanthropist. They were going to the front, the one to find his +regiment, the other to look for those who needed his assistance. We +exchanged cards and farewells, I mounted the wagon, the horses' heads +were turned homewards, my two companions went their way, and I saw them +no more. On my way back, I fell into talk with James Grayden. Born in +England, Lancashire; in this country since he was four years old. Had +nothing to care for but an old mother; didn't know what he should do, if +he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity +and childlike light-heartedness which belong to the Old World's people. +He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white +English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he +had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small +store of information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me. +His quiet animal nature acted as a pleasing anodyne to my recurring fits +of anxiety, and I liked his frequent "'Deed I don' know, Sir," better +than I have sometimes relished the large discourse of professors and +other very wise men. + +I have not much to say of the road which we were travelling for the +second time. Reaching Middletown, my first call was on the wounded +Colonel and his lady. She gave me a most touching account of all +the suffering he had gone through with his shattered limb before he +succeeded in finding a shelter, showing the terrible want of proper +means of transportation of the wounded after the battle. It occurred to +me, while at this house, that I was more or less famished, and for the +first time in my life I begged for a meal, which the kind family with +whom the Colonel was staying most graciously furnished me. + +After tea, there came in a stout army-surgeon, a Highlander by birth, +educated in Edinburgh, with whom I had pleasant, not unstimulating +talk. He had been brought very close to that immane and nefandous +Burke-and-Hare business which made the blood of civilization run cold in +the year 1828, and told me, in a very calm way, with an occasional pinch +from the mull, to refresh his memory, some of the details of those +frightful murders, never rivalled in horror until the wretch Dumollard, +who kept a private cemetery for his victims, was dragged into the light +of day. He had a good deal to say, too, about the Royal College of +Surgeons in Edinburgh, and the famous preparations, mercurial and +the rest, which I remember well having seen there,--the "_sudabit +muitura_,--" and others,--also of our New-York Professor Carnochan's +handiwork, a specimen of which I once admired at the New York College. +But the Doctor was not in a happy frame of mind, and seemed willing to +forget the present in the past: things went wrong, somehow, and the time +was out of joint with him. + +Dr. Thompson, kind, cheerful, companionable, offered me half his own +wide bed, in the house of Dr. Baer, for my second night in Middletown. +Here I lay awake again another night. Close to the house stood an +ambulance in which was a wounded Rebel officer, attended by one of their +own surgeons. He was calling out in a loud voice, all night long, as +it seemed to me, "Doctor! Doctor! Driver! Water!" in loud, complaining +tones, I have no doubt of real suffering, but in strange contrast with +the silent patience which was the almost universal rule. + +The courteous Dr. Thompson will let me tell here an odd coincidence, +trivial, but having its interest as one of a series. The Doctor and +myself lay in the bed, and a lieutenant, a friend of his, slept on +the sofa. At night, I placed my match-box, a Scotch one, of the +Macpherson-plaid pattern, which I bought years ago, on the bureau, just +where I could put my hand upon it. I was the last of the three to rise +in the morning, and on looking for my pretty match-box, I found it was +gone. This was rather awkward,--not on account of the loss, but of the +unavoidable fact that one of my fellow-lodgers must have taken it. I +must try to find out what it meant. + +"By the way, Doctor, have you seen anything of a little plaid-pattern +matchbox?" + +The Doctor put his hand to his pocket, and, to his own huge surprise and +my great gratification, pulled out _two_ matchboxes exactly alike, both +printed with the Macpherson plaid. One was his, the other mine, which he +had seen lying round, and naturally took for his own, thrusting it into +his pocket, where it found its twin-brother from the same workshop. In +memory of which event we exchanged boxes, like two Homeric heroes. + +This curious coincidence illustrates well enough some supposed cases of +_plagiarism_, of which I will mention one where my name figured. When a +little poem called "The Two Streams" was first printed, a writer in the +New York "Evening Post" virtually accused the author of it of borrowing +the thought from a baccalaureate sermon of President Hopkins, of +Williamstown, and printed a quotation from that discourse, which, as I +thought, a thief or catchpoll might well consider as establishing a +fair presumption that it was so borrowed. I was at the same time wholly +unconscious of ever having met with the discourse or the sentence which +the verses were most like, nor do I believe I ever had seen or heard +either. Some time after this, happening to meet my eloquent cousin, +Wendell Phillips, I mentioned the fact to him, and he told me that _he_ +had once used the special image said to be borrowed, in a discourse +delivered at Williamstown. On relating this to my friend Mr. Buchanan +Read, he informed me that _he_, too, had used the image, perhaps +referring to his poem called "The Twins." He thought Tennyson had used +it also. The parting of the streams on the Alps is poetically elaborated +in a passage attributed to "M. Loisne," printed in the Boston "Evening +Transcript" for October 23d, 1859. Captain, afterwards Sir Francis Head, +speaks of the showers parting on the Cordilleras, one portion going to +the Atlantic, one to the Pacific. I found the image running loose in my +mind, without a halter. It suggested itself as an illustration of +the will, and I worked the poem out by the aid of Mitchell's School +Atlas.--The spores of a great many ideas are floating about in the +atmosphere. We no more know where all the growths of our mind came from +than where the lichens which eat the names off from the gravestones +borrowed the germs that gave them birth. The two match-boxes were just +alike, but neither was a plagiarism. + +In the morning I took to the same wagon once more, but, instead of James +Grayden, I was to have for my driver a young man who spelt his name +"Phillip Ottenheimer," and whose features at once showed him to be an +Israelite. I found him agreeable enough, and disposed to talk. So I +asked him many questions about his religion, and got some answers that +sound strangely in Christian ears. He was from Wittenberg, and had +been educated in strict Jewish fashion. From his childhood he had read +Hebrew, but was not much of a scholar otherwise. A young person of his +race lost caste utterly by marrying a Christian. The Founder of our +religion was considered by the Israelites to have been "a right smart +man, and a great doctor," But the horror with which the reading of the +New Testament by any young person of their faith would be regarded was +as great, I judged by his language, as that of one of our straitest +sectaries would be, if he found his son or daughter perusing the "Age of +Reason." + +In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty of its clustered spires +struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find "Fair-View" +laid down about this point on a railroad-map. I wish some wandering +photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if +possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples +nestles among the Maryland hills. The town had a poetical look from a +distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there. The first sign +I read, on entering its long street, might perhaps be considered as +confirming my remote impression. It bore these words: "Miss Ogle, Past, +Present, and Future." On arriving, I visited Lieutenant Abbott, and the +attenuated unhappy gentleman, his neighbor, sharing between them as my +parting gift what I had left of the balsam known to the Pharmacopoeia as +_Spiritus Vini Gallici_. I took advantage of General Shriver's always +open door to write a letter home, but had not time to partake of his +offered hospitality. The railroad-bridge over the Monocacy had been +rebuilt since I passed through Frederick, and we trundled along over the +track toward Baltimore. + +It was a disappointment, on reaching the Eutaw House, where I had +ordered all communications to be addressed, to find no telegraphic +message from Philadelphia or Boston, stating that Captain H. had arrived +at the former place, "wound doing well in good spirits expects to leave +soon for Boston," After all, it was no great matter; the Captain was, no +doubt, snugly lodged before this in the house called Beautiful, at ---- +Walnut Street, where that "grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion" +had already welcomed him, smiling, though "the water stood in her eyes," +and had "called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little +more discourse with him, had him into the family." + +The friends I had met at the Eutaw House had all gone but one, the lady +of an officer from Boston, who was most amiable and agreeable, and whose +benevolence, as I afterwards learned, soon reached the invalids I had +left suffering at Frederick. General Wool still walked the corridors, +inexpansive, with Fort McHenry on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his +breeches-pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed upon me his kind +offices. About the doors of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers in +plaintive, wailing tones, as different from the sharp accents of their +Boston counterparts as a sigh from the southwest is from a northeastern +breeze. To understand what they said was, of course, impossible to any +but an educated ear, and if I made out "Stoarr" and "Clipper," it was +because I knew beforehand what must be the burden of their advertising +coranach. + +I set out for Philadelphia on the morrow, Tuesday the twenty-third, +there beyond question to meet my Captain, once more united to his brave +wounded companions under that roof which covers a household of as noble +hearts as ever throbbed with human sympathies. Back River, Bush River, +Gunpowder Creek,--lives there the man with soul so dead that his memory +has cerements to wrap up these senseless names in the same envelopes +with their meaningless localities? But the Susquehanna,--the broad, +the beautiful, the historical, the poetical Susquehanna,--the river of +Wyoming and of Gertrude, dividing the shores where + + "aye these sunny mountains half-way down + Would echo flageolet from some romantic town,"-- + +did not my heart renew its allegiance to the poet who has made it lovely +to the imagination as well as to the eye, and so identified his fame +with the noble stream that it "rolls mingling with his fame forever"? +The prosaic traveller perhaps remembers it better from the fact that a +great sea-monster, in the shape of a steamboat, takes him, sitting +in the car, on its back, and swims across with him like Arion's +dolphin,--also that mercenary men on board offer him canvas-backs in the +season, and ducks of lower degree at other periods. + +At Philadelphia again at last! Drive fast, O colored man and brother, to +the house called Beautiful, where my Captain lies sore wounded, waiting +for the sound of the chariot-wheels which bring to his bedside the face +and the voice nearer than any save one to his heart in this his hour of +pain and weakness! Up a long street with white shutters and white steps +to all the houses. Off at right angles into another long street with +white shutters and white steps to all the houses. Off again at another +right angle into still another long street with white shutters and white +steps to all the houses. The natives of this city pretend to know one +street from another by some individual differences of aspect; but the +best way for a stranger to distinguish the streets he has been in from +others is to make a cross or other mark on the white shutters. + +This corner-house is the one. Ring softly,--for the Lieutenant-Colonel +lies there with a dreadfully wounded arm, and two sons of the family, +one wounded like the Colonel, one fighting with death in the fog of a +typhoid fever, will start with fresh pangs at the least sound you can +make. I entered the house, but no cheerful smile met me. The sufferers +were each of them thought to be in a critical condition. The fourth bed, +waiting its tenant day after day, was still empty. _Not a word from my +Captain._ + +Then, foolish, fond body that I was, my heart sank within me. Had he +been taken ill on the road, perhaps been attacked with those formidable +symptoms which sometimes come on suddenly after wounds that seemed to be +doing well enough, and was his life ebbing away in some lonely cottage, +nay, in some cold barn or shed, or at the way-side, unknown, uncared +for? Somewhere between Philadelphia and Hagerstown, if not at the latter +town, he must be, at any rate. I must sweep the hundred and eighty miles +between these places as one would sweep a chamber where a precious pearl +had been dropped. I must have a companion in my search, partly to help +me look about, and partly because I was getting nervous and felt lonely. +_Charley_ said he would go with me,--Charley, my Captain's beloved +friend, gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, cultivated, social, +affectionate, a good talker, a most agreeable letter-writer, observing, +with large relish of life, and keen sense of humor. + +He was not well enough to go, some of the timid ones said; but he +answered by packing his carpet-bag, and in an hour or two we were on the +Pennsylvania Central Railroad in full blast for Harrisburg. + +I should have been a forlorn creature but for the presence of my +companion. In his delightful company I half forgot my anxieties, which, +exaggerated as they may seem now, ware not unnatural after what I had +seen of the confusion and distress that had followed the great battle, +nay, which seem almost justified by the recent statement that "high +officers" were buried after that battle whose names were never +ascertained. I noticed little matters, as usual. The road was filled in +between the rails with cracked stones, such as are used for Macadamizing +streets. They keep the dust down, I suppose, for I could not think of +any other use for them. By-and-by the glorious valley which stretches +along through Chester and Lancaster Counties opened upon us. Much as I +had heard of the fertile regions of Pennsylvania, the vast scale and the +uniform luxuriance of this region astonished me. The grazing pastures +were so green, the fields were under such perfect culture, the cattle +looked so sleek, the houses were so comfortable, the barns so ample, the +fences so well kept, that I did not wonder, when I was told that this +region was called the England of Pennsylvania. The people whom we saw +were, like the cattle, well-nourished; the young women looked round and +wholesome. + +"_Grass makes girls_," I said to my companion, and left him to work out +my Orphic saying, thinking to myself, that, as guano makes grass, it +was a legitimate conclusion that Jehaboe must be a nursery of female +loveliness. + +As the train stopped at the different stations, I inquired at each +if they had any wounded officers. None as yet; the red rays of the +battle-field had not streamed off so far as this. Evening found us in +the cars; they lighted candles in spring-candlesticks; odd enough I +thought it in the land of oil-wells and unmeasured floods of kerosene. +Some fellows turned up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, +and began gambling or pretending to gamble; it looked as if they were +trying to pluck a young countryman; but appearances are deceptive, +and no deeper stake than "drinks for the crowd" seemed at last to +be involved. But remembering that murder has tried of late years to +establish itself as an institution in the cars, I was less tolerant of +the doings of these "sportsmen" who tried to turn our public conveyance +into a travelling Frascali. They acted as if they were used to it, and +nobody seemed to pay much attention to their manoeuvres. + +We arrived at Harrisburg in the course of the evening, and attempted to +find our way to the Jones House, to which we had been commended. By some +mistake, intentional on the part of somebody, as it may have been, or +purely accidental, we went to the Herr House instead. I entered my name +in the book, with that of my companion. A plain, middle-aged man stepped +up, read it to himself in low tones, and coupled to it a literary title +by which I have been sometimes known. He proved to be a graduate of +Brown University, and had heard a certain Phi Beta Kappa poem delivered +there a good many years ago. I remembered it, too; Professor Goddard, +whose sudden and singular death left such lasting regret, was the +Orator. I recollect that while I was speaking a drum went by the church, +and how I was disgusted to see all the heads near the windows thrust out +of them, as if the building were on fire. _Cedat armis toga._ The clerk +in the office, a mild, pensive, unassuming young man, was very polite in +his manners, and did all he could to make us comfortable. He was of a +literary turn, and knew one of his guests in his character of author. At +tea, a mild old gentleman, with white hair and beard, sat next us. He, +too, had come hunting after his son, a lieutenant in a Pennsylvania +regiment. Of these, father and son, more presently. + +After tea we went to look up Dr. Wilson, chief medical officer of +the hospitals in the place, who was staying at the Brady House. A +magnificent old toddy-mixer, Bardolphian in hue and stern of aspect, as +all grog-dispensers must be, accustomed as they are to dive through the +features of men to the bottom of their souls and pockets to see whether +they are solvent to the amount of sixpence, answered my question by a +wave of one hand, the other being engaged in carrying a dram to his +lips. His superb indifference gratified my artistic feeling more than it +wounded my personal sensibilities. Anything really superior in its line +claims my homage, and this man was the ideal bar-tender, above all +vulgar passions, untouched by commonplace sympathies, himself a lover of +the liquid happiness he dispenses, and filled with a fine scorn of all +those lesser felicities conferred by love or fame or wealth or any +of the roundabout agencies for which his fiery elixir is the cheap, +all-powerful substitute. + +Dr. Wilson was in bed, though it was early in the evening, not having +slept for I don't know how many nights. + +"Take my card up to him, if you please." + +"This way, Sir." + +A man who has not slept for a fortnight or so is not expected to be as +affable, when attacked in his bed, as a French princess of old time +at her morning-receptions. Dr. Wilson turned toward me, as I entered, +without effusion, but without rudeness. His thick, dark moustache was +chopped off square at the lower edge of the upper lip, which implied a +decisive, if not a peremptory, style of character. + +I am Doctor So-and-So. of Hub-town, looking after my wounded son. (I +gave my name and said _Boston_, of course, in reality.) + +Dr. Wilson leaned on his elbow and looked up in my face, his features +growing cordial. Then he put out his hand, and good-humoredly excused +his reception of me. The day before, as he told me, he had dismissed +from the service a medical man hailing from ----, Pennsylvania, bearing +my last name, preceded by the same two initials; and he supposed, when +my card came up, it was this individual who was disturbing his slumbers. +The coincidence was so unlikely _a priori_, unless some forlorn parent +without antecedents had named a child after me, that I could not help +cross-questioning the Doctor, who assured me deliberately that the fact +was just as he had said, even to the somewhat unusual initials. Dr. +Wilson very kindly furnished me all the information in his power, +gave me directions for telegraphing to Chambersburg, and showed every +disposition to serve me. + +On returning to the Herr House, we found the mild, white-haired old +gentleman in a very happy state. He had just discovered his son, in a +comfortable condition, at the United States Hotel. He thought that he +could probably give us some information which would prove interesting. +To the United States Hotel we repaired, then, in company with our +kind-hearted old friend, who evidently wanted to see me as happy as +himself. He went up-stairs to his son's chamber, and presently came down +to conduct us there. + +Lieutenant P----, of the Pennsylvania ----th, was a very fresh, +bright-looking young man, lying in bed from the effects of a recent +injury received in action. A grape-shot, after passing through a post +and a board, had struck him in the hip, bruising, but not penetrating or +breaking. He had good news for me. + +That very afternoon, a party of wounded officers had passed through +Harrisburg, going East. He had conversed in the bar-room of this hotel +with one of them, who was wounded about the shoulder, (it might be the +lower part of the neck,) and had his arm in a sling. He belonged to the +Twentieth Massachusetts; the Lieutenant saw that he was a Captain, by +the two bars on his shoulder-strap. His name was my family-name; he was +tall and youthful, like my Captain. At four o'clock he left in the train +for Philadelphia. Closely questioned, the Lieutenant's evidence was as +round, complete, and lucid as a Japanese sphere of rock-crystal. + +TE DEUM LAUDAMUS! The Lord's name be praised! The dead pain in the +semilunar ganglion (which I must remind my reader is a kind of stupid, +unreasoning brain, beneath the pit of the stomach, common to man and +beast, which aches in the supreme moments of life, as when the dam loses +her young ones, or the wild horse is lassoed) stopped short. There was +a feeling as if I had slipped off a tight boot, or cut a strangling +garter,--only it was all over my system. What more could I ask to assure +me of the Captain's safety? As soon as the telegraph-office opens +to-morrow morning, we will send a message to our friends in Philadelphia, +and get a reply, doubtless, which will settle the whole matter. + +The hopeful morrow dawned at last, and the message was sent accordingly. +In due time, the following reply was received:-- + +"Phil Sept 24 I think the report you have heard that W [the Captain] has +gone East must be an error we have not seen or heard of him here M L H" + +DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI! He _could_ not have passed through Philadelphia +without visiting the house called Beautiful, where he had been so +tenderly cared for after his wound at Ball's Bluff, and where those whom +he loved were lying in grave peril of life or limb. Yet he _did_ pass +through Harrisburg, going East, going to Philadelphia, on his way +home. Ah, this is it! He must have taken the late night-train from +Philadelphia for New York, in his impatience to reach home. There is +such a train, not down in the guide-book, but we were assured of the +fact at the Harrisburg depot. By-and-by came the reply from Dr. +Wilson's telegraphic message: nothing had been heard of the Captain at +Chambersburg. Still later, another message came from our Philadelphia +friend, saying that he was seen on Friday last at the house of Mrs. K--, +a well-known Union lady, in Hagerstown. Now this could not be true, for +he did not leave Keedysville until Saturday; but the name of the lady +furnished a clue by which we could probably track him. A telegram was +at once sent to Mrs. K--, asking information. It was transmitted +immediately, but when the answer would be received was uncertain, as the +Government almost monopolized the line. I was, on the whole, so well +satisfied that the Captain had gone East, that, unless something were +heard to the contrary, I proposed following him in the late train, +leaving a little after midnight for Philadelphia. + +This same morning we visited several of the temporary hospitals, +churches and school-houses, where the wounded were lying. In one of +these, after looking round as usual, I asked aloud, "Any Massachusetts +men here?" Two bright faces lifted themselves from their pillows and +welcomed me by name. The one nearest me was private John B. Noyes, of +Company B, Massachusetts Thirteenth, son of my old college class-tutor, +now the reverend and learned Professor of Hebrew, etc., in Harvard +University. His neighbor was Corporal Armstrong, of the same Company. +Both were slightly wounded, doing well. I learned then and since from +Mr. Noyes that they and their comrades were completely overwhelmed +by the attentions of the good people of Harrisburg,--that the ladies +brought them fruits and flowers, and smiles, better than either,--and +that the little boys of the place were almost fighting for the privilege +of doing their errands. I am afraid there will be a good many hearts +pierced in this war that will have no bullet-mark to show. + +There were some heavy hours to get rid of, and we thought a visit to +Camp Curtin might lighten some of them. A rickety wagon carried us to +the camp, in company with a young woman from Troy, who had a basket of +good things with her for a sick brother, "Poor boy! he will be sure to +die," she said. The rustic sentries uncrossed their muskets and let +us in. The camp was on a fair plain, girdled with hills, spacious, +well-kept apparently, but did not present any peculiar attraction for +us. The visit would have been a dull one, had we not happened to get +sight of a singular-looking set of human beings in the distance. They +were clad in stuff of different hues, gray and brown being the leading +shades, but both subdued by a neutral tint, such as is wont to harmonize +the variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, +listless, torpid,--an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of +such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a +broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given +our generals so much trouble,--"Secesh prisoners," as a by-stander told +us. A talk with them might be profitable and entertaining. But they were +tabooed to the common visitor, and it was necessary to get inside of the +line which separated us from them. + +A solid, square captain was standing near by, to whom we were referred. +Look a man calmly through the very centre of his pupils and ask him for +anything with a tone implying entire conviction that he will grant it, +and he will very commonly consent to the thing asked, were it to commit +_hari-kari_. The Captain acceded to my postulate, and accepted my friend +as a corollary. As one string of my own ancestors was of Batavian +origin, I may be permitted to say that my new friend was of the Dutch +type, like the Amsterdam galiots, broad in the beam, capacious in the +hold, and calculated to carry a heavy cargo rather than to make fast +time. He must have been in politics at some time or other, for he made +orations to all the "Secesh," in which he explained to them that the +United States considered and treated them like children, and enforced +upon them the ridiculous impossibility of the Rebels' attempting to do +anything against such a power as that of the National Government. + +Much as his discourse edified them and enlightened me, it interfered +somewhat with my little plans of entering into frank and friendly talk +with some of these poor fellows, for whom I could not help feeling a +kind of human sympathy, though I am as venomous a hater of the Rebellion +as one is like to find under the stars and stripes. It is fair to take +a man prisoner. It is fair to make speeches to a man. But to take a man +prisoner and then make speeches to him while in durance is _not_ fair. + +I began a few pleasant conversations, which would have come to something +but for the reason assigned. + +One old fellow had a long beard, a drooping eyelid, and a black clay +pipe in his mouth. He was a Scotchman from Ayr, _dour_ enough, and +little disposed to be communicative, though I tried him with the "Twa +Briggs," and, like all Scotchmen, he was a reader of "Burrns." He +professed to feel no interest in the cause for which he was fighting, +and was in the army, I judged, only from compulsion. There was a +wild-haired, unsoaped boy, with pretty, foolish features enough, who +looked as if he might be about seventeen, as he said he was. I give my +questions and his answers literally. + +"What State do you come from?" + +"Georgy." + +"What part of Georgia?" + +"_Midway_." + +--[How odd that is! My father was settled for seven years as pastor +over the church at Midway, Georgia, and this youth is very probably a +grandson or great-grandson of one of his parishioners.]-- + +"Where did you go to church, when you were at home?" + +"Never went inside 'f a church b't once in m' life." + +"What did you do before you became a soldier?" + +"Nothin'." + +"What do you mean to do when you get back?" + +"Nothin'." + +Who could have any other feeling than pity for this poor human weed, +this dwarfed and etiolated soul, doomed by neglect to an existence but +one degree above that of the idiot? + +With the group was a lieutenant, buttoned close in his gray coat,--one +button gone, perhaps to make a breastpin for some fair traitorous bosom. +A short, stocky man, undistinguishable from one of the "subject race" by +any obvious meanderings of the _sangre azul_ on his exposed surfaces. He +did not say much, possibly because he was convinced by the statements +and arguments of the Dutch captain. He had on strong, iron-heeled shoes, +of English make, which he said cost him seventeen dollars in Richmond. + +I put the question, in a quiet, friendly way, to several of the +prisoners, what they were fighting for. One answered, "For our homes." +Two or three others said they did not know, and manifested great +indifference to the whole matter, at which another of their number, a +sturdy fellow, took offence, and muttered opinions strongly derogatory +to those who would not stand up for the cause they had been fighting +for. A feeble, attenuated old man, who wore the Rebel uniform, if such +it could be called, stood by without showing any sign of intelligence. +It was cutting very close to the bone to carve such a shred of humanity +from the body-politic to make a soldier of. + +We were just leaving, when a face attracted me, and I stopped the party. +"That is the true Southern type," I said to my companion. A young +fellow, a little over twenty, rather tall, slight, with a perfectly +smooth, boyish cheek, delicate, somewhat high features, and a fine, +almost feminine mouth, stood at the opening of his tent, and as we +turned towards him fidgeted a little nervously with one hand at the +loose canvas, while he seemed at the same time not unwilling to talk. He +was from Mississippi, he said, had been, at Georgetown College, and was +so far imbued with letters that even the name of the literary humility +before him was not new to his ears. Of course I found it easy to come +into magnetic relation with him, and to ask him without incivility +what _he_ was fighting for. "Because I like the excitement of it," he +answered.--I know those fighters with women's mouths and boys' cheeks; +one such from the circle of my own friends, sixteen years old, slipped +away from his nursery and dashed in under an assumed name among the +red-legged Zouaves, in whose company he got an ornamental bullet-mark in +one of the earliest conflicts of the war. + +"Did you ever see a genuine Yankee?" said my Philadelphia friend to the +young Mississippian. + +"I have shot at a good many of them," he replied, modestly, his woman's +mouth stirring a little, with a pleasant, dangerous smile. + +The Dutch captain here put his foot into the conversation, as his +ancestors used to put theirs into the scale, when they were buying furs +of the Indians by weight,--so much for the weight of a hand, so much for +the weight of a foot. It deranged the balance of our intercourse; there +was no use in throwing a fly where a paving-stone had just splashed into +the water, and I nodded a good-bye to the boy-fighter, thinking how +much pleasanter it was for my friend the Captain to address him with +unanswerable arguments and crushing statements in his own tent than +it would be to meet him on some remote picket and offer his fair +proportions to the quick eye of a youngster who would draw a bead on him +before he had time to say _dunder and blixum_. + +We drove back to the town. No message. After dinner still no message. +Dr. Cuyler, Chief Army-Hospital Inspector, is in town, they say. Let us +hunt him up,--perhaps he can help us. + +We found him at the Jones House. A gentleman of large proportions, but +of lively temperament, his frame knit in the North, I think, but +ripened in Georgia, incisive, prompt, but good-humored, wearing his +broad-brimmed, steeple-crowned felt hat with the least possible tilt on +one side,--a sure sign of exuberant vitality in a mature and dignified +person like him,--business-like in his ways, and not to be interrupted +while occupied with another, but giving himself up heartily to the +claimant who held him for the time. He was so genial, so cordial, so +encouraging, that it seemed as if the clouds, which had been thick all +the morning, broke away as we came into his presence, and the sunshine +of his large nature filled the air all around us. He took the matter in +hand at once, as if it were his own private affair. In ten minutes he +had a second telegraphic message on its way to Mrs. K--at Hagerstown, +sent through the Government channel from the State Capitol,--one so +direct and urgent that I should be sure of an answer to it, whatever +became of the one I had sent in the morning. + +While this was going on, we hired a dilapidated barouche, driven by an +odd young native, neither boy nor man, "as a codling when 'tis almost an +apple," who said _wery_ for very, simple and sincere, who smiled faintly +at our pleasantries, always with a certain reserve of suspicion, and a +gleam of the shrewdness that all men get who live in the atmosphere of +horses. He drove us round by the Capitol grounds, white with tents, +which were disgraced in my eyes by unsoldierly scrawls in huge letters, +thus: THE SEVEN BLOOMSBURY BROTHERS, DEVIL'S HOLE, and similar +inscriptions. Then to the Beacon Street of Harrisburg, which looks +upon the Susquehanna instead of the Common, and shows a long front of +handsome houses with fair gardens. The river is pretty nearly a mile +across here, but very shallow now. The codling told us that a Rebel spy +had been caught trying its fords a little while ago, and was now at Camp +Curtin with a heavy ball chained to his leg,--a popular story, but a +lie, Dr. Wilson said. A little farther along we came to the barkless +stump of the tree to which Mr. Harris, the Cecrops of the city named +after him, was tied by the Indians for some unpleasant operation of +scalping or roasting, when he was rescued by friendly savages, who +paddled across the stream to save him. Our youngling pointed out a very +respectable-looking stone house as having been "built by the Indians" +about those times. Guides have queer notions occasionally. + +I was at Niagara just when Dr. Rae arrived there with his companions and +dogs and things from his Arctic search after the lost navigator. + +"Who are those?" I said to my conductor. + +"Them?" he answered. "Them's the men that's been out West, out to +Michig'n, aft' _Sir Ben Franklin_." + +Of the other sights of Harrisburg the Brant House or Hotel, or whatever +it is called, seems most worth notice. Its _façade_ is imposing, with a +row of stately columns, high above which a broad sign impends, like a +crag over the brow of a lofty precipice. The lower floor only appeared +to be open to the public. Its tessellated pavement and ample courts +suggested the idea of a temple where great multitudes might kneel +uncrowded at their devotions; but, from appearances about the place +where the altar should be, I judged, that, if one asked the officiating +priest for the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, his prayer +would not be unanswered. The edifice recalled to me a similar phenomenon +I had once looked upon,--the famous Caffè Pedrocchi at Padua. It was the +same thing in Italy and America: a rich man builds himself a mausoleum, +and calls it a place of entertainment. The fragrance of innumerable +libations and the smoke of incense-breathing cigars and pipes shall +ascend day and night through the arches of his funeral monument. What +are the poor dips which flare and flicker on the crowns of spikes that +stand at the corners of St. Genevieve's filigree-cased sarcophagus to +this perpetual offering of sacrifice? + +Ten o'clock in the evening was approaching. The telegraph-office would +presently close, and as yet there were no tidings from Hagerstown. Let +us step over and see for ourselves. A message! A message! + +"_Captain H still here leaves seven to-morrow for Harrisburg Penna Is +doing well + +Mrs H K_ ----." + +A note from Dr. Cuyler to the same effect came soon afterwards to the +hotel. + +We shall sleep well to-night; but let us sit awhile with nubiferous, or, +if we may coin a word, nepheligenous accompaniment, such as shall gently +narcotize the over-wearied brain and fold its convolutions for slumber +like the leaves of a lily at nightfall. For now the over-tense nerves +are all unstraining themselves, and a buzz, like that which comes over +one who stops after being long jolted upon an uneasy pavement, makes +the whole frame alive with a luxurious languid sense of all its inmost +fibres. Our cheerfulness ran over, and the mild, pensive clerk was +so magnetized by it that he came and sat down with us. He presently +confided to me, with infinite _naïveté_ and ingenuousness, that, judging +from my personal appearance, he should not have thought me the writer +that he in his generosity reckoned me to be. His conception, so far as +I could reach it, involved a huge, uplifted forehead, embossed with +protuberant organs of the intellectual faculties, such as all writers +are supposed to possess in abounding measure. While I fell short of his +ideal in this respect, he was pleased to say that he found me by no +means the remote and inaccessible personage he had imagined, and that I +had nothing of the dandy about me, which last compliment I had a modest +consciousness of most abundantly deserving. + +Sweet slumbers brought us to the morning of Thursday. The train from +Hagerstown was due at 11.15 A.M. We took another ride behind the +codling, who showed us the sights of yesterday over again. Being in +a gracious mood of mind, I enlarged on the varying aspects of the +town-pumps and other striking objects which we had once inspected, as +seen by the different lights of evening and morning. After this, we +visited the school-house hospital. A fine young fellow, whose arm had +been shattered, was just falling into the spasms of lockjaw. The beads +of sweat stood large and round on his flushed and contracted features. +He was under the effect of opiates,--why not (if his case was desperate, +as it seemed to be considered) stop his sufferings with chloroform? It +was suggested that it might _shorten life_. "What then?" I said. "Are a +dozen additional spasms worth living for?" + +The time approached for the train to arrive from Hagerstown, and we went +to the station. I was struck, while waiting there, with what seemed to +me a great want of care for the safety of the people standing round. +Just after my companion and myself had stepped off the track, I noticed +a car coming quietly along at a walk, as one may say, without engine, +without visible conductor, without any person heralding its approach, so +silently, so insidiously, that I could not help thinking how very near +it came to flattening out me and my match-box worse than the Ravel +pantomimist and his snuff-box were flattened out in the play. The train +was late,--fifteen minutes, half an hour late,--and I began to get +nervous, lest something had happened. While I was looking for it, +out started a freight-train, as if on purpose to meet the cars I was +expecting, for a grand smash-up. I shivered at the thought, and asked +an _employé_ of the road, with whom I had formed an acquaintance a few +minutes old, why there should not be a collision of the expected train +with this which was just going out. He smiled an official smile, and +answered that they arranged to prevent that, or words to that effect. + +Twenty-four hours had not passed from that moment when a collision did +occur, just out of the city, where I feared it, by which at least eleven +persons were killed, and from forty to sixty more were maimed and +crippled! + +To-day there was the delay spoken of, but nothing worse. The expected +train came in so quietly that I was almost startled to see it on the +track. Let us walk calmly through the cars, and look around us. + +In the first car, on the fourth seat to the right, I saw my Captain; +there saw I him, even my first-born, whom I had sought through many +cities. + +"How are you, Boy?" + +"How are you, Dad?" + + * * * * * + +Such are the proprieties of life, as they are observed among us +Anglo-Saxons of the nineteenth century, decently disguising those +natural impulses that made Joseph, the Prime-Minister of Egypt, weep +aloud so that the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard,--nay, which +had once overcome his shaggy old uncle Esau so entirely that he fell +on his brother's neck and cried like a baby in the presence of all the +women. But the hidden cisterns of the soul may be filling fast with +sweet tears, while the windows through which it looks are undimmed by a +drop or a film of moisture. + +These are times in which we cannot live solely for selfish joys or +griefs. I had not let fall the hand I held, when a sad, calm voice +addressed me by name. I fear that at the moment I was too much absorbed +in my own feelings; for certainly at any other time I should have +yielded myself without stint to the sympathy which this meeting might +well call forth. + +"You remember my son, Cortland Saunders, whom I brought to see you once +in Boston?" + +"I do remember him well." + +"He was killed on Monday, at Shepherdstown. I am carrying his body back +with me on this train. He was my only child. If you could come to my +house,--I can hardly call it my home now,--it would be a pleasure to +me." + +This young man, belonging in Philadelphia, was the author of a "New +System of Latin Paradigms," a work showing extraordinary scholarship and +capacity. It was this book which first made me acquainted with him, and +I kept him in my memory, for there was genius in the youth. Some time +afterwards he came to me with a modest request to be introduced to +President Felton, and one or two others, who would aid him in a course +of independent study he was proposing to himself. I was most happy to +smooth the way for him, and he came repeatedly after this to see me and +express his satisfaction in the opportunities for study he enjoyed +at Cambridge. He was a dark, still, slender person, always with a +trance-like remoteness, a mystic dreaminess of manner, such as I never +saw in any other youth. Whether he heard with difficulty, or whether his +mind reacted slowly on an alien thought, I could not say; but his answer +would often be behind time, and then a vague, sweet smile, or a few +words spoken under his breath, as if he had been trained in sick men's +chambers. For such a youth, seemingly destined for the inner life of +contemplation, to be a soldier seemed almost unnatural. Yet he spoke to +me of his intention to offer himself to his country, and his blood must +now be reckoned among the precious sacrifices which will make her soil +sacred forever. Had he lived, I doubt not that he would have redeemed +the rare promise of his earlier years. He has done better, for he has +died that unborn generations may attain the hopes held out to our nation +and to mankind. + +So, then, I had been within ten miles of the place where my wounded +soldier was lying, and then calmly turned my back upon him to come once +more round by a journey of three or four hundred miles to the same +region I had left! No mysterious attraction warned me that the heart +warm with the same blood as mine was throbbing so near my own. I thought +of that lovely, tender passage where Gabriel glides unconsciously by +Evangeline upon the great river. Ah, me! if that railroad-crash had been +a few hours earlier, we two should never have met again, after coming so +close to each other! + +The source of my repeated disappointments was soon made clear enough. +The Captain had gone to Hagerstown, intending to take the cars at once +for Philadelphia, as his three friends actually did do, and as I took it +for granted he certainly would. But as he walked languidly along, some +ladies saw him across the street, and seeing, were moved with pity, +and pitying, spoke such soft words that he was tempted to accept their +invitation and rest awhile beneath their hospitable roof. The mansion +was old, as the dwellings of gentlefolks should be; the ladies were some +of them young, and all were full of kindness; there were gentle cares, +and unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music-sprinklings from the +piano, with a sweet voice to keep them company,--and all this after the +swamps of the Chickahominy, the mud and flies of Harrison's Landing, the +dragging marches, the desperate battles, the fretting wound, the jolting +ambulance, the log-house, and the rickety milk--cart! Thanks, uncounted +thanks to the angelic ladies whose charming attentions detained him +from Saturday to Thursday, to his great advantage and my infinite +bewilderment! As for his wound, how could it do otherwise than well +under such hands? The bullet had gone smoothly through, dodging +everything but a few nervous branches, which would come right in time +and leave him as well as ever. + +At ten that evening we were in Philadelphia, the Captain at the house of +the friends so often referred to, and I the guest of Charley, my kind +companion. The Quaker element gives an irresistible attraction to these +benignant Philadelphia households. Many things reminded me that I was no +longer in the land of the Pilgrims. On the table were _Kool Slaa_ and +_Schmeer Kase_, but the good grandmother who dispensed with such quiet, +simple grace these and more familiar delicacies was literally ignorant +of _Baked Beans_, and asked if it was the Lima bean which was employed +in that marvellous dish of animalized leguminous farina! + +Charley was pleased with my comparing the face of the small Ethiop known +to his household as "Tines" to a huckleberry with features. He also +approved my parallel between a certain German blonde young maiden whom, +we passed in the street and the "Morris White" peach. But he was so +good-humored at times, that, if one scratched a lucifer, he accepted it +as an illumination. + +A day in Philadelphia left a very agreeable impression of the outside of +that great city, which has endeared itself so much of late to all the +country by its most noble and generous care of our soldiers. Measured by +its sovereign hotel, the Continental, it would stand at the head of our +economic civilization. It provides for the comforts and conveniences, +and many of the elegances of life, more satisfactorily than any American +city, perhaps than any other city anywhere. It is not a breeding-place +of ideas, which makes it a more agreeable residence for average people. +It is the great neutral centre of the Continent, where the fiery +enthusiasms of the South and the keen fanaticisms of the North meet at +their outer limits, and result in a compound that turns neither litmus +red nor turmeric brown. It lives largely on its traditions, of which, +leaving out Franklin and Independence Hall, the most imposing must +be considered its famous water-works. In my younger days I visited +Fairmount, and it was with a pious reverence that I renewed my +pilgrimage to that perennial fountain. Its watery ventricles were +throbbing with the same systole and diastole as when, the blood of +twenty years bounding in my own heart, I looked upon their giant +mechanism. But in the place of "Pratt's Garden" was an open park, and +the old house where Robert Morris held his court in a former generation +was changing to a public restaurant. A suspension-bridge cobwebbed +itself across the Schuylkill where that audacious arch used to leap the +river at a single bound,--an arch of greater span, as they loved to tell +us, than was ever before constructed. The Upper Ferry Bridge was to the +Schuylkill what the Colossus was to the harbor of Rhodes. It had an air +of dash about it which went far towards redeeming the dead level of +respectable average which flattens the physiognomy of the rectangular +city. Philadelphia will never be herself again until another Robert +Mills and another Lewis Wernwag have shaped her a new palladium. She +must leap the Schuylkill again, or old men will sadly shake their heads, +like the Jews at the sight of the second temple, remembering the glories +of that which it replaced. + +There are times when Ethiopian minstrelsy can amuse, if it does not +charm, a weary soul,--and such a vacant hour there was on this same +Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. +As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to +cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window +a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange +intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. +I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was +irresistibly droll, and Areturus, or Aldebaran, or whatever the +blazing luminary may have been, with all his revolving worlds, sailed +uncared-for down the firmament. + +On Saturday morning we took up our line of march for New York. Mr. +Felton, President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore +Railroad, had already called upon me, with a benevolent and sagacious +look on his face which implied that he knew how to do me a service and +meant to do it. Sure enough, when we got to the depot, we found a couch +spread for the Captain, and both of us were passed on to New York with +no visits, but those of civility, from the conductor. The best thing I +saw on the route was a rustic fence, near Elizabethtown, I think, but I +am not quite sure. There was more genius in it than in any structure of +the kind I have ever seen,--each length being of a special pattern, +ramified, reticulated, contorted, as the limbs of the trees had grown. I +trust some friend will photograph or stereograph this fence for me, to +go with the view of the spires of Frederick already referred to, as +mementos of my journey. + +I had come to feeling that I know most of the respectably dressed people +whom I met in the cars, and had been in contact with them at some time +or other. Three or four ladies and gentlemen were near us, forming +a group by themselves. Presently one addressed me by name, and, on +inquiry, I found him to be the gentleman who was with me in the pulpit +as Orator on the occasion of another Phi Beta Kappa poem, one delivered +at New Haven. The party were very courteous and friendly, and +contributed in various ways to our comfort. + +It sometimes seems to me as if there were only about a thousand people +in the world, who keep going round and round behind the scenes and then +before them, like the "army" in a beggarly stage-show. Suppose I should +really wish, some time or other, to get away from this everlasting +circle of revolving supernumeraries, where should I buy a ticket the +like of which was not in some of their pockets, or find a seat to which +some one of them was not a neighbor? + +A little less than a year before, after the Ball's-Bluff accident, the +Captain, then the Lieutenant, and myself had reposed for a night on our +homeward journey at the Fifth-Avenue Hotel, where we were lodged on the +ground-floor, and fared sumptuously. We were not so peculiarly fortunate +this time, the house being really very full. Farther from the flowers +and nearer to the stars,--to reach the neighborhood of which last the +_per ardua_ of three or four flights of stairs was formidable for any +mortal, wounded or well. The "vertical railway" settled that for us, +however. It is a giant corkscrew forever pulling a mammoth cork, which, +by some divine judgment, is no sooner drawn than it is replaced in its +position. This ascending and descending stopper is hollow, carpeted, +with cushioned seats, and is watched over by two condemned souls, +called conductors, one of whom is said to be named Ixion, and the other +Sisyphus. + +I love New York, because, as in Paris, everybody that lives in it feels +that it is his property,--at least, as much as it is anybody's. My +Broadway, in particular, I love almost as I used to love my Boulevards. + +I went, therefore, with peculiar interest, on the day that we rested at +our grand hotel, to visit some new pleasure-grounds the citizens had +been arranging for us, and which I had not yet seen. The Central Park +is an expanse of wild country, well crumpled so as to form ridges which +will give views and hollows that will hold water. The hips and elbows +and other bones of Nature stick out here and there in the shape of rocks +which give character to the scenery, and an unchangeable, unpurchasable +look to a landscape that without them would have been in danger of being +fattened by art and money out of all its native features. The roads were +fine, the sheets of water beautiful, the bridges handsome, the swans +elegant in their deportment, the grass green and as short as a fast +horse's winter coat. I could not learn whether it was kept so by +clipping or singeing. I was delighted with my new property,--but it +cost me four dollars to get there, so far was it beyond the Pillars of +Hercules of the fashionable quarter. What it will be by-and-by depends +on circumstances; but at present it is as much central to New York +as Brookline is central to Boston. The question is not between Mr. +Olmsted's admirably arranged, but remote pleasure-ground and our Common, +with its batrachian pool, but between his Eccentric Park and our finest +suburban scenery, between its artificial reservoirs and the broad +natural sheet of Jamaica Pond, I say this not invidiously, but in +justice to the beauties which surround our own metropolis. To compare +the situations of any dwellings in either of the great cities with those +which look upon the Common, the Public Garden, the waters of the Back +Bay, would be to take an unfair advantage of Fifth Avenue and Walnut +Street. St. Botolph's daughter dresses in plainer clothes than her +more stately sisters, but she wears an emerald on her right hand and a +diamond on her left that Cybele herself need not be ashamed of. + +On Monday morning, the twenty-ninth of September, we took the cars for +_Home_. Vacant lots, with Irish and pigs; vegetable-gardens; straggling +houses; the high bridge; villages, not enchanting; then Stamford; then +NORWALK. Here, on the 6th of May, 1853, I passed close on the heels of +the great disaster. But that my lids were heavy on that morning, my +readers would probably have had no further trouble with me. Two of my +friends saw the car in which they rode break in the middle and leave +them hanging over the abyss. From Norwalk to Boston, that day's journey +of two hundred miles was a long funeral-procession. + +Bridgeport, waiting for Iranistan to rise from its ashes with all its +phoenix-egg domes,--bubbles of wealth that broke, ready to be blown +again, iridescent as ever, which is pleasant, for the world likes +cheerful Mr. Barnum's success; New Haven, girt with flat marshes that +look like monstrous billiard-tables, with haycocks lying about for +balls,--romantic with West Rock and its legends,--cursed with a +detestable depot, whose niggardly arrangements crowd the track so +murderously close to the wall that the _peine forte et dure_ must be the +frequent penalty of an innocent walk on its platform,--with its neat +carriages, metropolitan hotels, precious old college-dormitories, +its vistas of elms and its dishevelled weeping-willows; Hartford, +substantial, well-bridged, many-steepled city,--every conical spire an +extinguisher of some nineteenth-century heresy; so onward, by and across +the broad, shallow Connecticut,--dull red road and dark river woven +in like warp and woof by the shuttle of the darting engine; then +Springfield, the wide-meadowed, well-feeding, horse-loving, +hot-summered, giant-treed town,--city among villages, village +among cities; Worcester, with its Diedalian labyrinth of crossing +railroad-bars, where the snorting Minotaurs, breathing fire and smoke +and hot vapors, are stabled in their dens; Framingham, fair cup-bearer, +leaf-cinctured Hebe of the deep-bosomed Queen sitting by the sea-side on +the throne of the Six Nations. And now I begin to know the road, not by +towns, but by single dwellings, not by miles, but by rods. The poles of +the great magnet that draws in all the iron tracks through the grooves +of all the mountains must be near at hand, for here are crossings, and +sudden stops, and screams of alarmed engines heard all around. The tall +granite obelisk comes into view far away on the left, its bevelled +capstone sharp against the sky; the lofty chimneys of Charlestown and +East Cambridge flaunt their smoky banners up in the thin air; and now +one fair bosom of the three-hilled city, with its dome-crowned summit, +reveals itself, as when many-breasted Ephesian Artemis appeared with +half-open _chlamys_ before her worshippers. + +Fling open the window-blinds of the chamber that looks out on the waters +and towards the western sun! Let the joyous light shine in upon the +pictures that hang upon its walls and the shelves thick-set with the +names of poets and philosophers and sacred teachers, in whose pages our +boys learn that life is noble only when it is held cheap by the side of +honor and of duty. Lay him in his own bed, and let him sleep off his +aches and weariness. So comes down another night over this household, +unbroken by any messenger of evil tidings,--a night of peaceful rest and +grateful thoughts; for this our son and brother was dead and is alive +again, and was lost and is found. + + + + +WAITING. + + + Drop, falling fruits and crispèd leaves! + Ye tone a note of joy to me; + Through the rough wind my soul sails free, + nigh over waves that Autumn heaves. + + Such quickening is in Nature's death, + Such life in every dying day,-- + The glowing year hath lost her sway, + Since Freedom waits her parting breath. + + I watch the crimson maple-boughs, + I know by heart each burning leaf, + Yet would that like a barren reef + Stripped to the breeze those arms uprose! + + Under the flowers my soldier lies! + But come, thou chilling pall of snow, + Lest he should hear who sleeps below + The yet unended captive cries! + + Fade swiftly, then, thou lingering year! + Test with the storms our eager powers; + For chains are broken with the hours, + And Freedom walks upon thy bier. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Eyes and Ears_. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, pp. +419. + +There is perhaps no man in America more widely known, more deeply loved, +and more heartily hated than the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. This +little book, fragmentary and desultory as it is, gives us a key +wherewith to unlock the mystery both of the extent of his influence and +the depth of the feelings which he excites. It is but a shower of petals +flung down by a frolicsome May breeze; but the beauty and brilliancy +of their careless profusion furnish a hint of the real strength and +substance and fruitfulness of the tree from which they sprang. + +Within the compass of some four hundred pages we have about one hundred +articles, most of which had previously appeared in weekly newspapers. +They embrace, of course, every variety of subject,--grave and gay, +practical and poetical. They are not such themes as come to a man +in silence and solitude, to be wrought out with deep and deliberate +conscientiousness; they are rather such as He around one in his outgoing +and his incoming, in the field and by the way-side, overlooked by the +preoccupied multitude, but abundantly patent to the few who will not +permit the memories or the hopes of life to thrust away its actualities, +and, once pointed out, full of interest and amusement even to the +absorbed and hitherto unconscious throngs. We have here no pale-browed, +far-sighted philosopher, but a ruddy-faced, high-spirited man, +cheerful-tempered, yet not _equilibrious_, susceptible to annoyance, +capable of wrathful outbursts, with eyes to see all sweet sights, ears +to hear all sweet sounds, and lips to sing their loveliness to others, +and also with eyes and ears and lips just as keen to distinguish and +just as hold to denounce the sights and sounds that are unlovely;--and +this man, with his ringing laugh and his springing step, walks cheerily +to and fro in his daily work, striking the rocks here and there by the +way-side with his bright steel hammer, eliciting a shower of sparks from +each, and then on to the next. It is not the serious business of his +life, but its casual and almost careless experiments. He does not wait +to watch effects. You may gather up the brushwood and build yourself +a fire, if you like. His part of the affair is but a touch and go,-- +partly for love and partly for fun. + +There are places where a severer taste, or perhaps only a more careful +revision, would have changed somewhat. At times an exuberance of spirits +carries him to the very verge of coarseness, but this is rare and +exceptional. The fabric may be slightly ravelled at the ends and +slightly rough at the selvedge, but in the main it is fine and smooth +and lustrous as well as strong. A coarse nature carefully clipped and +sheared and fashioned down to the commonplace of conventionality will +often exhibit a negative refinement, while a mind of real and subtile +delicacy, but of rugged and irrepressible individuality, will +occasionally shoot out irregular and uncouth branches. Yet between the +symmetry of the one and the spontaneity of the other the choice cannot +be doubtful. We are not defending coarseness in any guise. It is always +to be assailed, and never to be defended. It is always a detriment, +and never an ornament. No excellence can justify it. No occasion can +palliate it. But coarseness is of two kinds,--one of the surface, and +one in the grain. The latter is pervading and irremediable. It touches +nothing which it does not deface. It makes all things common and +unclean. It grows more repulsive as the roundness of youth falls away +and leaves its harsh features more sharply outlined. But the other +coarseness is only the overgrowth of excellence,--the rankness of lusty +life. It is vigor run wild. It is a fault, but it is local and temporal. +Culture corrects it. As the mind matures, as experience accumulates, +as the vision enlarges, the coarseness disappears, and the rich and +healthful juices nourish instead a playful and cheerful serenity that +illumines strength with a softened light, that disarms opposition and +delights sympathy, that shines without dazzling and attracts without +offending. + +Here arises a fear lest the apologetic nature of our remarks may seem to +indicate a much greater need of apology than actually exists. We have +been led into this line of remark, not so much by a perusal of the +book under consideration, in which, indeed, there is very little, if +anything, to offend, as by the nature of the objections which we have +most frequently heard against this author's productions, both written +and spoken. We do not even confine ourselves to defence, but go farther, +and question whether the allegations of coarseness may not oftener +be the fault of the plaintiff than of the defendant. Is there not a +conventional standard of refinement which measures things by its own +arbitrary self, and finds material for displeasure in what is really +but a sincere and almost unconscious rendering of things as they exist? +There are facts which modern fastidiousness justly enough commands to he +wrapped around with graceful drapery before they shall have audience. +But do we not commit a trespass against virtue, when we demand the same +soft disguises to drape facts whose disguise is the worst immorality, +whose naked hideousness is the only decency, which must be seen +disgusting to warrant their being seen at all? So Mr. Beecher has been +censured for irreverence, when what was called his irreverence has +seemed to us but the tenderness engendered of close connection. Cannot +one live so near to God as that His greatness shall he merged in His +goodness? What would be irreverence, if it came from the head, may be +but love springing up warm from the heart. + +One of the strongest characteristics of Mr. Beecher's mind, the one that +has, perhaps, the strongest influence in producing his power over men, +is his quick insight into common things, his quick sympathy with common +minds. He knows common dangers. He understands common interests. He +is sensitive to common sorrows. He appreciates common joys. Without +necessarily being practical himself, he is full of practical +suggestions. He is a leveller; but he levels up, not down. He +continually seeks to lift men from the plane of mere toil and thrift to +the loftier levels of aspiration. He would disinthrall them from what is +low, and introduce them to the freedom of the heights. He would bring +them out of the dungeons of the senses into the domains of taste and +principles. He believes in man, and he battles for men. With him, +humanity is chief: science, art, wealth are its handmaidens. Yet, +writing for ordinary people, he never falls into the sin of declaiming +against extraordinary ones. No part of his power over the poor is +obtained by inveighing against the rich, as no part of his power over +the rich is obtained by pandering to their prejudices or their passions. +He builds up no influence for himself on the ruins of another man's +influence. The elevation which he aims to produce is real, not +factitious,--absolute, not relative. It is the elevation to be obtained +by ascending the mountain, not by digging it away so that the valley +seems no longer low by contrast. + +For the manner of his teaching, he is not always gentle, but he is +always sincere. He speaks soft words to persuade; but if that is not +enough, he does not scruple to knock the muck-rake out of sordid hands +with a fine, sudden stroke, if so he may make men look up from the +rubbish under their feet to the flowers that bloom around them and the +stars that glow above and the God that reigns over all. + +Thinking of the multitudes of hard-working, weary-hearted people whom he +weekly met with these words of cheer: sometimes homely advice on homely +things; sometimes wise counsels in art; sometimes tender lessons from +Nature; sometimes noble words from his own earnest soul; sometimes +sympathy in sorrow; sometimes strength in weakness; sometimes only the +indirect, but real help that comes from the mere distraction wrought +by his sportiveness, and wild, winsome mirth; but all kindly, hearty, +honest, sympathetic,--indignation softening, even while it surges, +into pity and love, and itself finding or framing excuses for the very +outrage which it lashes: thinking of this, we do not marvel that he has +furrowed for himself so deep a groove in so many hearts. Nor, on the +other hand, is it difficult to see, even from so genial a book as this, +whence polemics are not so much banished as where there is no niche for +them, should they apply, why it is that he is so fiercely opposed. +When a man like Mr. Beecher encounters that which excites his moral +disapprobation, there is no possibility of mistaking him. He flings +himself against it with all the strength and might of his manly, +uncompromising nature. There is no coquetting with the proprieties, no +toning down of objurgation to meet the requirements of personal dignity, +but an audacious and aggressive repugnance of the whole man to the +meanness or malignity. And the very clearness of his vision gives +terrible power to his vituperation. With his keen, bright eye he sees +just where the vulnerable spot is, and with his firm, strong hand he +sends the arrow in. The victim writhes and reels and--does not love the +marksman. And as the victim has a large circle of relatives by birth and +marriage, he inoculates them with his own animosity; and so, at a safe +distance, Mr. Beecher is sometimes considerably torn in pieces. Yet we +have no doubt that by far the greater number of these opponents would, +if once fairly brought within the circle of his influence, acknowledge +the truth as well as the force of his principles; and certainly it is a +matter of surprise that a man with such a magnificent mastery of all the +weapons of attack and defence should be so sparing and discreet in their +use as is Mr. Beecher. In this book, compiled of articles thrown off +upon the spur of the moment, with so much to amuse, to awaken, to +suggest, and to inspire, there is hardly a sentence which can arouse +antagonism or inflict pain. You may not agree with his conclusions, but +you cannot resist his good nature. + +Long may he live to do yeoman's service in the cause of the beautiful +and the true! + + +_History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France from +A.D. 1807 to A.D. 1814._ By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W.F.P. NAPIER, K.C.B., +etc. In Five Volumes, with Portraits and Plans. New York: W.J. +Widdleton. + +A new edition of the great military history of Sir William Napier, +printed in the approved luxurious style which the good examples of the +Cambridge University Press have made a necessity with all intelligent +book-purchasers, calls at the present time for a special word of +recognition. Of the merits and character of the work itself it is +scarcely required that we should speak. An observer of, and participant +in, the deeds which he describes, cautious, deliberate, keen-sighted, +candid, and unsparing, General Napier's book has qualities seldom united +in a single production. Southey wrote an eloquent history of the War in +the Peninsula, perhaps as good a history as an author well-trained in +compositions of the kind could be expected to produce at a distance. +But that was its defect. It lacked that knowledge and judgment of a +complicated series of events which could be acquired only on the field +and by one possessed of consummate military training. On the other hand, +we can seldom look for any laborious work of authorship from a general +in active service. Men of action exhaust their energies in doing, and +are usually impatient of the slow process of unwinding the tangled skein +of events which at the moment they had been compelled to cut with the +sword. It is by no means every campaign which furnishes the Commentaries +of its Caesar. To Sir William Napier, however, we are indebted for a +work which has taken its place as a model history of modern campaigning. +The protracted struggle of the Peninsular War through six full years +of skilful operations, conducted by the greatest masters of military +science, in a country whose topographical features called out the rarest +resources of the art of war, at a time when the military system of +Napoleon was at its height, summing up the experience of a quarter of +a century in France of active military pursuits,--the story of sieges, +marches, countermarches, lines of retreat and defence, followed by the +most energetic assaults, blended with the disturbing political elements +of the day at home and the contrarieties of the battle-field amidst a +population foreign to both armies,--certainly presented a subject or +series of subjects calculated to tax the powers of a conscientious +writer to the uttermost. To furnish such a narrative was the work +undertaken by General Napier. Sixteen years of unintermitted toil were +given by him to the task. He spared no labor of research. Materials were +placed at his disposal by the generals of both armies, by Soult and +Wellington. The correspondence left behind in Spain by Joseph Bonaparte, +written in three languages and partly in cipher of which the key had +to be discovered, was patiently arranged, translated, and at length +deciphered by Lady Napier, who also greatly assisted her husband in +copying his manuscript, which, from the frequent changes made, was in +effect transcribed three times. By such labors was the immense mass +of contemporary evidence brought into order, clearly narrated, and +submitted to exact scientific criticism. For it is the distinguishing +characteristic of the book, that it is a critical history, constantly +illuminating facts by principles and deducing the most important maxims +of political and military science from the abundant material lavishly +contributed by the virtues, follies, and superabundant exertions of +three great nations in the heart of Europe, in the midst of the complex +civilization of the nineteenth century. The ever earnest, animated style +in which all this is written grows out of the subject and is supported +by it, always rising naturally with the requirements of the occasion. If +our officers in the field would learn how despatches should be written +and a record of their exploits be prepared to catch the ear of +posterity, let them give their leisure hours of the camp to the study +of Napier. The public also may learn many lessons of patience and +philosophy from these pages, when they turn from the book to the actual +warfare writing its ineffaceable characters on so many fair fields of +our own land. + + +_The Patience of Hope_. By the Author of "A Present Heaven." With an +Introduction by JOHN G. WHITTIER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. + +As the method by which an individual soul reaches conclusions with +regard to the Saviour and the conditions of salvation, "The Patience of +Hope" is worthy of particular attention. It does not, however, stand +alone, but belongs to a class. Its peculiarity is that it proceeds +by apposite text and inference, more than by the illumination of +feeling,--aiming to convince rather than to reveal, as is the manner of +those whose convictions have not quite become as a star in a firmament +where neither eclipse nor cloud ever comes. Evidently there was a most +searching examination of the Scriptures preparatory to the work; and yet +the ample quotation, often fresh and felicitous, appears to be made to +sustain a preconceived opinion, or, more strictly, an emotion. This +emotion is so single and absorbing that there is some gleam of it in +each varying view, and every sentiment is warm with it, however the +flame may lurk as beneath a crust of lava. Only from a richly gifted +mind, and a heart whose longings no fullness of mortal affection has +power to permanently appease, could these aspirations issue. It is the +tender complaint and patient hope of one whom the earth, and all that +is therein, cannot satisfy. Moreover, so pure and irrepressible is the +natural desire of the heart, so does it color and constitute all +the dream of Paradise, that the divinest Hope not only thrills and +palpitates with Love's ripest imaginings, but puts on nuptial robes. +Touchingly she pictures herself as "The Mystic Spouse,--her that cometh +up from the wilderness, leaning upon the arm of her Beloved,--and we +shall see that she, like her Lord, is wounded in her heart, her hands, +and her feet." Though sowing in such still remembered pain, she yet +reaps with unspeakable joy. She has now the full assurance that the +mystic and immortal embrace is for her, and in the fulness of her heart +cries, "When were Love's arms stretched so wide as upon the Cross?" + +It is in keeping with such an aspiration that this and kindred natures +should perceive in Christianity the sacred mystery from which is to be +drawn, in the world to come, the full fruition of the tenderest and +most vital impulse of the human heart, and therefore to be most fitly +meditated and vividly anticipated in cloistered seclusion. Throughout +their revelations there is a yearning for Infinite Love; and ardent +receptivity is regarded as the true condition for the conception and +enjoyment of religion. It is clear that they have a passion, sublimated +and glorified indeed, but still a passion, for Christ. This is the +mightiest impulse to that exaltation of His person against which the +calm and consummate reasoner contends in vain. Truly we are fearfully +and wonderfully made! The soul is touched with the strong necessity of +loving; and its power becomes intense and inappeasable in proportion to +the capacity of the heart; and yet some of the greatest of those have +reposed so supremely in the innate and ineffable Ideal that to the +uninitiated they have seemed in their serenity as pulseless as pearls. +Through this sublime influence lovely women have become nuns, and +have lived and died saints, that they might continually indulge and +constantly cherish the blissful hope of being, in some spiritual form, +the brides of Jesus. A long line of these, coeval with the Crucifixion, +have passed on in maiden meditation, and so were fancy-free from all of +mortal mould. This ecstatic dreaming is so charming, and so insatiable +withal, that it seems to those who entertain it a divine vision. It is +an enchantment so complete that Reason cannot penetrate its circle, and +Logic has never approached it. Doubtless this fond aspiration finds +freest and fairest expression in the Roman Church,--a communion that not +only encourages, but enjoins, the adoration of the Virgin, in order that +certain enthusiasts among men may also aspire to the skies on the wings +of pure, yet passionate love. + +The ready objection to this course of life is that it leads to solitude. +It wins the devotee apart, and away from the influences to that +universal brotherhood whereto Philanthropy fondly turns as the finest +manifestation of the spirit of the Redeemer. And yet they are equally +the fruits of His coming. Without the perfect Man the sublimest +endurance and most marvellous aspiration of Hope would never have found +development below. Now it has become a power that so pervades the bosoms +of sects that they accept its soaring wing as one to which the heaven +of heavens is open. This, certainly, is the greatest triumph that human +nature has achieved over those who have systematically depreciated it; +inasmuch as it is a heightening, not a change of heart. Verily, Love is +stronger than Death; and in its complete presence or utter absence, +here or hereafter, there is and will be the extreme of bliss or bale. +Therefore it is in the affections to lead those sweetly and swiftly +heavenward who singly seek the immortal way. So guided and inspired, it +cannot but be a charming path; for those who perpetually walk therein +come to look as though they were entranced with the perfume that +floats from fields of asphodel. Characters so developed are beautiful +exceedingly, and seem of a far higher strain than those who most +generously and effectively labor for the amelioration and moral +advancement of the race. They, more than any others who have riches +there, illumine the grand, yet gloomy arches of the Christian Church +with their ineffable whiteness. No preacher therein is so eloquent as +their marble silence; for they reveal in their countenances the mystery +of Redemption. Even while among the living, men looked upon them with +awe,--feeling, that, though coeval in time, infinite space rolled +between. They teach as no other order of teachers can, that the days and +duties of life may be so cast under foot as to exalt one to be only a +little lower than the angels. In fine, through them is made visible the +value of the individual soul; and thus we see, as in the central idea of +our author, that "that which moulds itself from within is free." + + +_Jenkins's Vest-Pocket Lexicon_. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. + +Compared with "Webster's Unabridged" or "Worcester's Quarto," this +little pinch of words would make "small show." It is, however, a very +valuable pocket-companion; for, to use the author's own phrase, it +"omits what everybody knows, contains what everybody wants to know and +cannot readily find." It is really a _vade-mecum_, small, cheap, and +useful to a degree no one can fully appreciate until it has been +thoroughly tried. Mr. Jabex Jenkins may claim younger-brotherhood with +the men who have done service in the important department of education +he has chosen to enter. + + +_A Practical Guide to the Study of the Diseases of the Eye; their +Medical and Surgical Treatment_. By HENRY W. WILLIAMS, M.D. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 317. + +If we readily accord our gratitude to those whose skilful hands and +well-instructed judgment render us physical service in our frequent +need, ought we not to offer additional thanks to such as by the +high tribute of their mental efforts confirm and elucidate the more +mechanical processes required in doing their beneficent work? + +Do those who enjoy unimpaired vision, and who have not yet experienced +the sufferings arising from any of the varied forms of ocular disease, +appreciate the magnitude of the blessing vouchsafed to them? We venture +to answer in the negative. + +Occasionally, the traveller by railway has a more or less severe hint +as to what an inflamed and painful eye may bring him to endure: those +countless flying cinders which blacken his garments and draw unsightly +lines upon his face with their slender charcoal-pencils do not always +leave him thus comparatively unharmed. Suppose one unluckily reaches the +eyeball just as the redness has faded from its sharp angles,--do we not +all know how the rest of that journey is one intolerable agony, unless +some fellow-traveller knows how to remove the offending substance? And +even then how the blistered, delicate surface yearns for a soothing +_douche_ of warm water,--perhaps not to be enjoyed for hours! + +From slighter troubles, through all the more serious and dangerous +states arising from injury or produced by spontaneous or specifically +aroused inflammation, to the wonderful operations devised to give sight, +when the clear and beautiful lens has become clouded, or the delicate +muscular meshes of the iris are bound down or drawn together so as to +close the pupil and shut out the visible world, the learned and skilful +operator comes to our aid, a veritable messenger of mercy. To be +deprived of sight,--who can fully appreciate this melancholy condition, +save those who have been in danger of such a fate, or have had actual +experience of it, though only temporarily? Such a misfortune is +universally allowed to be worse, by far, than congenital blindness. And +this is not difficult to understand. The eyes that have been permitted +to drink in the varied hues of the landscape, and to gaze with such +delight upon the celestial revelations spread out nightly above and +around them, are indeed in double darkness when all this power and +privilege are swept away, it may be forever. The astronomer can truly +estimate the value of healthy eyes. + +In looking over again, after a thorough perusal some time since, the +admirable work which forms the theme of this notice, we could not +resist the impulse to call attention to the infinite uses, unbounded +importance, and inestimable value of the organs of vision; and we have +no fear but our postulate in regard to the manner in which we should all +prize their conservators will be heartily acceded to. + +This is hardly the place in which to enter into a minute professional +examination of this new volume. If we advert generally to its purpose, +and point out the undoubted benefits its recommendations and teaching +are destined to confer, both upon those who are sufferers,--or who will +be, unless they heed its warnings,--and upon the practitioners who +devote either an exclusive or a general attention to the diseases of the +eye, the end we have in view will be partially attained,--and fully so, +if the author's convincing instructions are brought into that universal +adoption which they not only eminently deserve, but must command. Let us +hope that the clear style, sensible advice, and valuable information, +derived from so varied an experience as that which has been enjoyed by +our author, will have a wide and growing influence in the extensive +field of professional ministrations demanded by this class of +cases,--for, let it be remembered, and reverently be it written, "THE +LIGHT OF THE BODY IS THE EYE." + +The distinctive aim of the author--and which is kept constantly in +view--is the simplifying both of the classification and the treatment +of the diseases of the eye. We know of no volume which could more +appropriately and beneficially be put into the hands of the medical +student, nor any which could meet a more appreciative welcome from +the busy practitioner. The former cannot, at the tender age of his +professional life, digest the ponderous masses of ocular lore which +adorn the shelves of the maturer student's library; and the latter, +while he is glad to have these elaborate works at his command for +reference, is refreshed by a perusal of a few pages of the more +unpretending, but not less valuable _vade-mecum_. + +While the professional reader will peruse this book with pleasure as +well as profit, there are many points and paragraphs of great value to +everybody. We advise every one to look over these pages, and we promise +that many valuable hints will be gained in reference to the various +ailments and casualties which are constantly befalling the eye. It is +well in this world to become members of a Mutual-Assistance Society, and +help one another out of trouble as often as we can. In order to do this, +we must know how; and, in many cases, a little aid in mishaps such as +are likely to occur to the eye may prevent a vast deal of subsequent +injury and pain. + +We cannot but refer to the singular good sense of the author in +pressing upon his reader's attention the mischief so often wrought, +hitherto,--and we fear still frequently brought about,--by +_over-activity_ of treatment. Especially does this find its +exemplification in the care of traumatic injuries of the eye. Rashness +and heroic measures in these cases are as unfortunate for the patient as +are the well-meant efforts of friends, when a foreign substance has been +inserted into the ear or nose, or a needle broken off in the flesh: what +was at first an easily remedied matter becomes exceedingly difficult, +tedious, and painful, after various pokings, pushings, and squeezings. + +The author's experience in cases of cataract makes his observations upon +that affection as valuable as they are clear and to the purpose. The +same is true with regard to the use and abuse of spectacles. + +A short account of that interesting and most important instrument, the +Opthalmoscope, will command the attention of the general reader. + +Finally, we notice with peculiar satisfaction the elegant dress in which +the volume appears. A very marked feature of this is the agreeable tint +given to the paper, so much to be preferred to the glaring snowy white +which has been so long the rule with publishers everywhere. This is +especially befitting a volume whose object is the alleviation of ocular +distress, and we venture to say will meet with the commendation of every +reader. A similar shade was adopted, some time since, by the publishers +of "The Ophthalmic Hospital Reports," London, at the suggestion, we +think, of its accomplished editor, Mr. Streatfeild. + + +_Country Living and Country Thinking_. By GAIL HAMILTON. Boston: Ticknor +& Fields. 12mo. + +Our impression of this volume is that it contains some of the most +charming essays in American literature. The authoress, who chooses to +conceal her real name under the _alias_ of "Gail Hamilton," is not +only womanly, but a palpable individual among women. Both sex and +individuality are impressed on every page. + +That the hook is written by a woman is apparent by a thousand signs. +That it proceeds from a distinct and peculiar personality, as well as +from a fertile and vigorous intellect, is no less apparent. The writer +has evidently looked at life through her own eyes, and interpreted it +through her own experience. Her independence becomes at times a kind of +humorous tartness, and she finds fault most delightfully. So cant +and pretence, however cunningly disguised by accredited maxims and +accredited sentimentality, can for a moment deceive her sharp insight +or her fresh sensibility. This primitive power and originality are not +purchased by any sacrifice of the knowledge derived at second-hand +through books, for she is evidently a thoughtful and appreciative +student of the best literature; but they proceed from a nature so strong +that it cannot be overcome and submerged by the mental forces and food +it assimilates. + +Individuality implies will, and will always tends to wilfulness. The two +are harmonized in humor. Gail Hamilton is a humorist in her wilfulness, +and flashes suggestive thought and wisdom even in her most daring +caprices and eccentricities of individual whim. She is wild in +sentences, heretical in paragraphs, thoroughly orthodox in essays. +Her mind is really inclosed by the most rigid maxims of Calvinistic +theology, while, within that circle, it frisks and plays in the oddest +and wittiest freaks. A grave and religious earnestness is at the +foundation of her individuality, and she is so assured of this fact that +she can safely indulge in wilful gibes at pretension in all its most +conventionally sacred forms. This bright audacity is the perfection of +moral and intellectual health. No morbid nature, however elevated in +its sentiments, would dare to hazard such keen and free remarks as Gail +Hamilton scatters in careless profusion. + +When this intellectual caprice approaches certain definite limits, it is +edifying to witness the forty-person power of ethics and eloquence she +brings readily up to the rescue of the sentiments she at first seemed +bent on destroying. As her style throughout is that of brilliant, +animated, and cordial conversation, flexible to all the moods of the +quick mind it so easily and aptly expresses, the reader is somewhat +puzzled at times to detect the natural logic which regulates her +transitions from gay to grave, from individual perceptions to general +laws; but the geniality and heartiness which flood the whole book with +life and meaning soon reconcile him to the peculiar processes of the +intellect whose startling originality and freshness give him so much +pleasure. + +It would be unjust not to say that beneath all the fantastic play of her +wit and humor there is constantly discernible an earnest purpose. Sense +and sagacity are everywhere visible. The shrewdest judgments on ordinary +life and character are as abundant as the quaint fancies with which they +are often connected. But in addition to all that charms and informs, the +thoughtful reader will find much that elevates and invigorates. A noble +soul, contemptuous of everything mean and base, loving everything grand +and magnanimous, is the real life and inspiration of the book. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Union Speeches. Second Series. Delivered in England during the Present +American War. By George Francis Train. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & +Brothers. 8vo. paper, pp. 90. 25 cts. + +Out of his Head. A Romance. Edited by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. New York. +G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 226. $1.00. + +A Narrative of the Campaign of the First Rhode Island Regiment, in the +Spring and Summer of 1861. Illustrated with a Portrait and Map. By +Augustus Woodbury, Chaplain of the Regiment. Providence. S.S. Rider. +12mo. pp. 260. $1.00. + +The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. New York. Blakeman & Mason. 12mo. pp. 382. +$1.00. + +An English Grammar. By G.P. Quackenbos, A.M., Author of "Advanced Course +of Composition and Rhetoric," "A Natural Philosophy," etc. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 288. 63 cts. + +Like and Unlike. A Novel. By A.S. Roe, Author of "I've been Thinking," +etc. New York. G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 501. $1.25. + +Les Misérables. Saint Denis. A Novel. By Victor Hugo. Translated from +the Original French, by Charles E. Wilbour. New York. G.W. Carleton. +8vo. paper, pp. 184. 50 cts. + +Les Misérables. Jean Valjean. A Novel. By Victor Hugo. Translated from +the Original French, by Charles E. Wilbour. New York. G.W. Carleton. +8vo. pp. 165. $1.00. + +The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, By his Nephew, Pierre M. +Irving. Vol. II. New York. G.P. Putnam. 12mo. pp. 492. $1.50. + +The Lady's Almanac, for the Year 1863. Boston. George Coolidge. 18mo. +pp. 128. 25 cts. + +The Parish Will Case, in the Court of Appeals. The Statement of Facts, +and the Opinion of the Court. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 4to. pp. 123, +43. 50 cts. + +The Tax-Payer's Manual: containing the Acts of Congress imposing Direct +and Indirect Taxes; with Complete Marginal References, and an Analytical +Index, showing all the Items of Taxation, the Mode of Proceeding, and +the Duties of Officers. With an Explanatory Preface. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 8vo. paper, pp. iv., 94. 36. 50 cts. + +Martin Van Buren: Lawyer, Statesman, and Man. By William Allen Butler. +New York. D. Appleton & Co. 18mo. pp. 47. 25 cts. + +Salome, the Daughter of Herodias. A Dramatic Poem. New York. G.P. +Putnam. 16mo. pp. 251. 75 cts. + +The Stars and Stripes in Rebeldom. A Series of Papers written by +Federal Prisoners (Privates) in Richmond, Tuscaloosa, New Orleans, and +Salisbury, N.C. With an Appendix. Boston. T.O.H.P. Burnham. 16mo. pp. +137. 50 cts. + +The Twin Lieutenants; or, The Soldier's Bride. By Alexander Dumas. +Complete and Unabridged Edition. Philadelphia. T.B. 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Carleton. 8vo. pp. 171. $1.00. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, +December, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11159 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11159] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 62 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. X.--DECEMBER, 1862.--NO. LXII. + + + + +THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. + + +In Cuba there is a blossoming shrub whose multitudinous crimson flowers +are so seductive to the humming-birds that they hover all day around it, +buried in its blossoms until petal and wing seem one. At first upright, +the gorgeous bells droop downward, and fall unwithered to the ground, +and are thence called by the Creoles "Cupid's Tears." Frederika Bremer +relates that daily she brought home handfuls of these blossoms to her +chamber, and nightly they all disappeared. One morning she looked toward +the wall of the apartment, and there, in a long crimson line, the +delicate flowers went ascending one by one to the ceiling, and passed +from sight. She found that each was borne laboriously onward by a little +colorless ant much smaller than itself: the bearer was invisible, but +the lovely burdens festooned the wall with beauty. + +To a watcher from the sky, the march of the flowers of any zone across +the year would seem as beautiful as that West-Indian pageant. These +frail creatures, rooted where they stand, a part of the "still life" of +Nature, yet share her ceaseless motion. In the most sultry silence of +summer noons, the vital current is coursing with desperate speed through +the innumerable veins of every leaflet; and the apparent stillness, like +the sleeping of a child's top, is in truth the very ecstasy of perfected +motion. + +Not in the tropics only, but even in England, whence most of our floral +associations and traditions come, the march of the flowers is in an +endless circle, and, unlike our experience, something is always in +bloom. In the Northern United States, it is said, the active growth of +most plants is condensed into ten weeks, while in the mother-country the +full activity is maintained through sixteen. But even the English winter +does not seem to be a winter, in the same sense as ours, appearing more +like a chilly and comfortless autumn. There is no month in the year +when some special plant does not bloom: the Coltsfoot there opens +its fragrant flowers from December to February; the yellow-flowered +Hellebore, and its cousin, the sacred Christmas Rose of Glastonbury, +extend from January to March; and the Snowdrop and Primrose often come +before the first of February. Something may be gained, much lost, by +that perennial succession; those links, however slight, must make the +floral period continuous to the imagination; while our year gives a +pause and an interval to its children, and after exhausted October has +effloresced into Witch-Hazel, there is an absolute reserve of blossom, +until the Alders wave again. + +No symbol could so well represent Nature's first yielding in spring-time +as this blossoming of the Alder, this drooping of the tresses of these +tender things. Before the frost is gone, and while the newborn season is +yet too weak to assert itself by actually uplifting anything, it can at +least let fall these blossoms, one by one, till they wave defiance to +the winter on a thousand boughs. How patiently they have waited! Men are +perplexed with anxieties about their own immortality; but these catkins, +which hang, almost full-formed, above the ice all winter, show no such +solicitude, but when March wooes them they are ready. Once relaxing, +their pollen is so prompt to fall that it sprinkles your hand as you +gather them; then, for one day, they are the perfection of grace upon +your table, and next day they are weary and emaciated, and their little +contribution to the spring is done. + +Then many eyes watch for the opening of the May-flower, day by day, +and a few for the Hepatica. So marked and fantastic are the local +preferences of all our plants, that, with miles of woods and meadows +open to their choice, each selects only some few spots for its +accustomed abodes, and some one among them all for its very earliest +blossoming. There is always some single chosen nook, which you might +almost cover with your handkerchief, where each flower seems to bloom +earliest, without variation, year by year. I know one such place for +Hepatica a mile northeast,--another for May-flower two miles southwest; +and each year the whimsical creature is in bloom on that little spot, +when not another flower can be found open through the whole country +round. Accidental as the choice may appear, it is undoubtedly based +on laws more eternal than the stars; yet why all subtile influences +conspire to bless that undistinguishable knoll no man can say. Another +and similar puzzle offers itself in the distribution of the tints +of flowers,--in these two species among the rest. There are certain +localities, near by, where the Hepatica is all but white, and others +where the May-flower is sumptuous in pink; yet it is not traceable to +wet or dry, sun or shadow, and no agricultural chemistry can disclose +the secret. Is it by some Darwinian law of selection that the white +Hepatica has utterly overpowered the blue, in our Cascade Woods, for +instance, while yet in the very midst of this pale plantation a single +clump will sometimes bloom with all heaven on its petals? Why can one +recognize the Plymouth May-flower, as soon as seen, by its wondrous +depth of color? Does it blush with triumph to see how Nature has +outwitted the Pilgrims, and even succeeded in preserving her deer like +an English duke, still maintaining the deepest woods in Massachusetts +precisely where those sturdy immigrants first began their clearings? + +The Hepatica (called also Liverwort, Squirrel-Cup, or Blue Anemone) has +been found in Worcester as early as March seventeenth, and in Danvers on +March twelfth,--dates which appear almost the extreme of credibility. + +Our next wild-flower in this region is the Claytonia, or Spring-Beauty, +which is common in the Middle States, but here found in only a few +localities. It is the Indian _Miskodeed_, and was said to have been +left behind when mighty Peboan, the Winter, was melted by the breath +of Spring. It is an exquisitely delicate little creature, bears its +blossoms in clusters, unlike most of the early species, and opens in +gradual succession each white and pink-veined bell. It grows in moist +places on the sunny edges of woods, and prolongs its shy career from +about the tenth of April until almost the end of May. + +A week farther into April, and the Bloodroot opens,--a name of guilt, +and a type of innocence. This fresh and lovely thing appears to +concentrate all its stains within its ensanguined root, that it may +condense all purity in the peculiar whiteness of its petals. It emerges +from the ground with each shy blossom wrapt in its own pale-green leaf, +then doffs the cloak and spreads its long petals round a group of yellow +stamens. The flower falls apart so easily that when in full bloom it +will hardly bear transportation, but with a touch the stem stands naked, +a bare gold-tipped sceptre amid drifts of snow. And the contradiction +of its hues seems carried into its habits. One of the most shy of wild +plants, easily banished from its locality by any invasion, it yet takes +to the garden with unpardonable readiness, doubles its size, blossoms +earlier, repudiates its love of water, and flaunts its great leaves in +the unnatural confinement until it elbows out the exotics. Its charm is +gone, unless one find it in its native haunts, beside some cascade which +streams over rocks that are dark with moisture, green with moss, and +snowy with white bubbles. Each spray of dripping feather-moss exudes a +tiny torrent of its own, or braided with some tiny neighbor, above the +little water-fonts which sleep sunless in ever-verdant caves. Sometimes +along these emerald canals there comes a sudden rush and hurry, as if +some anxious housekeeper upon the hill above were afraid that things +were not stirring fast enough,--and then again the waving and sinuous +lines of water are quieted to a serener flow. The delicious red-thrush +and the busy little yellow-throat are not yet come to this their summer +haunt; but all day long the answering field-sparrows trill out their +sweet, shy, accelerating lay. + +In the same localities with the Bloodroot, though some days later, grows +the Dog-Tooth Violet,--a name hopelessly inappropriate, but likely +never to be changed. These hardy and prolific creatures have also +many localities of their own; for, though they do not acquiesce in +cultivation, like the sycophantic Bloodroot, yet they are hard to banish +from their native haunts, but linger after the woods are cleared and the +meadow drained. The bright flowers blaze back all the yellow light of +noonday as the gay petals curl and spread themselves above their beds of +mottled leaves; but it is always a disappointment to gather them, for +indoors they miss the full ardor of the sunbeams, and are apt to go to +sleep and nod expressionless from the stalk. + +And almost on the same day with this bright apparition one may greet a +multitude of concurrent visitors, arriving so accurately together that +it is almost a matter of accident which of the party shall first report +himself. Perhaps the Dandelion should have the earliest place; indeed, +I once found it in Brookline on the seventh of April. But it cannot +ordinarily be expected before the twentieth, in Eastern Massachusetts, +and rather later in the interior; while by the same date I have also +found near Boston the Cowslip or Marsh-Marigold, the Spring-Saxifrage, +the Anemones, the Violets, the Bellwort, the Houstonia, the Cinquefoil, +and the Strawberry-blossom. Varying, of course, in different spots and +years, the arrival of this coterie is yet nearly simultaneous, and they +may all be expected hereabouts before May-day at the very latest. After +all, in spite of the croakers, this festival could not have been much +better-timed, the delicate blossoms which mark the period are usually in +perfection on this day, and it is not long before they are past their +prime. + +Some early plants which have now almost disappeared from Eastern +Massachusetts are still found near Worcester in the greatest +abundance,--as the larger Yellow Violet, the Red Trillium, the Dwarf +Ginseng, the Clintonia or Wild Lily-of-the-Valley, and the pretty +fringed Polygala, which Miss Cooper christened "Gay-Wings." Others again +are now rare in this vicinity, and growing rarer, though still abundant +a hundred miles farther inland. In several bits of old swampy wood one +may still find, usually close together, the Hobble-Bush and the Painted +Trillium, the Mitella, or Bishop's-Cap, and the snowy Tiarella. Others +again have entirely vanished within ten years, and that in some cases +without any adequate explanation. The dainty white Corydalis, profanely +called "Dutchman's-Breeches," and the quaint woolly Ledum, or Labrador +Tea, have disappeared within that time. The beautiful Linnaea is still +found annually, but flowers no more; as is also the case, in all but one +distant locality, with the once abundant Rhododendron. Nothing in Nature +has for me a more fascinating interest than these secret movements of +vegetation,--the sweet blind instinct with which flowers cling to old +domains until absolutely compelled to forsake them. How touching is the +fact, now well known, that salt-water plants still flower beside the +Great Lakes, yet dreaming of the time when those waters were briny as +the sea! Nothing in the demonstrations of Geology seems grander than the +light lately thrown by Professor Gray, from the analogies between the +flora of Japan and of North America, upon the successive epochs of heat +which led the wandering flowers along the Arctic lands, and of cold +which isolated them once more. Yet doubtless these humble movements +of our local plants may be laying up results as important, and may +hereafter supply evidence of earth's changes upon some smaller scale. + +May expands to its prime of beauty; the summer birds come with the +fruit-blossoms, the gardens are deluged with bloom and the air with +melody, while in the woods the timid spring-flowers fold themselves away +in silence and give place to a brighter splendor. On the margin of some +quiet swamp a myriad of bare twigs seem suddenly overspread with purple +butterflies, and we know that the Rhodora is in bloom. Wordsworth never +immortalized a flower more surely than Emerson this, and it needs no +weaker words; there is nothing else in which the change from nakedness +to beauty is so sudden, and when you bring home the great mass of +blossoms they appear all ready to flutter away again from your hands and +leave you disenchanted. + +At the same time the beautiful Cornel-tree is in perfection; startling +as a tree of the tropics, it flaunts its great flowers high up among the +forest-branches, intermingling its long slender twigs with theirs, and +garnishing them with alien blooms. It is very available for household +decoration, with its four great creamy petals,--flowers they are not, +but floral involucres,--each with a fantastic curl and stain at its tip, +as if the fireflies had alighted on them and scorched them; and yet I +like it best as it peers out in barbaric splendor from the delicate +green of young Maples. And beneath it grows often its more abundant +kinsman, the Dwarf Cornel, with the same four great petals enveloping +its floral cluster, but lingering low upon the ground,--an herb whose +blossoms mimic the statelier tree. + +The same rich creamy hue and texture show themselves in the Wild Calla, +which grows at this season in dark, sequestered water-courses, and +sometimes well rivals, in all but size, that superb whiteness out of +a land of darkness, the Ethiopic Calla of the conservatory. At this +season, too, we seek another semi-aquatic rarity, whose homely name +cannot deprive it of a certain garden-like elegance, the Buckbean. This +is one of the shy plants which yet grow in profusion within their own +domain. I have found it of old in Cambridge, and then upon the pleasant +shallows of the Artichoke, that loveliest tributary of the Merrimack, +and I have never seen it where it occupied a patch more than a few yards +square, while yet within that space the multitudinous spikes grow always +tall and close, reminding one of hyacinths, when in perfection, but more +delicate and beautiful. The only locality I know for it in this vicinity +lies seven miles away, where a little inlet from the lower winding bays +of Lake Quinsigamond goes stealing up among a farmer's hay-fields, and +there, close beside the public road and in full of the farm-house, this +rare creature fills the water. But to reach it we commonly row down +the lake to a sheltered lagoon, separated from the main lake by a long +island which is gradually forming itself like the coral isles, growing +each year denser with alder thickets where the king-birds build;--there +leave the boat among the lily-leaves, and take a lane which winds among +the meadows and gives a fitting avenue for the pretty thing we seek. +But it is not safe to vary many days from the twentieth of May, for the +plant is not long in perfection, and is past its prime when the lower +blossoms begin to wither on the stem. + +But should we miss this delicate adjustment of time, it is easy to +console ourselves with bright armfuls of Lupine, which bounteously +flowers for six weeks along our lake-side, ranging from the twenty-third +of May to the sixth of July. The Lupine is one of our most travelled +plants; for, though never seen off the American continent, it stretches +to the Pacific, and is found upon the Arctic coast. On these banks of +Lake Quinsigamond it grows in great families, and should be gathered in +masses and placed in a vase by itself; for it needs no relief from other +flowers, its own soft leaves afford background enough, and though the +white variety rarely occurs, yet the varying tints of blue upon the same +stalk are a perpetual gratification to the eye. I know not why shaded +blues should be so beautiful in flowers, and yet avoided as distasteful +in ladies' fancy-work; but it is a mystery like that which repudiates +blue-and-green from all well-regulated costumes, while Nature yet +evidently prefers it to any other combination in her wardrobe. + +Another constant ornament of the end of May is the large pink +Lady's-Slipper, or Moccason-Flower, the "Cypripedium not due +till to-morrow" which Emerson attributes to the note-book of +Thoreau,--to-morrow, in these parts, meaning about the twentieth of May. +It belongs to the family of Orchids, a high-bred race, fastidious in +habits, sensitive as to abodes. Of the ten species named as rarest among +American endogenous plants by Dr. Gray, in his valuable essay on the +statistics of our Northern Flora, all but one are Orchids. And even an +abundant species, like the present, retains the family traits in its +person, and never loses its high-born air and its delicate veining. +I know a grove where it can be gathered by the hundreds within a +half-acre, and yet I never can divest myself of the feeling that each +specimen is a choice novelty. But the actual rarity occurs, at least +in this region, when one finds the smaller and more beautiful Yellow +Moccason-Flower,--_parviflorum_,--which accepts only our very choicest +botanical locality, the "Rattlesnake Ledge" on Tatessit Hill,--and may, +for aught I know, have been the very plant which Elsie Venner laid upon +her school-mistress's desk. + +June is an intermediate month between the spring and summer flowers. Of +the more delicate early blossoms, the Dwarf Cornel, the Solomon's-Seal, +and the Yellow Violet still linger in the woods, but rapidly make way +for larger masses and more conspicuous hues. The meadows are gorgeous +with Clover, Buttercups, and Wild Geranium; but Nature is a little chary +for a week or two, maturing a more abundant show. Meanwhile one +may afford to take some pains to search for another rarity, almost +disappearing from this region,--the lovely Pink Azalea. It still grows +plentifully in a few sequestered places, selecting woody swamps to hide +itself; and certainly no shrub suggests, when found, more tropical +associations. Those great, nodding, airy, fragrant clusters, tossing far +above one's head their slender cups of honey, seem scarcely to belong to +our sober zone, any more than the scarlet tanager which sometimes builds +its nest beside them. They appear bright exotics, which have wandered +into our woods, and seem too happy to feel any wish for exit. And just +as they fade, their humbler sister in white begins to bloom, and carries +on through the summer the same intoxicating fragrance. + +But when June is at its height, the sculptured chalices of the Mountain +Laurel begin to unfold, and thenceforward, for more than a month, +extends the reign of this our woodland queen. I know not why one should +sigh after the blossoming gorges of the Himalaya, when our forests are +all so crowded with this glowing magnificence,--rounding the tangled +swamps into smoothness, lighting up the underwoods, overtopping the +pastures, lining the rural lanes, and rearing its great pinkish masses +till they meet overhead. The color ranges from the purest white to a +perfect rose-pink, and there is an inexhaustible vegetable vigor about +the whole thing, which puts to shame those tenderer shrubs that shrink +before the progress of cultivation. There is the Rhododendron, for +instance, a plant of the same natural family with the Laurel and the +Azalea, and looking more robust and woody than either: it once grew in +many localities in this region, and still lingers in a few, without +consenting either to die or to blossom, and there is only one remote +place from which any one now brings into our streets those large +luxuriant flowers, waving white above the dark green leaves, and bearing +"just a dream of sunset on their edges, and just a breath from the green +sea in their hearts." But the Laurel, on the other hand, maintains its +ground, imperturbable and almost impassable, on every hill-side, takes +no hints, suspects no danger, and nothing but the most unmistakable +onset from spade or axe can diminish its profusion. Gathering it on the +most lavish scale seems only to serve as wholesome pruning; nor can I +conceive that the Indians, who once ruled over this whole county from +Wigwam Hill, could ever have found it more inconveniently abundant than +now. We have perhaps no single spot where it grows in such perfect +picturesqueness as at "The Laurels," on the Merrimack, just above +Newburyport,--a whole hill-side scooped out and the hollow piled +solidly with flowers, the pines curving around it above, and the river +encircling it below, on which your boat glides along, and you look up +through glimmering arcades of bloom. But for the last half of June it +monopolizes everything in the Worcester woods,--no one picks anything +else; and it fades so slowly that I have found a perfect blossom on the +last day of July. + +At the same time with this royalty of the woods, the queen of the water +ascends her throne, for a reign as undisputed and far more prolonged. +The extremes of the Water-Lily in this vicinity, so far as I have known, +are the eighteenth of June and the thirteenth of October,--a longer +range than belongs to any other conspicuous wild-flower, unless we +except the Dandelion and Houstonia. It is not only the most fascinating +of all flowers to gather, but more available for decorative purposes +than almost any other, if it can only be kept fresh. The best method for +this purpose, I believe, is to cut the stalk very short before placing +in the vase; then, at night, the lily will close and the stalk curl +upward;--refresh them by changing the water, and in the morning the +stalk will be straight and the flower open. + +From this time forth Summer has it all her own way. After the first of +July the yellow flowers begin to watch the yellow fireflies; Hawkweeds, +Loosestrifes, Primroses bloom, and the bushy Wild Indigo. The variety of +hues increases; delicate purple Orchises bloom in their chosen +haunts, and Wild Roses blush over hill and dale. On peat meadows the +Adder's-Tongue Arethusa (now called _Pogonia_) flowers profusely, with a +faint, delicious perfume,--and its more elegant cousin, the Calopogon, +by its side. In this vicinity we miss the blue Harebell, the identical +harebell of Ellen Douglas, which I remember waving its exquisite flowers +along the banks of the Merrimack, and again at Brattleboro', below the +cascade in the village, where it has climbed the precipitous sides +of old buildings, and nods inaccessibly from their crevices, in that +picturesque spot, looking down on the hurrying river. But with this +exception, there is nothing wanting here of the flowers of early summer. + +The more closely one studies Nature, the finer her adaptations grow. For +instance, the change of seasons is analogous to a change of zones, and +summer assimilates our vegetation to that of the tropics. + +In those lands, Humboldt has remarked, one misses the beauty of +wild-flowers in the grass, because the luxuriance of vegetation develops +everything into shrubs. The form and color are beautiful, "but, being +too high above the soil, they disturb that harmonious proportion which +characterizes the plants of our European meadows. Nature has, in every +zone, stamped on the landscape the peculiar type of beauty proper to +the locality." But every midsummer reveals the same tendency. In early +spring, when all is bare, and small objects are easily made prominent, +the wild-flowers are generally delicate. Later, when all verdure is +profusely expanded, these miniature strokes would be lost, and Nature +then practises landscape-gardening in large, lights up the copses with +great masses of White Alder, makes the roadsides gay with Aster and +Golden-Rod, and tops the tall coarse Meadow-Grass with nodding Lilies +and tufted Spiraea. One instinctively follows these plain hints, and +gathers bouquets sparingly in spring and exuberantly in summer. + +The use of wild-flowers for decorative purposes merits a word in +passing, for it is unquestionably a branch of high art in favored hands. +It is true that we are bidden, on high authority, to love the wood-rose +and leave it on its stalk; but against this may be set the saying of +Bettine, that "all flowers which are broken become immortal in the +sacrifice"; and certainly the secret harmonies of these fair creatures +are so marked and delicate that we do not understand them till we try to +group floral decorations for ourselves. The most successful artists +will not, for instance, consent to put those together which do not grow +together; Nature understands her business, and distributes her masses +and backgrounds unerringly. Yonder soft and feathery Meadow-Sweet longs +to be combined with Wild Roses: it yearns towards them in the field, +and, after withering in the hand most readily, it revives in water as if +to be with them in the vase. In the same way the White Spiraea serves as +natural background for the Field-Lilies. These lilies, by the way, are +the brightest adornment of our meadows during the short period of their +perfection. We have two species: one slender, erect, solitary, scarlet, +looking up to heaven with all its blushes on; the other clustered, +drooping, pale-yellow. I never saw the former in such profusion as last +week, on the bare summit of Wachusett. The granite ribs have there a +thin covering of crispest moss, spangled with the white starry blossoms +of the Mountain Cinquefoil; and as I lay and watched the red lilies that +waved their innumerable urns around me, it needed but little imagination +to see a thousand altars, sending visible flames forever upward to the +answering sun. + +August comes: the Thistles are out, beloved of butterflies; deeper and +deeper tints, more passionate intensities of color, prepare the way for +the year's decline. A wealth of gorgeous Golden-Rod waves over all the +hills, and enriches every bouquet one gathers; its bright colors command +the eye, and it is graceful as an elm. Fitly arranged, it gives a bright +relief to the superb beauty of the Cardinal-Flowers, the brilliant +blue-purple of the Vervain, the pearl-white of the Life-Everlasting, +the delicate lilac of the Monkey-Flower, the soft pink and white of +the Spiraeas,--for the white yet lingers,--all surrounded by trailing +wreaths of blossoming Clematis. + +But the Cardinal-Flower is best seen by itself, and, indeed, needs the +surroundings of its native haunts to display its fullest beauty. Its +favorite abode is along the dank mossy stones of some black and winding +brook, shaded with overarching bushes, and running one long stream of +scarlet with these superb occupants. It seems amazing how anything so +brilliant can mature in such a darkness. When a ray of sunlight strays +in upon it, the wondrous creature seems to hover on the stalk, ready to +take flight, like some lost tropic bird. There is a spot whence I have +in ten minutes brought away as many as I could hold in both arms, some +bearing fifty blossoms on a single stalk; and I could not believe that +there was such another mass of color in the world. Nothing cultivated +is comparable to them; and, with all the talent lately lavished on +wild-flower painting, I have never seen the peculiar sheen of these +petals in the least degree delineated. It seems some new and separate +tint, equally distinct from scarlet and from crimson, a splendor for +which there is as yet no name, but only the reality. + +It seems the signal of autumn, when September exhibits the first +Barrel-Gentian by the roadside; and there is a pretty insect in the +meadows--the Mourning-Cloak Moth it might be called--which gives +coincident warning. The innumerable Asters mark this period with their +varied and wide-spread beauty; the meadows are full of rose-colored +Polygala, of the white spiral spikes of the Ladies'-Tresses, and of +the fringed loveliness of the Gentian. This flower, always unique and +beautiful, opening its delicate eyelashes every morning to the sunlight, +closing them again each night, has also a thoughtful charm about it +as the last of the year's especial darlings. It lingers long, each +remaining blossom growing larger and more deep in color, as with many +other flowers; and after it there is nothing for which to look forward, +save the fantastic Witch-Hazel. + +On the water, meanwhile, the last White Lilies are sinking beneath the +surface, the last gay Pickerel-Weed is gone, though the rootless plants +of the delicate Bladder-Wort, spreading over acres of shallows, still +impurple the wide, smooth surface. Harriet Prescott says that some souls +are like the Water-Lilies, fixed, yet floating. But others are like this +graceful purple blossom, floating unfixed, kept in place only by its +fellows around it, until perhaps a breeze comes, and, breaking the +accidental cohesion, sweeps them all away. + +The season reluctantly yields its reign, and over the quiet autumnal +landscape everywhere, even after the glory of the trees is past, there +are tints and fascinations of minor beauty. Last October, for instance, +in walking, I found myself on a little knoll, looking northward. +Overhead was a bower of climbing Waxwork, with its yellowish pods scarce +disclosing their scarlet berries,--a wild Grape-vine, with its +fruit withered by the frost into still purple raisins,--and yellow +Beech-leaves, detaching themselves with an effort audible to the ear. +In the foreground were blue Raspberry-stems, yet bearing greenish +leaves,--pale-yellow Witch-Hazel, almost leafless,--purple +Viburnum-berries,--the silky cocoons of the Milkweed,--and, amid the +underbrush, a few lingering Asters and Golden-Rods, Ferns still green, +and Maidenhair bleached white. In the background were hazy hills, +white Birches bare and snow-like, and a Maple half-way up a sheltered +hill-side, one mass of canary-color, its fallen leaves making an +apparent reflection on the earth at its foot,--and then a real +reflection, fused into a glassy light intenser than itself, upon the +smooth, dark stream below. + +The beautiful disrobing suggested the persistent and unconquerable +delicacy of Nature, who shrinks from nakedness and is always seeking +to veil her graceful boughs,--if not with leaves, then with feathery +hoar-frost, ermined snow, or transparent icy armor. + +But, after all, the fascination of summer lies not in any details, +however perfect, but in the sense of total wealth which summer gives. +Wholly to enjoy this, one must give one's self passively to it, and not +expect to reproduce it in words. We strive to picture heaven, when +we are barely at the threshold of the inconceivable beauty of earth. +Perhaps the truant boy who simply bathes himself in the lake and then +basks in the sunshine, dimly conscious of the exquisite loveliness +around him, is wiser, because humbler, than is he who with presumptuous +phrases tries to utter it. There are multitudes of moments when the +atmosphere is so surcharged with luxury that every pore of the body +becomes an ample gate for sensation to flow in, and one has simply to +sit still and be filled. In after-years the memory of books seems barren +or vanishing, compared with the immortal bequest of hours like these. +Other sources of illumination seem cisterns only; these are fountains. +They may not increase the mere quantity of available thought, but they +impart to it a quality which is priceless. No man can measure what a +single hour with Nature may have contributed to the moulding of his +mind. The influence is self-renewing, and if for a long time it baffles +expression by reason of its fineness, so much the better in the end. + +The soul is like a musical instrument: it is not enough that it be +framed for the very most delicate vibration, but it must vibrate long +and often before the fibres grow mellow to the finest waves of sympathy. +I perceive that in the veery's carolling, the clover's scent, the +glistening of the water, the waving wings of butterflies, the sunset +tints, the floating clouds, there are attainable infinitely more +subtile modulations of delight than I can yet reach the sensibility to +discriminate, much less describe. If, in the simple process of writing, +one could physically impart to this page the fragrance of this spray of +azalea beside me, what a wonder would it seem!--and yet one ought to be +able, by the mere use of language, to supply to every reader the total +of that white, honeyed, trailing sweetness, which summer insects haunt +and the Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is not in language, +but in men. There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as +words,--none so graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to dream of +combinations of syllables so delicious that all the dawning and decay of +summer cannot rival their perfections, nor winter's stainless white +and azure match their purity and their charm. To write them, were it +possible, would be to take rank with Nature; nor is there any other +method, even by music, for human art to reach so high. + + * * * * * + + +ONE OF MY CLIENTS. + + +After a practice in the legal profession of more than twenty years, I am +persuaded that a more interesting volume could not be written than the +revelations of a lawyer's office. The plots there discovered before they +were matured,--the conspiracies there detected + + "Ere they hail reached their last fatal periods,"-- + +the various devices of the Prince of Darkness,--the weapons with which +he fought, and those by which he was overcome,--the curious phenomena of +intense activity and love of gain,--the arts of the detective, and those +by which he was eluded,--and the never-ending and ever-varying surprises +and startling incidents,--would present such a panorama of human affairs +as would outfly our fancy, and modify our unbelief in that much-abused +doctrine of the depravity of our nature. + +To illustrate, let me introduce to you "one of my clients," whom I will +call Mr. Sidney, and with whom, perhaps, you may hereafter become better +acquainted. His counterpart in personal appearance you may find in the +thoroughfare at, any hour of the day. There is nothing about him to +attract attention. He is nearly forty-five years of age, and weighs, +perhaps, two hundred pounds. His face is florid and his hair sandy. His +eyes are small, piercing, and gray. His motions are slow, and none are +made without a purpose. Intellectually he is above the average, and his +perceptive faculties are well developed. The wrinkles in his lips are at +right angles with his mouth, and a close observer might detect in his +countenance self-reliance and tenacity of will and purpose. But with +ordinary faculties much may be accomplished: in this sketch, let us see +how much in two particulars. + +His first entrance into my office was in the spring of 1853. He +handed me a package of papers, saying, if I would name an hour for a +professional consultation, he would be punctual. The time was agreed +upon and he withdrew. On examination of his papers, I found that his +letters of introduction were from several United States Senators, Judges +of Supreme Courts, Cabinet Officers, and Governors, and one was from a +Presidential candidate in the last election. Those directed specially +to me were from a Senator and a Member of Congress, both of whom were +lawyers and my personal friends, men in whose judgment I placed great +confidence. They all spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Sidney's +integrity, ability, and energy, and concluded by saying I might +implicitly rely upon his judgment and be governed by his counsels. + +What man of the masses can this one be, thus heralded by the authorities +of the nation, and what his labor, so commended by the rulers? I glanced +at him mentally again. Perhaps he is laboring for the endowment of some +great literary or benevolent institution, for the building of a national +monument. No. Perhaps he has some theory that thousands of facts must +prove and illustrate; or it may be he is a voracious gatherer of +statistics. The last is the most probable; but the more I mused, the +more the fire burned within me to know more of his mission. + +I awaited impatiently his coming. It was on the stroke of the hour +appointed. The object of that interview may not with propriety be +stated, nor the results described; but it may be said that that hour was +the most intensely exciting of any of my professional life, causing the +blood to chill and boil alternately. The business was so peculiar, and +connected with men so exalted in position, and conducted with such +wonderful ability and tact, that now, years after, scarcely a day passes +that my mind does not revert to those hours and do homage to those +transcendent abilities by which it was conducted, till I sometimes think +the possessor of them was an overmatch for Lucifer himself. My eyes +were for the first time opened to the marvellous in his department +of knowledge and art; and the region of impossibility was materially +circumscribed, and the domain of the prince of the powers of the air +extended _ad infinitum_. Into those regions it is not my present purpose +to delve. + +After a business acquaintance of several years with Mr. Sidney, I have +learned that he was formerly a rich manufacturer, and that he was nearly +ruined in fortune by the burning of several warehouses in which he had +stored a large amount of merchandise that was uninsured. The owners of +these store-houses were men of wealth, influence, and respectability. +Alone of all the citizens, Mr. Sidney suspected that the block was +intentionally set on fire to defraud the insurance-offices. Without +any aid or knowledge of other parties, he began an investigation, and +ascertained that the buildings were insured far beyond their value. +He also ascertained that insurance had been obtained on a far greater +amount of merchandise than the stores could contain; and still further, +that the goods insured, as being deposited there, were not so deposited +at the time of the fire. He likewise procured a long array of facts +tending to fix the burning upon the "merchant princes" who held the +policies. To his mind, they were convincing. He therefore confronted +these men, accused them of the arson, and demanded payment for his own +loss. This was, of course, declined. Whereupon he gave them formal +notice, that, if his demand were not liquidated within thirty days, +never thereafter would an opportunity be afforded for a settlement. That +the notice produced peculiar excitement was evident. _Yet the thirty +days elapsed and his claim was not adjusted_. + +From that hour, with a just appreciation of the enormity of the offence +which he believed to have been committed, he consecrated his vast +energies to the detection of crime. His whole soul was fired almost to +frenzy with the greatness of his work, and he pursued it with a firmness +of principle and fixedness of purpose that seemed almost madness, till +he exposed to the world the most stupendous league of robbers ever +dreamed of, extending into every State and Territory of the Union, +and numbering, to his personal knowledge, over seven hundred men of +influence and power, whose business as a copartnership was forgery, +counterfeiting, burglary, arson, and any other crimes that might afford +rich pecuniary remuneration. + +I will not now stop to describe the organization of this band, which is +as perfect as that of any corporation; nor the enormous resources at its +command, being computed by millions; nor the great respectability of +its directors and State agents; nor the bloody oaths and forfeitures by +which the members are bound together; nor the places of their annual +meetings; nor a thousand other particulars, more startling than anything +in fiction or history. Nor will I enumerate the great number of +convictions of members of this gang for various offences through Mr. +Sidney's efforts. Prosecuting no other parties than these,--thwarting +them in those defences that had never before failed,--testifying in +open court against the character of their witnesses, who appeared to be +polished gentlemen, and enumerating the offences of which they had +been guilty,--and harassing them by all legal and legitimate means, he +gathered around him a storm that not one man in a thousand could have +withstood for an hour. Eleven times was food analyzed that had been +suspiciously set before him, and in each instance poison was detected in +it; while in hundreds of instances he declined to receive from unknown +hands presents about which hung similar suspicions. Numerous were the +infernal-machines sent him, the explosion of some of which he escaped as +if by miracle, and several exploded in his own dwelling. Without number +were the anonymous letters he received, threatening his life, if he did +not desist from prosecuting this band of robbers. Yet not for one moment +swerved from his purpose, he moved unharmed through ten thousand perils, +till at last he fell a victim to the enemy that had so long been hunting +his life. On no one has his mantle fallen. + +His sole object in life seemed to be the breaking-up of this villanous +gang of plunderers, and he pursued it with a genius and strength, a +devotion, self-sacrifice, and true heroism, that are deserving of +immortality. + +Not long before his death, while one of the directors of this band was +confined in prison at Mr. Sidney's instigation, awaiting a preliminary +examination, he sent for Mr. Sidney and offered him one hundred thousand +dollars, if he would desist from pursuing him alone. Mr. Sidney replied, +that he had many times before been offered the like sum, if he would +cease prosecuting the directors, and that the same reason which had +inclined him to reject that proposition would compel him to refuse this. +Whereupon the director offered, as an additional inducement, one-half of +the money taken from the messenger of the Newport banks, while on his +way to Providence to redeem their bills at the Merchants Bank, and also +the mint where they had coined the composition that had passed current +for years through all the banks and banking-houses of the country, and +which stood every test that could be applied, without the destruction of +the coin itself, which mint had cost its owners upwards of two hundred +thousand dollars. All of which Mr. Sidney indignantly rejected. And it +was not till the year after his death that the coin became known, when +it was also reported and believed that a million and a quarter of the +same was locked up in the vaults of the--Government. + +The United States Government sought Mr. Sidney's services, as appears of +record. Those high in authority had decided on his employment, a fact +which in less than six hours thereafter was known to the directors, and +within that space of time five of them had arrived in Washington and +paid over to their attorney the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars for +some purpose,--the attorney being no less a personage than an honorable +member of a supreme court. The service desired of Mr. Sidney he was +willing to perform, on the condition that he should not be called upon +to prosecute any other parties than those to whose conviction he had +sworn to devote his life. + +As a detective, Mr. Sidney was unequalled in this country. Vidocq may +have been his superior in dissimulation, but in that alone. He certainly +had not a tithe of Mr. Sidney's genius and strength of mind and moral +power to discern the truth, though never so deeply hidden, and to expose +it to the clear light of day. + + "His blood and judgment were so well commingled," + +that his conclusions seemed akin to prophecy. + +But it is not as a detective that Mr. Sidney is here presented. This +slight sketch of this remarkable man is given, that the reader may more +willingly believe that he possessed, among other wonderful powers, one +that is not known ever to have been attained to such a degree by any +other individual, namely:-- + +_The power of discerning, in a single specimen of handwriting, the +character, the occupation, the habits, the temperament, the health, +the age, the sex, the size, the nationality, the benevolence or the +penuriousness, the boldness or the timidity, the morality or the +immorality, the affectation or the hypocrisy, and often the intention of +the writer_. + +At the age of thirty-five, the genius of Mr. Sidney as a physiognomist, +expert, and detective, remained wholly undeveloped. He was not +aware, nor were his friends, of his wonderful powers of observation, +dissection, and deduction. Nor had he taken his first lesson by being +brought in contact with the rogues. How, then, did he acquire this +almost miraculous power? + +After he had ascertained the names of the directors and State agents +of the band, he collected many hundred specimens of their handwriting. +These he studied with that energy which was equalled only by his +patience. In a surprisingly short time he first of all began to perceive +the differences between a moral and an immoral signature. Afterwards he +proceeded to study the occupation, age, habits, temperament, and all +the other characteristics of the writers, and in this he was equally +successful. If this be doubted by any, let him collect a number of +signatures of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, and Americans, or, what +is still better, of Jews of all nations, and at least in the latter +instance, with ordinary perceptive faculties, there will be no +difficulty in determining the question of nationality; a person with +half an eye need never mistake the handwriting of a Jew. Many can detect +pride and affectation, and most persons the sex, in handwriting, how +much soever it may be disguised. + + "The bridegroom's letters stand in row above, + Tapering, yet straight, like pine-trees in his grove; + While free and fine the bride's appear below, + As light and slender as her jasmines grow." + +Why, then, should it be strange, if remarkable powers of observation, +analysis, and patient and energetic study should accomplish much +more? In this department the Government had afforded Mr. Sidney great +facilities, till at last he would take the letters dropped during the +night in the post-office of a great city, and as rapidly as a skilful +cashier could detect a counterfeit in counting bank-bills, and with +unerring certainty, he would throw out those suspiciously superscribed. +"In each of these nine," he would say, "there is no letter, but money +only. This parcel is from the W--Street office. These are directed to +men that are not called by these names: they are fictitious, and assumed +for iniquitous purposes. Those are from thieves to thieves, and hint at +opportunities," and so on. + +Travelling over the principal railways of the country without charge, +entertained at hotels where compensation was declined, Mr. Sidney was in +some instances induced to impart to his friends some of that knowledge +which he took much pains to conceal, believing that by so doing he +should best serve the great purposes of his life. Whether he desired +this remarkable power to be kept from the rogues, or whether he thought +he should be too much annoyed by being called upon as an expert in +handwriting in civil cases, or what his purpose was, is not known, and +probably a large number of his intimate friends are not aware of his +genius in this. + +On one occasion he was in a Canadian city for the first time, and +stopped at a principal hotel. When about to depart, he was surprised +that his host declined compensation. The landlord then requested Mr. +Sidney to give him the character of a man whose handwriting he produced. +Mr. Sidney consented, and, having retired to the private office, gave +the writer's age within a year, his nationality, being a native-born +Frenchman, his height and size, being very short and fleshy, his +temperament and occupation; and described him as a generous, high-toned, +public-spirited man, of strong religious convictions and remarkable +modesty: all of which the landlord pronounced to be entirely correct. + +The hotel-register was then brought, and to nearly every name Mr. Sidney +gave the marked character or peculiarity of the man. One was very +nervous, another very tall and lean; this one was penurious, that one +stubborn; this was a farmer, and that a clergyman; this name was written +in a frolic; this was a genuine name, though not written by the man +himself,--and that written by the man himself, but it was not his true +name. Of the person last specified the clerk desired a full description, +and obtained it in nearly these words:-- + +"He, Sir, was not christened by that name. He could never have written +it before he was thirty. He has assumed it within a year. The character +is bad,--very bad. I judge he is a gambler by profession, and--something +worse. He evidently is not confined to one department of rascality. He +was born and educated in New England, is aged about thirty-nine, is +about five feet ten in height, and is broad-shouldered and stout. His +nerves are strong, and he is bold, hypocritical, and mean. He is just +the kind of man to talk like a saint and act like a devil." + +The little company raised their hands in holy horror. + +"As to age, size, nerve, etc.," said the landlord, "you are entirely +correct, but in his moral character you are much mistaken"; and the +clerk laughed outright. + +"Not mistaken at all," replied Mr. Sidney; "the immorality of the +signature is the most perspicuous, and it is more than an even chance +that he has graduated from a State's prison. At any rate, he will show +his true character wherever he remains a year." + +"But, my dear Sir, you are doing the greatest possible damage to your +reputation; he is a boarder of mine, and"---- + +"You had better be rid of him," chimed in Mr. Sidney. + +"Why, Mr. Sidney, he is the _clergyman_ who has been preaching very +acceptably at the ---- Church these two months!" + +"Just as I told you," said Mr. Sidney; "he is a hypocrite and a rascal +by profession. Will you allow me to demonstrate this?" + +The landlord assented. A servant was called, and Mr. Sidney, having +written on a card, sent it to the clergyman's room, with the request +that he would come immediately to the office. It was delivered, and the +landlord waited patiently for his Reverence. + +"You think he will come?" asked Mr. Sidney. + +The landlord replied affirmatively. + +Mr. Sidney shook his head, and said,--"You will see." + +A short time after, the servant was again ordered to make a +reconnoissance, and reported that there was no response to his knocking, +and that the door was locked on the inside. Whereupon Mr. Sidney +expressed the hope that the religious society were responsible for the +board, for he would never again lead that flock like a shepherd. It was +subsequently ascertained that the parson had in a very irreverent manner +slipped down the spout to the kitchen and jumped from there to the +ground, and, what is "very remarkable," like the load of voters upset by +Sam Weller into the canal, "was never heard of after."[A] + +[Footnote A: There is a curious story connected with this "clergyman," +which may yet appear in the biography of Mr. S.] + + * * * * * + +"Individual handwriting," says Lavater, "is inimitable. The more I +compare the different handwritings which fall in my way, the more am +I confirmed in the idea that they are so many expressions, so many +emanations, of the character of the writer. Every country, every nation, +every city has its peculiar handwriting." And the same might be said of +painting; for, if one hundred painters copy the same figure, an artist +will distinguish the copyist. + +Some years since, a certain bank placed in my hands two promissory notes +for large amounts, purporting to be signed by a Mr. Temple and indorsed +by a Mr. Conway, and which both maker and indorser pronounced forgeries. +Both notes were written on common white paper, and were purchased by the +bank of a certain broker at a time when it was difficult to make loans +by discount in the usual manner. Before the maturity of the notes, the +broker, who was a Jew, had left for parts unknown. He left behind him +no liabilities, unless he might be holden for the payment of the notes +above specified, and several others signed and indorsed in the same +manner in the hands of other parties. Several attempts had been made by +professional experts to trace resemblances between the forgeries and the +genuine handwriting of said Temple and Conway, as well as the broker, +but all had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the signatures were +as dissimilar as well could be. The cashier was exceedingly embarrassed +by the fact that Mr. Conway was one of the directors of the bank, and +he was presumed to have been so familiar with his signature as to be +incapable of being deceived. + +After a most diligent investigation and the expenditure of much time and +money, and after skilful experts and detectives had given up in despair +of ascertaining either the whereabouts of the Jew or anything further +till he could be produced, the holders of this paper had settled down +quietly in the belief that the broker was the guilty party and that all +further effort was useless. At this point of time, when all excitement +had subsided, these notes came into my possession. I immediately +telegraphed to Mr. Sidney, and it was with great joy that I received the +reply that he was on his way. At three o'clock in the morning I met him +at the railroad station. He complimented me by saying there was not +another man living for whom he would have left the city of ---- on a +similar message. I thanked him, and we walked to the office. Before +arriving there, I had merely informed him that I desired his services in +the investigation of a forgery that baffled our art. He demanded all the +papers. I produced the forged notes, several genuine checks and letters +of Mr. Temple and Mr. Conway, and several specimens of the handwriting +of the broker. + +Long as I live I can never forget the almost supernatural glow that came +over his features. I could almost see the halo. No language can describe +such a marked and rapid change of countenance. His whole soul seemed +wrapt in a delightful vision. I cannot say how long this continued, as +I was lost in admiration, as he was in contemplation. I spoke, but he +seemed not to hear. At last his muscles relaxed, and he began to breathe +as if greatly fatigued. He wiped the perspiration from his brow, and +said, as if to himself,-- + +"Sure!" + +I asked what was sure. A few minutes elapsed, and he said more loudly,-- + +"As sure as you are born,"--without seeming to have heard my inquiry. + +I proposed to state what could be proved, and the suspicions that were +entertained of the cashier. He objected, and said,-- + +"I take my departure from these papers. Mr. Temple is aged thirty-eight, +a large, well-built man, full six feet high, strongly nerved, bold, +proud, and fearless. His mind is active, and in his day he has been +professor in a college. He fares well and is fashionably dressed. I +think he is not in any legitimate business. He is a German by birth, +though he has been in this country several years. He is somewhat +affected and immensely hypocritical. I think he is a gambler and dealer +in counterfeit money. He certainly is not confined to one department of +rascality. This is not the name by which he was christened, if indeed he +was ever christened at all. He could not have written it in his youth, +and must have assumed it within a year and a half." (Exact in every +known particular.) + +"Mr. Conway I at first thought an attorney-at-law, but he is not. I +reckon he administers on estates, acts as guardian, and settles up the +affairs of the unfortunate in trade as their assignee, in connection +with his business of notary and note-shaver. He is aged fifty-six, was +born and educated in New England, and is probably a native of this city. +He is tall, lean, and bony. His nerves are not steady, and he is easily +excited. He probably has the dyspepsia, but he would not lose the +writing of a deed to be rid of it. The remarkable feature of his +character is stinginess. His natural abilities being good and his mind +strong, he must therefore be a man of means, and I think it matters +little to his conscience how he comes by his wealth. At the same time, +he has considerable pride and caution, which, with his interest, keep +him honest, as the world goes. If he were not an old bachelor, I should +think better of his heart, and he would be less miserly. + +"The Jew's signature is the most honest of the three. Timidity is the +marked character of the man. He could not succeed in any department of +roguery. It is physically, as well as mentally and morally, impossible +for him to have had any connection with the forgery. He would be +frightened out of his wits at the very suggestion of his complicity." + +"And so, Mr. Sidney," said I, "you know all about these parties and the +particulars of the forgery?" + +"Nothing whatever," he replied, "save by these specimens of their +handwriting. I never heard of the forgery, nor of these men, till this +hour." + +To which I replied,-- + +"I cannot believe that you can give such a perfectly accurate +description of them (saving their moral characters, of which I know +little) without other means of knowledge. It _must_ have been that you +knew Temple to be a German, Conway to be the most penurious old bachelor +in town, and the broker the most timid. And _how_, in the name of all +that is marvellous, _could_ you have known Conway to be afflicted with +dyspepsia? + +"Then," answered Mr. Sidney, "you are not prepared to believe one other +thing, more strange and paradoxical than all the rest. Listen! These +notes are forgeries both of the maker and the indorser. And who think +you are the criminals?" + +"The Jew?" + +"No." + +"The cashier?" + +"No. But, as sure as you are born, these notes are in the handwriting of +Temple and Conway, and the signatures are not only genuine, but they are +forgeries also: for both had formed a well-matured and deliberate design +of disputing them before placing them on the paper. And, Sir, from +my notion of Conway's character and temperament, as expressed in his +handwriting, I venture the assertion that I can make him own it, and pay +the notes. He shall even faint away at my pleasure. Temple is another +kind of man, and would never own it, were it ten times proved." + +A meeting of the directors of the bank was to be holden at nine o'clock +of the same morning. None of them knew Mr. Sidney, or were known by +him. It was arranged that he should meet them, Mr. Conway included, +and exhibit his skill, and if he should convince them of his power of +divination, he should discuss the genuineness of the signatures of the +supposed forgeries. + +For several hours he was on trial before the board with a very large +number of specimens of handwriting of men of mark, and he astonished +them all beyond measure by giving the occupation, age, height, size, +temperament, strength of nerve, nationality, morality, and other +peculiarities of every one of the writers. His success was not partial, +it was complete. There was not simply a preponderance of evidence, it +was beyond a doubt. The directors did not question the fact; but how was +it done? Some thought mesmerism could account for it, and others thought +it miraculous. + +The first experiment was this. Each director wrote on a piece of paper +the names of all the board. Eleven lists were handed him, and he +specified the writer of each by the manner in which he wrote his own +name. He then asked them to write their own or any other name, with as +much disguise as they pleased, and as many as pleased writing on the +same piece of paper; and in every instance he named the writer. + +As an example of the other experiments, take this one. The +superscription of a letter was shown him. He began immediately:-- + +"A clergyman, without doubt, who reads his sermons, and is a little +short-sighted. He is aged sixty-one, is six feet high, weighs about one +hundred and seventy, is lean, bony, obstinate, irritable, economical, +frank, and without a particle of hypocrisy or conceit. He is naturally +miserly, and bestows charity only from a sense of duty. His mind +is methodical and strong, and he is not a genius or an interesting +preacher. If he has decided upon any doctrine or construction of +Scripture, it would be as impossible to change him as to make him over +again." + +The company began to laugh, when one of them said,-- + +"Come, come, Mr. Sidney, you are disclosing altogether too much of my +father-in-law." + +And now the supposed forged notes were handed him. He gave the +characteristics of the signatures very nearly as he had before done +in the office, but more particularly and minutely. He analyzed the +handwriting,--showed the points of resemblance, where before none could +be discerned,--showed that the writing, interpreted by itself, was +intended to be disguised,--explained the difference between the +different parts of the notes,--pointed out where the writer was firm in +his purpose, and his nerves well braced, and where his fears overcame +his resolution,--where he had paused to recover his courage, and for a +considerable time,--where he had changed his pen, and how the forgery +was continued through several days,--what parts were done by Temple, and +what by Conway,-- + + "Till all the interim + Between the acting of the dreadful thing + And the first motion" + +was brought so vividly and truthfully to mind that Mr. Conway fell to +the floor as if dead. The cashier, relieved from a pressure that had for +weary months been grinding his very soul, burst into tears. A scene of +strange excitement ensued, during which Mr. Conway muttered incoherent +sentences in condemnation of Temple and then of himself,--now with +penitence, and then with rage. Recovering his composure, he suggested +the Jew as the guilty party. Mr. Sidney then dissected the handwriting +of the Jew, and demonstrated that there was as great a difference +between his chirography and a New-Englander's as between the English and +the Chinese characters,--showed how the Jew must have been exceedingly +timid, and stated the probability that he had left the city not because +he had taken any part in the forgery, but because he had been frightened +away. Then turning to Conway, he gave him a lecture such as no mortal +before ever gave or received. The agony of Conway's mind so distorted +his body as made it painful in the extreme to all beholders. "His inmost +soul seemed stung as by the bite of a serpent." When at last Mr. Sidney +turned and took from his valise a small steel safe, which Conway +recognized as his own, "the terrors of hell got hold of him," and his +anguish was indescribably horrible. The little safe had been by some +unknown and unaccountable process taken from a larger one in Conway's +office, and was unopened. Neither Mr. Sidney nor the directors have ever +seen its contents; but in consideration that it should not be opened, +Mr. Conway confessed his crime in the very form of Mr. Sidney's +description, paid the notes before leaving the bank, and _remains a +director to this day_. As is often the case, the greater criminal goes +unwhipped of justice. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sidney, besides the faculty I have described, had acquired another, +less wonderful perhaps, but still quite remarkable, and which was of +incalculable assistance to him in the prosecution of his Herculean +labor. He was a most rare physiognomist. And by physiognomy is here +intended, not simply the art of discerning the character of the mind by +the features of the face, but also the art of discovering the qualities +of the mind by the conformation of the body,--and still further, +(although it may not be a legitimate use of the word,) the power +of distinguishing the character, mental and moral, the capacity, +occupation, and all the distinctive qualities of a person by his figure, +action, dress, deportment, and the like: for Sterne said well, that "the +wise man takes his hat from the peg very differently from a fool." + +The ancient Egyptians acquired the greatest skill in this science; and +Tacitus affirms, not without reason, that their keen perception +and acute observation, essential in communicating their ideas in +hieroglyphics, contributed largely to their success. Certainly, few +better proofs of the existence of the science have been furnished than +that given by the Egyptian physiognomist at Athens in the days of Plato. +Zopyrus pronounced the face of Socrates to be that of a libertine. The +physiognomist being derided by the disciples of the great philosopher, +Socrates reproved them, saying that Zopyrus had spoken well, for in his +younger days such indeed had been the truth, and that he had overcome +the proclivities of his nature by philosophy and the severest +discipline. + +Pliny affirms that Apelles could trace the likeness of men so accurately +that a physiognomist could discover the ruling passion to which they +were subject. Dante's characters, in his view of Purgatory, are drawn +with accurate reference to the principles of physiognomy; and Shakspeare +and Sterne, particularly the latter, were clever in the art; while Kempf +and Zimmermann, in their profession, are said seldom to have erred as +physiognomists. Surely it is a higher authority and more practical, +which saith, "A wicked man walketh with a froward mouth; he speaketh +with his feet; he teacheth with his fingers.--A man is known by his +look, and a wise man by the air of his countenance." And yet again, "The +wickedness of a woman changeth her face." + +If it be true, as Sultzer declares, that there is not a living creature +that is not more or less skilled in physiognomy as a necessary condition +of its existence, surely _man_, with all his parts fitly joined +together, should be the most expert; and there are circumstances and +conditions, as well as qualities of mind and body, which will conduct +him more surely along the pathway of his research, and direct him onward +towards the goal of perfection. Consider, then, the characteristics of +Mr. Sidney, the circumstances by which he was surrounded, and the school +in which he was taught, in order to determine if there were in him the +elements of success. + +Chiefest among the essential qualities is to be named his astonishing +strength of nerve. No danger could agitate him, however imminent or +sudden. No power could deprive him of his imperturbable coolness +and courage. Perils seemed to render his mind more clear and his +self-reliance more firm. (And yet I have heard him say, that there +was among the band of criminals before mentioned one woman of greater +strength of mind and nervous power than any person he had ever seen, +whom alone of all created beings, whether man or devil, he dreaded +to encounter.) Had not Mr. Sidney been thus potently armed, he must, +without doubt or question, have become almost a monomaniac; for, +secondly, he was for years enraged almost to madness that his entire +estate had been swept from his grasp, as he believed, by the torch of +the incendiary; and he was to the last degree exasperated, and with +a just indignation, that the merchant-princes who he supposed had +occasioned his impoverishment yet walked abroad with the confidence of +the community, and were still trusted by many a good man as the very +salt of the city. Nevertheless, Mr. Sidney, solitary and alone, had +arraigned them before a criminal tribunal. He was therefore driven to +his own resources, and there was no place in his nature, or in the +nature of things, for the first retrograde step. All his vast energies +were thenceforth consecrated to, and concentrated in, the detection of +crime. And from the time that he was refused payment for his loss, so +far as my observation extended, he seemed to have been governed by no +other purpose in life than the extermination of that great gang of +robbers which he subsequently discovered. Add to these incentives +and capacities his extraordinary perceptive faculties and power of +analytical observation, together with his wonderful patience, and it +must be granted that he was qualified to discover in any incident +connected with his pursuits more of its component parts than all other +beholders, and had greater opportunities than almost any other man by +which to be informed _how_ it is that "the heart of a man changeth his +countenance." + +If I remember rightly, it was some two years after our acquaintance +commenced that I became aware of Mr. Sidney's proficiency as a +physiognomist, and it was then communicated, not so much by his choice +as by a necessity, for the accomplishment of one of his purposes. + +The object of Mr. Sidney's visit to the city of P----, at that time, +was nothing less difficult than the discovery and identification of an +individual of whom no other knowledge or description had been obtained +than what could be extracted from the inspection, in another city, of a +single specimen of his handwriting in the superscription of a letter. +So much from so little. Within three days thereafter, with no other +instrumentalities than what were suggested by Mr. Sidney's expertness +in deciphering character in handwriting and his proficiency as a +physiognomist, the result was reached and the object happily attained. +In the prosecution of the enterprise, it was important, if not +essential, that I should believe that the data were sufficient by which +to arrive at a correct conclusion, and that I should confide in Mr. +Sidney's skill in order that there might be hearty coöperation. + +My office was so situated, that from its windows could most +advantageously be observed, and for a considerable distance, the vast +throng that ebbed and flowed, hour after hour, through the great +thoroughfares of the city. For the greater part of three consecutive +days I sat by Mr. Sidney's side, watching the changing crowd through +the half-opened shutters, listening incredulously, at first, to the +practical application of his science to the unsuspecting individuals +below, till my derision was changed to admiration, and I was thoroughly +convinced of his power. As my friends of both sexes passed under the +ordeal, it was intensely bewitching. Hour after hour would he give, with +rapidity and correctness, the occupation and peculiarity of character +and condition of almost every individual who passed. This was not +occasional, but continuous. The marked men were not singled out, but all +were included. He was a stranger, and yet better acquainted with +the people than any of our citizens. And this was the manner of his +speaking:-- + +"That physician has a better opinion of himself than the people have +of him: he is superficial, and makes up in effrontery what he lacks in +qualification. The gambler yonder, with a toothpick in his mouth, has of +late succeeded in his tricks. The affairs of this kind-hearted grocer +are troubling him. Were we within a yard of that round-shouldered man +from the country, we should smell leather; for he works on his bench, +and is unmarried. Here comes an atheist who is a joker and stubborn as +a mule. There goes a man of no business at all: very probably it is the +best occupation he is fitted for, as he has no concentrativeness. The +schoolmistress crossing the street is an accomplished teacher, is +very sympathetic, and has great love of approbation. That lawyer is a +bachelor, and distrusts his own strength. This merchant should give up +the use of tobacco, and pay his notes before dinner, else he will become +a dyspeptic. Here comes a man of wealth who despises the common people +and is miserly and hypocritical; and next to him is a scamp. I think it +is Burke who says, 'When the gnawing worm is within, the impression +of the ravage it makes is visible on the outside, which appears quite +disfigured by it': and in that young man the light that was within him +has become darkness, and 'how great is that darkness!'" + +Of some qualities of mind he would occasionally decline to speak until +he could see the features in play, as in conversation. Some occupations +he failed to discover, if the arms were folded, or the hands in the +pockets, or the body not in motion. It is not my purpose to specify any +of the rules by which he was governed, though they differed materially +from those of Lavater, Redfield, and others, nor the facts from which he +drew his conclusions, but simply to give results. + +I selected from the crowd acquaintances of marked character and +standing, and obtained accurate descriptions of them. Of one he said, +"He is a good merchant, and has done and is doing a large business. He +carries his business home with him at night, as he should not. He has +been wealthy, and is now reduced in circumstances. His disaster weighs +heavily upon him. He has a high sense of honor, a keen conscience, and +is a meek, religious man. He has great goodness of nature, is very +modest and retiring, has more ability than he supposes, and is a man of +family and very fond of his children." + +Another he accurately described thus: "He is a mechanic, of a good mind, +who has succeeded so well that I doubt if he is in active business. +Certainly he does not labor. He is very independent and radical,--can +be impudent, if occasion requires,--gives others all their rights, and +pertinaciously insists upon his own." Here the mechanic took his hands +from his pocket. "Hold! I said he was a mechanic. He is not,--he is a +house-painter." + +I desired to be informed by what indications he judged him to be a +painter. He replied, that he so judged from the general appearance +and motions, and that it was difficult to specify. I insisted, and he +remarked that "the easy roll of his wrists was indicative." + +After obtaining similar correct descriptions of men well known to me, +I spied one whom I did not know, and who was dressed peculiarly. I +inquired his occupation, and Mr. Sidney, without turning a glance +towards me, and still gazing through the half-opened shutters, replied, +"Yes! you never saw him before, yourself. He is a stranger in town, as +is evident from the fact of his being dressed in his best suit, and by +the manner of his taking observations. Besides, there is no opportunity +in these parts for him to follow his trade. He is a glass-blower. You +may perceive he is a little deaf, and the curvature of his motions also +indicates his occupation." + +Whether this description was correct or not I failed to ascertain. + +Mr. Sidney contended that any man of ordinary perceptive faculties need +never mistake a gambler, as the marks on the tribe were as distinct as +the complexion of the Ethiopian,--that, of honest callings, dealers in +cattle could be most easily discovered,--that immorality indicated its +kind invariably in the muscles of the face,--that sympathetic qualities, +love and the desire of being loved, taste and refinement,--were among +the most perspicuous in the outline of the face. + +A man of very gentlemanly appearance was approaching, whom Mr. Sidney +pronounced a gambler, and also engaged in some other branch of iniquity. +His appearance was so remarkably good that I doubted. He turned the +corner, and immediately Mr. Sidney hastened to the street and soon +returned, saying he had ascertained his history: that he was in the +counterfeiting department,--that his conscience affected his nerves, +and consequently his motions,--that he was a stranger in town, and was +restless and disquieted,--that he would not remain many hours here, as +he had an enterprise on hand, and was about it. I remarked, that, as the +contrary never could be proved, he was perfectly safe in his prophecy, +when Mr. Sidney rose from his chair, and, approaching me, slowly said, +with great energy,-- + +"I will follow that man till it _is_ proved." + +The next day but one, I received a note from Mr. Sidney, simply +saying, "I am on his track." He followed the supposed counterfeiter to +Philadelphia, where he ascertained that he had passed five-dollar bills +of the ---- bank of Connecticut. Mr. Sidney obtained the bills the +gambler had passed to compare with the genuine. Failing, however, +to find any of the same denomination, he presented the supposed +counterfeits to a broker skilled in detecting bad bills, and was +surprised to be informed that they were genuine. At Baltimore, he +repeated the inquiry at the counter of a well-known banker relative +to other similar bills, and received the same response. So again in +Washington, Pittsburg, Chicago, and several other cities whither he had +followed the suspected man, and invariably the reply of the cashier +would be, "We will exchange our bills for them, Sir." In some Western +cities he was offered a premium on the bills he had collected. At St. +Louis he obtained a known genuine bill of the bank in question, and in +company with a broker proceeded to examine the two with a microscope. +The broker pronounced the supposed counterfeits to be genuine. In the +mean time the gambler had left the city. Two days after, Mr. Sidney had +overtaken him. So great were his excitement and vexation that he could +scarcely eat or sleep. In a fit of desperation, without law and against +law, he pounced upon the suspected man and put him in irons. He beat a +parley. It was granted, and the two went to the gambler's apartments in +company. In a conversation of several hours, Mr. Sidney extracted +from him the most valuable information relating to the gang he was so +pertinaciously prosecuting, and received into his possession forty-seven +thousand dollars in counterfeits of the aforesaid bank, some of which I +now have in my possession, and which have been pronounced genuine by our +most skilful experts. + + * * * * * + +It would be gratifying to all lovers of science to be informed that the +practical knowledge acquired by Mr. Sidney had been preserved, and that +at least the elementary principles of the arts in which he became so +nearly perfect had been definitely explained and recorded. I am not +aware, however, that such is the fact, but am persuaded that his uniform +policy of concealment has deprived the world of much that would have +been exceedingly entertaining and instructive. That this knowledge has +not been preserved is owing mainly to the fact that he considered it +of little importance, except as a means for the accomplishment of his +purposes, and that those purposes would be most effectually achieved by +his withholding from the common gaze the instrumentality by which they +were to be attained. That he intended at some future period to make some +communication to the public I am well assured, and some materials were +collected by him with this view; but the hot pursuit of the great idea +that he never for an hour lost sight of would not allow sufficient rest +from his labors, and he deferred the publication to those riper years +of experience and acquirement from which he could survey his whole past +career. + +It may be comforting for all rogues to know that he left behind him no +note of that vast amount of statistical knowledge which he possessed, +whether appertaining to crimes or criminals in general or in particular, +or more especially to the band of robbers,--and that with him perished +all knowledge of this organization as such, and the names of all the +parties therewith connected. They also have the consolation, if there be +any, of knowing that he was sent prematurely to his grave by a subtle +poison, administered by unknown hands and in an unknown manner and +moment, and that he died in the firm faith of immortality. + + + + +THE CUMBERLAND. + + + At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, + On board of the Cumberland sloop-of-war; + And at times from the fortress across the bay + The alarum of drums swept past, + Or a bugle-blast + From the camp on the shore. + + Then far away to the South uprose + A little feather of snow-white smoke, + And we knew that the iron ship of our foes + Was steadily steering its course + To try the force + Of our ribs of oak. + + Down upon us heavily runs, + Silent and sullen, the floating fort; + Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, + And leaps the terrible death, + With fiery breath, + From each open port. + + We are not idle, but send her straight + Defiance back in a full broadside! + As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, + Rebounds our heavier hail + From each iron scale + Of the monster's hide. + + "Strike your flag!" the rebel cries, + In his arrogant old plantation strain. + "Never!" our gallant Morris replies; + "It is better to sink than to yield!" + And the whole air pealed + With the cheers of our men. + + Then, like a kraken huge and black, + She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! + Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, + With a sudden shudder of death, + And the cannon's breath + For her dying gasp. + + Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, + Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head. + Lord, how beautiful was thy day! + Every waft of the air + Was a whisper of prayer, + Or a dirge for the dead. + + Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas! + Ye are at peace in the troubled stream. + Ho! brave land! with hearts like these, + Thy flag, that is rent in twain, + Shall be one again, + And without a seam! + + + + +THE FOSSIL MAN. + + +The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been: to +be found in the register of God, not in the records of men. The number +of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The Night of Time far +surpasseth the Day, and who knoweth the Equinox?--Sir THOMAS BROWNE. + +What a mysterious and subtile pleasure there is in groping back through +the early twilight of human history! The mind thirsts and longs so to +know the Beginning: who and what manner of men those were who laid +the first foundations of all that is now upon the earth: of what +intellectual power, of what degree of civilization, of what race and +country. We wonder how the fathers of mankind lived, what habitations +they dwelt in, what instruments or tools they employed, what crops they +tilled, what garments they wore. We catch eagerly at any traces that may +remain of their faiths and beliefs and superstitions; and we fancy, as +we gain a clearer insight into them, that we are approaching more nearly +to the mysterious Source of all life in the soul. The germ, to our +limited comprehension, seems nearer the Creator than the perfected +growth. Then the great problem of _Origin_ forever attracts us on,--the +multitudinous and intricate questions relating to "the ordained becoming +of beings": how the Creating Power has worked, whether through an almost +endless chain of gradual and advantageous changes, or by some sudden and +miraculous _ictus_, placing at once a completed body on the earth, as +an abode and instrument for a developed soul,--all these remote and +difficult questions lead us on. And yet the search for human origins, or +the earliest historic and scientific evidences of man on the earth, is +but a groping in the dark. + +We turn to the Hebrew and the inspired records; but we soon discover, +that, though containing a picture, unequalled for simplicity and +dignity, of the earliest experiences of the present family of man, they +are by no means a monument or relic of the most remote period, but +belong to a comparatively modern date, and that the question of _Time_ +is not at all directly treated in them. + +We visit the region where poetry and myth and tradition have placed a +most ancient civilization,--the Black-Land, or Land of the Nile: we +search its royal sepulchres, its manifold history written in funereal +records, in kingly genealogies, in inscriptions, and in the thousand +relics preserved of domestic life, whether in picture, sculpture, or the +embalmed remains of the dead; and we find ourselves thrown back to a +date far beyond any received date of history, and still we have before +us a ripened civilization, an art which could not belong to the +childhood of a race, a language which (so far as we can judge) must have +needed centuries for its development, and the divisions of human races, +whose formation from the original pair our philosophy teaches us must +have required immense and unknown spaces of time,--all as distinct as +they are at the present day. + +We traverse the regions to which both the comparison of languages and +the Biblical records assign the original birthplace of mankind,--the +country of the Euphrates and the plateau of Eastern Asia. Buried +kingdoms are revealed to us; the shadowy outlines of magnificent cities +appear which flourished and fell before recorded human history, and of +which even Herodotus never heard; Art and Science are unfolded, reaching +far back into the past; the signs of luxury and splendor are uncovered +from the ruin of ages: but, remote as is the date of these Turanian and +Semitic empires, almost equalling that of the Flood in the ordinary +system of chronology, they cannot be near the origin of things, and +a long process of development must have passed ere they reached the +maturity in which they are revealed to us. + +The Chinese records give us an antiquity and an acknowledged date before +the time of Abraham, (if we follow the received chronology,) and +even then their language must have been, as it is now, distinct and +solidified, betraying to the scholar no certain affinity to any other +family of language. The Indian history, so long boasted of for its +immense antiquity, is without doubt the most modern of the ancient +records, and offers no certain date beyond 1800 B.C. + +In Europe, the earliest evidences of man disclosed by our investigations +are even more vague and shadowy. Probably, without antedating in time +these historical records of Asia, they reach back to a more primitive +and barbarous era. The earliest history of Europe is not studied from +inscription or manuscript or even monument; it is not, like the Asiatic, +a conscious work of a people leaving a memorial of itself to a future +age. It is rather, like the geological history, an unconscious, gradual +deposit left by the remains of extinct and unknown races in the soil of +the fields or under the sediment of the waters. The earliest European +barbarian, as he burned his canoe from a log, or fabricated his necklace +from a bone, or worked out his knife from a flint, was in reality +writing a history of his race for distant days. We can follow him now +in his wanderings through the rivers and lakes and on the edges of the +forests; we open his simple mounds of burial, and study his barbarian +tools and ornaments; we discover that he knew nothing of metals, and +that bone and flint and amber and coal were his materials; we trace out +his remarkable defences and huts built on piles in the various lakes of +Europe, where the simple savage could escape the few gigantic "fossil" +animals which even then survived, and roved through the forests of +Prussia and France, or the still more terrible human enemies who were +continually pouring into Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland from the +Asiatic plains. We find that the early savage of Switzerland and Sweden +was not entirely ignorant of the care of animals, and that he had +fabricated some rude pottery. Of what race he was, or when he appeared +amid the forests of Northern Europe, no one can confidently say. +Collecting the various indications from the superstitions, language, +and habits of this barbarian people, and comparing them with like +peculiarities of the most ancient races now existing in Europe, we can +frame a very plausible hypothesis that these early savages belonged to +that great family of which the Finns and Laps, and possibly the Basques, +are scattered members. Their skulls, also, are analogous in form to +those of the Finnish race. This age the archaeologists have denominated +the "Stone Age" of European antiquity. + +Following this is what has been called by them the "Bronze Age." +Another, more powerful, and more cultivated race or collection of +peoples inundates Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, and other +districts. They make war against and destroy the early barbarians; they +burn their water-huts, and force them to the mountains, or to the most +northern portions of the continent. This new race has a taste for +objects of beauty. They work copper and bronze; they make use of +beautiful vases of earthenware and ornaments of the precious metals; +but they have yet no knowledge of iron or steel. Their dead are burned +instead of being buried, as was done by the preceding races. They are +evidently more warlike and more advanced than the Finnish barbarians. Of +their race or family it is difficult to say anything trustworthy. Their +skulls belong to the "long-skulled" races, and would ally them to the +Kelts. Antiquaries have called their remains "Keltic remains." + +Still another age in this ancient history is the "Iron Age," when the +tribes of Europe used iron weapons and implements, and had advanced from +the nomadic condition to that of cultivators of the ground, though still +gaining most of their livelihood from fishing and hunting. This period +no doubt approached the period of historical annals, and the iron men +may have been the earliest Teutons of the North,--our own forefathers; +but of their race or mixture of races we have no certain evidence, +and can only make approximate hypotheses,--the division of "ages" by +archaeologists, it should be remembered, being not in any way a fixed +division of races, but only indicating the probability of different +races at those different early periods. What was the date of these ages +cannot at all be determined; the earlier are long before any recorded +European annals, but there is no reason to believe that they approach in +antiquity the Asiatic records and remains. + +Such, until recently, were the historic and scientific evidences with +regard to the antiquity of man. His most venerable records, his most +ancient dates of historic chronology were but of yesterday, when +compared with the age of existing species of plants and animals, or +with the opening of the present geologic era. Every new scientific +investigation seemed, from its negative evidence, to render more +improbable the existence of the "fossil man." It is true that in various +parts of the world, during the past few years, human bones have been +discovered in connection with the bones of the fossil mammalia; but they +were generally found in caves or in lime-deposits, where they might +have been dropped or swept in by currents of water, or inserted in +more modern periods, and yet covered with the same deposit as the more +ancient relics. Geologists have uniformly reasoned on the _a priori_ +improbability of these being fossil bones, and have somewhat strained +the evidence--as some distinguished _savans_[A] now believe--against the +theory of a great human antiquity. + +[Footnote A: Pictet.] + +And yet the "negative evidence" against the existence of the fossil +man was open to many doubts. The records of geology are notoriously +imperfect. We probably read but a few leaves of a mighty library of +volumes. Moreover, the last ages preceding the present period were +witnesses of a series of changes and slowly acting agencies of +destruction, from which man may have in general escaped. We have reason +to believe that during long periods of time the land was gradually +elevated and subject to oscillations, so that the courses of rivers and +the beds of lakes were disturbed, and even the bottom of the ocean was +raised. The results were the inundation of some countries, and the +pouring of great currents of water over others, wearing down the hills +and depositing in the course of ages the regular layers of gravel, sand, +and marl, which now cover so large a part of Europe. This was still +further followed by a period in which the temperature of the earth was +lowered, and ice and glaciers had perhaps a part in forming the present +surface of the northern hemisphere. During the first period, which may +be called the "Quaternary Period,"[B] the mighty animals lived whose +bones are now found in caverns, or under the slowly deposited sediment +of the waters, or preserved in bog,--the mammoth, and rhinoceros, and +elk, and bear, and elephant, as well as many others of extinct species. + +[Footnote B: We should bear in mind that the Quaternary or Diluvian +Period, however ancient in point of time, has no clearly distinguishing +line of separation from the present period. The great difference lies in +the extinction of certain species of animals, which lived then, whose +destruction may be due both to gradual changes of climate and to +man.--PICTET.] + +We may suppose, that, if man did exist during these convulsions and +inundations, his superior intelligence would enable him to escape +the fate of the animals that were submerged,--or that, if his few +burial-places were invaded by the waters, his remains are now completely +covered by marine deposits under the ocean. If, however, in his +barbarian condition, he had fashioned implements of any hard material, +and especially if, as do the savages of the present family of man, he +had accidentally deposited them, or had buried them with the dead in +mighty mounds, the invading waters might well sweep them together from +their place and deposit them almost in mass, in situations where the +eddies should leave their gravel and sand.[C] + +[Footnote C: Sir C. Lyell, in his remarks before the British Association +in 1859, said upon the discovery alluded to here: "I am reminded of a +large Indian mound which I saw in St. Simon's Island in Georgia,--a +mound ten acres in area, and having an average height of five feet, +chiefly composed of cast-away oyster-shells, throughout which +arrow-heads, stone axes, and Indian pottery were dispersed. If the +neighboring river, the Altamalia, or the sea which is at hand, should +invade, sweep away, and stratify the contents of this mound, it might +produce a very analogous accumulation of human implements, unmixed, +perhaps, with human bones."--_Athenaeum_, September 21, 1859.] + +Such seems in reality to have been the case; though in regard to so +important a fact in the history of the world much caution must be +exercised in accepting the evidence. We will state briefly the proofs, +as they now appear, of the existence of a race of human beings on this +earth in an immense antiquity. + +A French gentleman, M. Boucher de Perthes, has for thirty-four years +been devoting his time and his fortune, with rare perseverance, to the +investigation of certain antiquities in the later geological deposits +in the North of France. His first work, "Les Antiquités Celtiques and +Antédiluviennes," published in 1847, was received with much incredulity +and opposition; a second, under the same title, in 1857, met with a +scarce better reception, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he +could induce even the _savans_ of his own country to look at the mass of +evidence he had collected on this subject. + +He made the extraordinary claim to have discovered a great quantity of +rough implements of flint, fashioned by art, in the undisturbed beds of +clay, gravel, and sand, known as _drift_, near Abbeville and Amiens. +These beds vary in thickness from ten to twenty feet, and cover the +chalk hills in the vicinity; in portions of them, upon the hills, often +in company with the flints, are discovered numerous bones of the extinct +mammalia, such as the mammoth, the fossil rhinoceros, tiger, bear, +hyena, stag, ox, horse, and others. + +The flint implements are found in the lowest beds of gravel, just above +the chalk, while above them are sands with delicate fresh-water shells +and beds of brick-earth,--all this, be it remembered, on table-lands two +hundred feet above the level of the sea, in a country whose level and +face have remained unaltered during any historical period with which we +are acquainted. "It must have required," says Sir Charles Lyell, "a +long period for the wearing down of the chalk which supplied the broken +flints (stones) for the formation of so much gravel at various heights, +sometimes one hundred feet above the level of the Somme, for the +deposition of fine sediment, including entire shells, both terrestrial +and aquatic, and also for the denudation which the entire mass of +stratified drift has undergone, portions having been swept away, so +that what remains of it often terminates abruptly in old river-cliffs, +besides being covered by a newer unstratified drift. To explain these +changes, I should infer considerable oscillations in the level of the +land in that part of France, slow movements of upheaval and subsidence, +deranging, but not wholly displacing the course of ancient rivers." + +The President of the British Association, in his opening speech at +the meeting of 1860, affirms the immense antiquity of these flint +implements, and remarks:--"At Menchecourt, in the suburbs of Abbeville, +a nearly entire skeleton of the Siberian rhinoceros is said to have been +taken out about forty years ago,--a fact affording an answer to the +question often raised, as to whether the bones of the extinct mammalia +could have been washed out of an older alluvium into a newer one, and +so redeposited and mingled with the relics of human workmanship. +Far-fetched as was this hypothesis, I am informed that it would not, if +granted, have seriously shaken the proof of the high antiquity of human +productions; for that proof is independent of organic evidence or fossil +remains, and is based on physical data. As was stated to us last year +by Sir Charles Lyell, we should still have to allow time for great +denudation of the chalk, and the removal from place to place, and the +spreading out over the length and breadth of a large valley, of heaps of +chalk-flints in beds from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, covered +by loam and sands of equal thickness, these last often tranquilly +deposited,--all of which operations would require the supposition of a +great lapse of time." + +An independent proof of the age of these gravel-beds and the associated +loam, containing fossil remains, is derived by the same authority from +the large deposits of peat in the valley of the Somme, which contain not +only monuments of the Roman, but also those of an older, stone period, +the Finnic period; yet, says Lord Wrottesley, "distinguished geologists +are of opinion that the growth of all the vegetable matter, and even +the original scooping out of the hollows containing it, are events long +posterior in date to the gravel with flint-implements,--nay, posterior +even to the formation of the uppermost of the layers of loam with +fresh-water shells overlaying the gravel." + +The number of the flint implements is computed at above fourteen hundred +in an area of fourteen miles in length and half a mile in breadth. They +are of the rudest nature, as if formed by a people in the most degraded +state of barbarism. Some are mere flakes of flint, apparently used for +knives or arrow-heads; some are pointed and with hollowed bases, as if +for spear-heads, varying from four to nine inches in length; some are +almond-shaped, with a cutting edge, from two to nine inches in length. +Others again are fashioned into coarse representations of animals, such +as the whale, saurian, boar, eagle, fish, and even the human profile; +others have representations of foliage upon them; others are either +drilled with holes or are cut with reference to natural holes, so as to +serve as stones for slings, or for amulets, or for ornaments. The edges +in many cases seem formed by a great number of small artificial tips +or blows, and do not at all resemble edges made by a great natural +fracture. Very few are found with polished surfaces like the modern +remains in flint; and the whole workmanship differs from that of flint +arrow-heads in other parts of Europe, as well as from the later Finnish +(or so-called Keltic) remains, discovered in such quantities in France. +The only relics that have been found resembling them are, according to +Mr. Worsaae, some flint arrow-heads and spear-points discovered at great +depths in the bogs of Denmark. A few bone knives and necklaces of bone +have been met with in these deposits, but thus far no human bones. The +people who fabricated these instruments seemed to be a hunting and +fishing people, living in some such condition as the present savages of +Australia. + +These discoveries of M. de Perthes have at length aroused the attention +of English men of science, and during 1859 a number of eminent +gentlemen--among them Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Prestwich, Dr. Falconer, +and others--visited M. Perthes's collection, and saw the flints _in +situ_. Several of them have avowed their conviction of the genuineness +and antiquity of these relics. Sir Charles Lyell has given a guarded +sanction to the belief that they present one strong proof of a remote +human antiquity. + +The objections that would naturally be made to this evidence are, that +the flints are purely natural formations, and not works of man,--that +the deposit is alluvial and modern, rather than of the ancient +drift,--or that these implements had been dropped into crevices, or sunk +from above, in later periods. + +The testimony of disinterested observers seems to be sufficient as to +the human contrivance manifest in these flints; and the concurrence of +various scientific men hardly leaves room for doubt that these deposits +are of great antiquity, preceding the time in which the surface of +France took its present form, and dating back to what is called the +Post-Pliocene Period. Their horizontal position, and the great depth +at which the hatchets are found, together with their number, and the +peculiar incrustation and discoloration of each one, as well as their +being in company with the bones of the extinct mammalia, make it +improbable that they could have been dropped into fissures or sunk there +in modern times.[D] In regard to the absence of human bones, it should +be remembered that no bones are easily preserved, unless they are +buried in sediment or in bog; and furthermore, that the extent of the +researches in these formations is very small indeed. Besides, the +country where above all we should expect the most of human remains +in the drift-deposits, as being probably the most ancient abode of +man,--Asia,--has been the least explored for such purposes. Still this +is without doubt the weak point in the evidence, as proving human +antiquity. + +[Footnote D: An article in Blackwood, (October, 1860,) which is +understood to be from the pen of Professor H.D. Rogers, admits entirely +that the flints are of human workmanship, and that it is impossible for +them to have dropped through fissures, as, according to the writer's +observation of the deposits, it would be impossible even for a mole to +penetrate them, so close are they. Professor Rogers takes the ground +that human antiquity is not proven from these relics, for two +reasons:--First, because the indications in the deposits inclosing the +flints point clearly to a "turbulent diluvial action," and therefore it +is possible for a violent incursion of the ocean to have taken place in +the historic period, and to have mixed up the more recent works of man +with the previously buried bones or relics of a pre-historic period; and +secondly, because the different geological deposits do not necessarily +prove time, but only succession,--two schools of geology interpreting +all similar phenomena differently, as relating to the time required. + +The last position would be admitted by few scientific geologists at +the present day, as the evidence for time, though inferential from the +deposits known to us, is held generally to be conclusive. On the first +point, Professor Rogers has the weight of authority against him: all the +great masters of the science, who have examined the formation and the +deposits of the surrounding country, denying that there is any evidence +of an incursion of the ocean of such a nature, during the historic +period.] + +The chain of evidence in regard to this important question seems to be +filled out by a recent discovery of M. Edouard Lartet in Aurignac, in +the South of France, on the head-waters of the Garonne. As we have just +observed, the weak point in M. de Perthes's discoveries was the absence +of human bones in the deposits investigated, though this might have been +accounted for by the withdrawal of human beings from the floods of the +period. M. Lartet's investigations have fortunately been conducted in a +spot which was above the reach of the ordinary inundations of the Drift +Period, and whither human beings might have fled for refuge, or where +they might have lived securely during long spaces of time. + +Some ten years since, in Aurignac, (Haute Garonne,) in the +_Arrondissement_ of St. Gaudens, near the Pyrenees, a cavern was +discovered in the nummulitic rock. It had been concealed by a heap +of fragments of rock and vegetable soil, gradually detached and +accumulated, probably by atmospheric agency. In it were found the +human remains, it was estimated, of seventeen individuals, which were +afterwards buried formally by the order of the mayor of Aurignac. Along +with the bones were discovered the teeth of mammals, both carnivora and +herbivora; also certain small perforated corals, such as were used by +many ancient peoples as beads, and similar to those gathered in the +deposits of Abbeville. The cave had apparently served as a place of +sacrifice and of burial. In 1860 M. Lartet visited the spot. In +the layer of loose earth at the bottom of the cave he found flint +implements, worked portions of a reindeer's horn, mammal bones, and +human bones in a remarkable state of preservation. In a lower layer of +charcoal and ashes, indicating the presence of man and some ancient +fireplace or hearth, the bones of the animals were scratched and +indented as though by implements employed to remove the flesh; almost +every bone was broken, as if to extract the marrow, as is done by many +modern tribes of savages. The same peculiarity is noticed in the bones +discovered among the "water-huts" of the Danish lakes. + +In this deposit M. Lartet picked up many human implements, such as +bone knives, flattened circular stones supposed to have been used for +sharpening flint knives, perforated sling-stones, many arrow-heads and +spear-heads, flint knives, a bodkin made of a roebuck's horn, various +implements of reindeers' horn, and teeth beads, from the teeth of the +great fossil bear (_Ursus spelaeus_). Remains were also found of nine +different species of carnivora, such as the fossil bear, the hyena, cat, +wolf, fox, and others, and of twelve of herbivora, such as the fossil +elephant, the rhinoceros, the great stag, (_Cervus elephas_,) the +European bison, (aurochs,) horse, and others. The most common were the +aurochs, the reindeer, and the fox. How savages, armed only with flint +implements, could have captured these gigantic animals, is somewhat +mysterious; but, as M. Lartet suggests, they may have snared many of +them, or have overwhelmed single monsters with innumerable arrows and +spears, as Livingstone describes the slaying of the elephant by the +negroes at the present day. + +With reference to the mode in which these remains were brought to this +place, M. Lartet remarks,--"The fragmentary condition of the bones of +certain animals, the mode in which they are broken, the marks of +the teeth of the hyena on bones, necessarily broken in their recent +condition, even the distribution of the bones and their significant +consecration, lead to the conclusion that the presence of these animals +and the deposit of all these remains are due solely to human agency. +Neither the inclination of the ground nor the surrounding hydrographical +conditions allow us to suppose that the remains could have been brought +where they are found by natural causes." + +The conclusion, then, in palaeontology, which would be drawn from these +facts is, that man must have existed in Europe at the same time with the +fossil elephant and rhinoceros, the gigantic hyena, the aurochs, and the +elk, and even the cave-bear. This latter animal is thought by many to +have disappeared in the very opening of the Post-Pliocene Period; so +that this cave would--judging from the remains of that animal--have been +_prior_ to the long period of inundations in which the drift-deposits of +Abbeville and Amiens were made. The drift which fills the valleys of the +Pyrenees has not, it is evident, touched this elevated spot in Aurignac. + +In chronology, all that is proved by these discoveries of M. Lartet is +that the fossil animals mentioned above and man were contemporaries on +the earth. The age of each must be determined inferentially by comparing +the age of strata in which these animals are usually found with the age +in which the most ancient traces of man are discovered,--such as the +deposits already described in the North of France. + +Similar discoveries on a smaller scale are recorded by Mr. Prestwich +in Suffolk, England, and in Devonshire. We are informed also by Sir C. +Lyell of a recent important discovery near Troyes, France. In the Grotto +d'Arcès, a human jaw-bone and teeth have been found imbedded with +_Elephas primigenius_, _Ursus spelaeus_, _Hyaena spelaea_, and other +extinct animals, under layers of stalagmite. Professor Pictet, the +celebrated geologist, who also gives his adhesion to these discoveries +of M. de Perthes, states that the cave-evidence has by no means been +sufficiently valued by geologists, and that there are caverns in Belgium +where the existence of human remains cannot be satisfactorily explained +on the theory of a modern introduction of them. The President of the +British Association (Lord Wrottesley) also states that in the cave of +Brixham, Devonshire, and in another near Palermo, in Sicily, flint +implements were observed by Dr. Falconer, in such a manner as to lead +him to infer that man must have coexisted with several lost species of +quadrupeds. + +Professor Owen, in his "Palaeontology," (1861,) appears to put faith in +the genuineness and antiquity of these flint relics. He also states that +similar flint weapons have been found by Mr. John Frere, F.R.S., in +Suffolk, in a bed of flint gravel, sixteen feet below the surface, of +the same geological age as that in the valley of the Somme. + +The conclusion from these discoveries--the most important scientific +discoveries, relating to human history, of modern times--is, that ages +ago, in the period of the extinct mammoth and the fossil bear, perhaps +before the Channel separated England from France, a race of barbarian +human beings lived on the soil of Europe, capable of fabricating rough +implements. The evidence has been carefully weighed by impartial and +experienced men, and thus far it seems complete. + +The mind is lost in astonishment, in looking back at such a vast +antiquity of human beings. A tribe of men in existence tens of thousands +of years before any of the received dates of Creation! savages who +hunted, with their flint-headed arrows, the gigantic elk of Ireland and +the buffalo of Germany, or who fled from the savage tiger of France, +or who trapped the immense clumsy mammoth of Northern Europe. Who were +they? we ask ourselves in wonder. Was there with man, as with other +forms of animal life, a long and gradual progression from the lowest +condition to a higher, till at length the world was made ready for a +more developed human being, and the Creator placed the first of the +present family of man upon the earth? Were those European barbarians of +the Drift Period a primeval race, destroyed before the creation of our +own race, and lower and more barbarian than the lowest of the present +inhabitants of the world? or, as seems more probable, were these +mysterious beings--the hunters of the mammoth and the aurochs--the +earliest progenitors of our own family, the childish fathers of the +human race? + +The subject hardly yet admits of an exact and scientific answer. We can +merely here suggest the probability of a vast antiquity to human beings, +and of the existence of the FOSSIL or PRE-ADAMITIC MAN. + + * * * * * + + +LIFE IN THE OPEN AIR. + +BY THE AUTHOR OF "CECIL DREEME" AND "JOHN BRENT." + +KATAHDIN AND THE PENOBSCOT. + + +CHAPTER X. + +RIPOGENUS. + + +Ripogenus is a tarn, a lovely oval tarn, within a rim of forest and +hill; and there behold, _O gioja!_ at its eastern end, stooping forward +and filling the sphere, was Katahdin, large and alone. + +But we must hasten, for day wanes, and we must see and sketch this +cloudless summit from _terra firma_. A mile and half-way down the lake, +we landed at the foot of a grassy hill-side, where once had been a +lumberman's station and hay-farm. It was abandoned now, and lonely in +that deeper sense in which widowhood is lonelier than celibacy, a home +deserted lonelier than a desert. Tumble-down was the never-painted +house; ditto its three barns. But, besides a camp, there were two things +to be had here,--one certain, one possible, probable even. The view, +that was an inevitable certainty; Iglesias would bag that as his share +of the plunder of Ripogenus. For my bagging, bears, perchance, awaited. +The trappers had seen a bear near the barns. Cancut, in his previous +visit, had seen a disappearance of bear. No sooner had the birch's +bow touched lightly upon the shore than we seized our respective +weapons,--Iglesias his peaceful and creative sketch-book, I my warlike +and destructive gun,--and dashed up the hill-side. + +I made for the barns to catch Bruin napping or lolling in the old hay. +I entertain a _vendetta_ toward the ursine family. I had a _duello_, +pistol against claw, with one of them in the mountains of Oregon, +and have nothing to show to point the moral and adorn the tale. My +antagonist of that hand-to-hand fight received two shots, and then +dodged into cover and was lost in the twilight. Soon or late in my life, +I hoped that I should avenge this evasion. Ripogenus would, perhaps, +give what the Nachchese Pass had taken away. + +Vain hope! I was not to be an ursicide. I begin to fear that I shall +slay no other than my proper personal bearishness. I did my duty for +another result at Ripogenus. I bolted audaciously into every barn. I +made incursions into the woods around. I found the mark of the beast, +not the beast. He had not long ago decamped, and was now, perhaps, +sucking the meditative paw hard-by in an arbor of his bear-garden. + +After a vain hunt, I gave up Beast and turned to Beauty. I looked about +me, seeing much. + +Foremost I saw a fellow-man, my comrade, fondled by breeze and +brightness, and whispered to by all sweet sounds. I saw Iglesias below +me, on the slope, sketching. He was preserving the scene at its _bel +momento_. I repented more bitterly of my momentary falseness to Beauty +while I saw him so constant. + +Furthermore, I saw a landscape of vigorous simplicity, easy to +comprehend. By mellow sunset the grass slope of the old farm seemed no +longer tanned and rusty, but ripened. The oval lake was blue and calm, +and that is already much to say; shadows of the western hills were +growing over it, but flight after flight of illumined cloud soared +above, to console the sky and the water for the coming of night. +Northward, a forest darkled, whose glades of brightness I could not see. +Eastward, the bank mounted abruptly to a bare fire-swept table-land, +whereon a few dead trees stood, parched and ghostly skeletons draped +with rags of moss. + +Furthermost and topmost, I saw Katahdin twenty miles away, a giant +undwarfed by any rival. The remainder landscape was only minor and +judiciously accessory. The hills were low before it, the lake lowly, +and upright above lake and hill lifted the mountain pyramid. +Isolate greatness tells. There were no underling mounts about this +mountain-in-chief. And now on its shoulders and crest sunset shone, +glowing. Warm violet followed the glow, soothing away the harshness of +granite lines. Luminous violet dwelt upon the peak, while below the +clinging forests were purple in sheltered gorges, where they could climb +nearer the summit, loved of light, and lower down gloomed green and +sombre in the shadow. + +Meanwhile, as I looked, the quivering violet rose higher and higher, and +at last floated away like a disengaged flame. A smouldering blue dwelt +upon the peak. Ashy-gray overcame the blue. As dusk thickened and stars +trembled into sight, the gray grew luminous. Katahdin's mighty presence +seemed to absorb such dreamy glimmers as float in limpid night-airs: +a faint glory, a twilight of its own, clothed it. King of the +daylit-world, it became queen of the dimmer realms of night, and like a +woman-queen it did not disdain to stoop and study its loveliness in +the polished lake, and stooping thus it overhung the earth, a shadowy +creature of gleam and gloom, an eternized cloud. + +I sat staring and straying in sweet reverie, until the scene before me +was dim as metaphysics. Suddenly a flame flashed up in the void. It +grew and steadied, and dark objects became visible about it. In the +loneliness--for Iglesias had disappeared--I allowed myself a moment's +luxury of superstition. Were these the Cyclops of Katahdin? Possibly. +Were they Trolls forging diabolic enginery, or Gypsies of Yankeedom? I +will see,--and went tumbling down the hill-side. + +As I entered the circle about the cooking-fire of drift-wood by the +lake, Iglesias said,-- + +"The beef-steak and the mutton-chops will do for breakfast; now, then, +with your bear!" + +"Haw, haw!" guffawed Cancut; and the sound, taking the lake at a stride, +found echoes everywhere, till he grew silent and peered suspiciously +into the dark. + +"There's more bears raound 'n yer kin shake a stick at," said one of the +muskrateers. "I wouldn't ricommend yer to stir 'em up naow, haowlin' +like that." + +"I meant it for laffin'," said Cancut, humbly. + +"Ef yer call that 'ere larfin', couldn't yer cry a little to kind er +slick daown the bears?" said the trapper. + +Iglesias now invited us to _chocolat à la crème_, made with the boon +of the ex-bar-keeper. I suppose I may say, without flattery, that this +tipple was marvellous. What a pity Nature spoiled a cook by making the +muddler of that chocolate a painter of grandeurs! When Fine Art is in +a man's nature, it must exude, as pitch leaks from a pine-tree. Our +muskrat-hunters partook injudiciously of this unaccustomed dainty, and +were visited with indescribable Nemesis. They had never been acclimated +to chocolate, as had Iglesias and I, by sipping it under the shade of +the mimosa and the palm. + +Up to a certain point, an unlucky hunter is more likely to hunt than +a lucky. Satiety follows more speedily upon success than despair upon +failure. Let us thank Heaven for that, brethren dear! I had bagged not a +bear, and must needs satisfy my assassin instincts upon something with +hoofs and horns. The younger trapper of muskrat, being young, was +ardent,--being young, was hopeful,--being young, believed in exceptions +to general rules,--and being young, believed, that, given a good fellow +with a gun, Nature would provide a victim. Therefore he proposed that we +should canoe it along the shallows in this sweetest and stillest of all +the nights. The senior shook his head incredulously; Iglesias shook his +head noddingly. + +"Since you have massacred all the bears," said Iglesias, "I will go lay +me down in their lair in the barn. If you find me cheek-by-jowl with +Ursa Major when you come back, make a pun and he will go." + +It was stiller than stillness upon the lake. Ripogenus, it seemed, had +never listened to such silence as this. Calm never could have been so +beyond the notion of calm. Stars in the empyrean and stars in Ripogenus +winked at each other across ninety-nine billions of leagues as +uninterruptedly as boys at a boarding-school table. + +I knelt amidships in the birch with gun and rifle on either side. The +pilot gave one stroke of his paddle, and we floated out upon what seemed +the lake. Whatever we were poised and floating upon he hesitated to +shatter with another dip of his paddle, lest he should shatter the thin +basis and sink toward heaven and the stars. + +Presently the silence seemed to demand gentle violence, and the +unwavering water needed slight tremors to teach it the tenderness of its +calm; then my guide used his blade, and cut into glassiness. We crept +noiselessly along by the lake-edge, within the shadows of the pines. +With never a plash we slid. Rare drops fell from the cautious paddle +and tinkled on the surface, overshot, not parted by, our imponderable +passage. Sometimes from far within the forest would come sounds of +rustling branches or crackling twigs. Somebody of life approaches with +stealthy tread. Gentlier, even gentlier, my steersman! Take up no pearly +drop from the lake, mother of pearliness, lest falling it sound too +loudly. Somewhat comes. Let it come unterrified to our ambush among the +shadows by the shore. + +Somewhat, something, somebody was coming, perhaps, but some other thing +or body thwarted it and it came not. To glide over glassiness while +uneventful moments link themselves into hours is monotonous. Night and +stillness laid their soothing spell upon me. I was entranced. I lost +myself out of time and space, and seemed to be floating unimpelled and +purposeless, nowhere in Forever. + +Somewhere in Now I suddenly found myself. + +There he was! There was the moose trampling and snorting hard-by, in the +shallows of Ripogenus, trampling out of being the whole nadir of stars, +making the world conscious of its lost silence by the death of silence +in tumult. + +I trembled with sudden eagerness. I seized my gun. In another instant +I should have lodged the fatal pellet! when a voice whispered over my +shoulder,-- + +"I kinder guess yer 've ben asleep an' dreamin', ha'n't yer?" + +So I had. + +Never a moose came down to cool his clumsy snout in the water and +swallow reflections of stars. Never a moose abandoned dry-browse in the +bitter woods for succulent lily-pads, full in their cells and veins of +water and sunlight. Till long past midnight we paddled and watched and +listened, whisperless. In vain. At last, as we rounded a point, the +level gleam of our dying camp-fire athwart the water reminded us of +passing hours and traveller duties, of rest to-night and toil to-morrow. + +My companions, fearless as if there were no bears this side of Ursa +Major, were bivouacked in one of the barns. There I entered skulkingly, +as a gameless hunter may, and hid my untrophied head beneath a mound of +ancient hay, not without the mustiness of its age. + +No one clawed us, no one chawed us, that night. A Ripogenus chill awaked +the whole party with early dawn. We sprang from our nests, shook the +hay-seed out of our hair, and were full-dressed without more ceremony, +ready for whatever grand sensation Nature might purvey for our aesthetic +breakfast. + +Nothing is ever as we expect. When we stepped into out-of-doors, looking +for Ripogenus, a lake of Maine, we found not a single aquatic fact in +the landscape. Ripogenus, a lake, had mizzled, (as the Americans say,) +literally mizzled. Our simplified view comprised a grassy hill with +barns, and a stern positive pyramid, surely Katahdin; aloft, beyond, +above, below, thither, hither, and yon, Fog, not fog, but FOG. + +Ripogenus, the water-body, had had aspirations, and a boon of brief +transfiguration into a cloud-body had been granted it by Nature, who +grants to every terrestrial essence prophetic experiences of what it one +day would be. + +In short, and to repeat, Ripogenus had transmuted itself into vapor, and +filled the valley full to our feet. A faint wind had power to billow +this mist-lake, and drive cresting surges up against the eastern +hill-side, over which they sometimes broke, and, involving it totally, +rolled clear and free toward Katahdin, where he stood hiding the glows +of sunrise. Leagues higher up than the mountain rested a presence of +cirri, already white and luminous with full daylight, and from them +drooped linking wreaths of orange mist, clinging to the rosy-violet +granite of the peak. + +Up clomb and sailed Ripogenus and befogged the whole; then we +condescended to breakfast. + + +CHAPTER XI. + +TOWARD KATAHDIN. + + +Singularly enough, mill-dams are always found below mill-ponds. +Analogously in the Maine rivers, below the lakes, rapids are. Rapids +too often compel carries. While we breakfasted without steak of bear +or cutlet of moose, Ripogenus gradually retracted itself, and became +conscious again of what poetry there is in a lake's pause and a rapid's +flow. Fog condensed into water, and water submitting to its destiny went +cascading down through a wild defile where no birch could follow. + +The Ripogenus carry is three miles long, a faint path through thickets. + +"First half," said Cancut, "'s plain enough; but after that 't would +take a philosopher with his spectacles on to find it." + +This was discouraging. Philosophers twain we might deem ourselves; but +what is a craftsman without tools? And never a goggle had we. + +But the trappers of muskrats had become our fast friends. They insisted +upon lightening our loads over the brambly league. This was kindly. +Cancut's elongated head-piece, the birch, was his share of the burden; +and a bag of bread, a firkin of various grub, damp blankets for three, +and multitudinous traps, seemed more than two could carry at one trip +over this longest and roughest of portages. + +We paddled from the camp to the lake-foot, and there, while the others +compacted the portables for portage, Iglesias and I, at cost of a +ducking with mist-drops from the thickets, scrambled up a crag for a +supreme view of the fair lake and the clear mountain. And we did +well. Katahdin, from the hill guarding the exit of the Penobscot from +Ripogenus, is eminent and emphatic, a signal and solitary pyramid, +grander than any below the realms of the unchangeable, more distinctly +mountainous than any mountain of those that stop short of the venerable +honors of eternal snow. + +We trod the trail, we others, easier than Cancut. He found it hard to +thread the mazes of an overgrown path and navigate his canoe at the +same time. "Better," thought he, as he staggered and plunged and bumped +along, extricating his boat-bonnet now from a bower of raspberry-bushes, +now from the branches of a brotherly birch-tree,--"better," thought he, +"were I seated in what I bear, and bounding gayly over the billow. Peril +is better than pother." + +Bushwhacking thus for a league, we circumvented the peril, and came upon +the river flowing fair and free. The trappers said adieu, and launched +us. Back then they went to consult their traps and flay their fragrant +captives, and we shot forward. + +That was a day all poetry and all music. Mountain airs bent and blunted +the noonday sunbeams. There was shade of delicate birches on either +hand, whenever we loved to linger. Our feather-shallop went dancing +on, fleet as the current, and whenever a passion for speed came after +moments of luxurious sloth, we could change floating at the river's +will into leaps and chasing, with a few strokes of the paddle. All was +untouched, unvisited wilderness, and we from bend to bend the first +discoverers. So we might fancy ourselves; for civilization had been +here only to cut pines, not to plant houses. Yet these fair curves, and +liberal reaches, and bright rapids of the birchen-bowered river were +only solitary, not lonely. It is never lonely with Nature. Without +unnatural men or unnatural beasts, she is capital society by herself. +And so we found her,--a lovely being in perfect toilet, which I +describe, in an indiscriminating, masculine way, by saying that it was a +forest and a river and lakes and a mountain and doubtless sky, all made +resplendent by her judicious disposition of a most becoming light. +Iglesias and I, being old friends, were received into close intimacy. +She smiled upon us unaffectedly, and had a thousand exquisite things to +say, drawing us out also, with feminine tact, to say our best things, +and teaching us to be conscious, in her presence, of more delicate +possibilities of refinement and a tenderer poetic sense. So we voyaged +through the sunny hours, and were happy. + +Yet there was no monotony in our progress. We could not always drift and +glide. Sometimes we must fight our way. Below the placid reaches were +the inevitable "rips" and rapids: some we could shoot without hitting +anything; some would hit us heavily, did we try to shoot. Whenever +the rocks in the current were only as thick as the plums in a +boarding-school pudding, we could venture to run the gantlet; whenever +they multiplied to a school-boy's ideal, we were arrested. Just at the +brink of peril we would sweep in by an eddy into a shady pool by the +shore. At such spots we found a path across the carry. Cancut at once +proceeded to bonnet himself with the trickling birch. Iglesias and I +took up the packs and hurried on with minds intent on berries. Berries +we always found,--blueberries covered with a cloudy bloom, blueberries +pulpy, saccharine, plenteous. + +Often, when a portage was not quite necessary, a dangerous bit of white +water would require the birch to be lightened. Cancut must steer her +alone over the foam, while we, springing ashore, raced through the thick +of the forest, tore through the briers, and plunged through the punk of +trees older than history, now rotting where they fell, slain by Time the +Giganticide. Cancut then had us at advantage. Sometimes we had laughed +at him, when he, a good-humored malaprop, made vague clutches at the +thread of discourse. Now suppose he should take a fancy to drop down +stream and leave us. What then? Berries then, and little else, unless we +had a chance at a trout or a partridge. It is not cheery, but dreary, to +be left in pathlessness, blanketless, guideless, and with breadths of +lake and mountain and Nature, shaggy and bearish, between man and man. +With the consciousness of a latent shudder in our hearts at such a +possibility, we parted brier and bramble until the rapid was passed, we +scuffled hastily through to the river-bank, and there always, in some +quiet nook, was a beacon of red-flannel shirt among the green leaves +over the blue and shadowy water, and always the fast-sailing Cancut +awaiting us, making the woods resound to amicable hails, and ready again +to be joked and to retaliate. + +Such alternations made our voyage a charming olla. We had the placid +glide, the fleet dash, the wild career, the pause, the landing, +the agreeable interlude of a portage, and the unburdened stampede +along-shore. Thus we won our way, or our way wooed us on, until, in +early afternoon, a lovely lakelet opened before us. The fringed +shores retired, and, as we shot forth upon wider calm, lo, Katahdin! +unlooked-for, at last, as a revolution. Our boat ruffled its shadow, +doing pretty violence to its dignity, that we might know the greater +grandeur of the substance. There was a gentle agency of atmosphere +softening the bold forms of this startling neighbor, and giving it +distance, lest we might fear it would topple and crush us. Clouds, level +below, hid the summit and towered aloft. Among them we might imagine the +mountain rising with thousands more of feet of heaven-piercing height: +there is one degree of sublimity in mystery, as there is another degree +in certitude. + +We lay to in a shady nook, just off Katahdin's reflection in the river, +while Iglesias sketched him. Meanwhile I, analyzing my view, presently +discovered a droll image in the track of a land-avalanche down the +front. It was a comical fellow, a little giant, a colossal dwarf, six +hundred feet high, and should have been thrice as tall, had it had any +proper development,--for out of his head grew two misdirected skeleton +legs, "hanging down and dangling." The countenance was long, elfin, +sneering, solemn, as of a truculent demon, saddish for his trade, an +ashamed, but unrepentant rascal. He had two immense erect ears, and in +his boisterous position had suffered a loss of hair, wearing nothing +save an impudent scalp-lock. A very grotesque personage. Was he the +guardian imp, the legendary Eft of Katahdin, scoffing already at us as +verdant, and warning that he would make us unhappy, if we essayed to +appear in demon realms and on Brocken heights without initiation? + +"A terrible pooty mountain," Cancut observed; and so it is. + +Not to fail in topographical duty, I record, that near this lakelet +flows in the river Sowadehunk, and not far below, a sister streamlet, +hardly less melodiously named Ayboljockameegus. Opposite the latter we +landed and encamped, with Katahdin full in front, and broadly visible. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +CAMP KATAHDIN. + + +Our camping-place was worthy of its view. On the bank, high and dry, a +noble yellow birch had been strong enough to thrust back the forest, +making a glade for its own private abode. Other travellers had already +been received in this natural pavilion. We had had predecessors, and +they had built them a hut, a half roof of hemlock bark, resting on a +frame. Time had developed the wrinkles in this covering into cracks, and +cracks only wait to be leaks. First, then, we must mend our mansion. +Material was at hand; hemlocks, with a back-load of bark, stood ready to +be disburdened. In August they have worn their garment so long that they +yield it unwillingly. Cancut's axe, however, was insinuating, not to +say peremptory. He peeled off and brought great scales of rough +purple roofing, and we disposed them, according to the laws of +forest architecture, upon our cabin. It became a good example of the +_renaissance_. Storm, if such a traveller were approaching, was shut +out at top and sides; our blankets could become curtains in front and +completely hide us from that unwelcome vagrant, should he peer about +seeking whom he might duck and what he might damage. + +Our lodge, built, must be furnished. We need a luxurious carpet, couch, +and bed; and if we have these, will be content without secondary +articles. Here, too, material was ready, and only the artist wanting, to +use it. While Cancut peeled the hemlocks, Iglesias and I stripped off +armfuls of boughs and twigs from the spruces to "bough down" our camp. +"Boughing down" is shingling the floor elaborately with evergreen +foliage; and when it is done well, the result counts among the high +luxuries of the globe. As the feathers of this bed are harsh stems +covered with leafage, the process of bed-making must be systematic, the +stems thoroughly covered, and the surface smooth and elastic. I have +slept on the various beds of the world,--in a hammock, in a pew, on +German feathers, on a bear-skin, on a mat, on a hide; all, all give but +a feeble, restless, unrecreating slumber, compared to the spruce or +hemlock bed in a forest of Maine. This is fragrant, springy, soft, +well-fitting, better than any Sybarite's coach of uncrumpled +rose-leaves. It sweetly rustles when you roll, and, by a gentle +titillation with the little javelin-leaves, keeps up a pleasant +electricity over the cuticle. Rheumatism never, after nights on such a +bed; agues never; vigor, ardor, fervor, always. + +We despatched our camp-building and bed-making with speed, for we had +a purpose. The Penobscot was a very beautiful river, and the +Ayboljockameegus a very pretty stream; and if there is one place in the +world where trout, at certain seasons, are likely to be found, it is in +a beautiful river at the mouth of a pretty stream. Now we wanted trout; +it was in the programme that something more delicate than salt-pork +should grace our banquets before Katahdin. Cancut sustained our _a +priori_, that trout were waiting for us over by the Aybol. By this +time the tree-shadows, so stiff at noon, began to relax and drift down +stream, cooling the surface. The trout could leave their shy lairs +down in the chilly deeps, and come up without fear of being parboiled. +Besides, as evening came, trout thought of their supper, as we did of +ours. + +Hereupon I had a new sensation. We made ready our flies and our rods, +and embarked, as I supposed, to be ferried across and fish from _terra +firma_. But no. Cancut dropped anchor very quietly opposite the Aybol's +mouth. Iglesias, the man of Maine experience, seemed nought surprised. +We were to throw our lines, as it appeared, from the birch; we were to +peril our lives on the unsteady basis of a roly-poly vessel,--to keep +our places and ballast our bowl, during the excitement of hooking +pounds. Self-poise is an acrobatic feat, when a person, not loaded at +the heels, undertakes trout-fishing from a birch. + +We threw our flies. Instantly at the lucky hackle something darted, +seized it, and whirled to fly, with the unwholesome bit in its mouth, up +the peaceful Ayboljockameegus. But the lucky man, and he happened to be +the novice, forgot, while giving the capturing jerk of his hook, that +his fulcrum was not solid rock. The slight shell tilted, turned--over +not quite, over enough to give everybody a start. One lesson teaches the +docile. Caution thereafter presided over our fishing. She told us to sit +low, keep cool, cast gently, strike firmly, play lightly, and pull in +steadily. So we did. As the spotted sparklers were rapidly translated +from water to a lighter element, a well-fed cheerfulness developed in +our trio. We could not speak, for fear of breaking the spell; we smiled +at each other. Twenty-three times the smile went round. Twenty-three +trout, and not a pigmy among them, lay at our feet. More fish for one +dinner and breakfast would be waste and wanton self-indulgence. We +stopped. And I must avow, not to claim too much heroism, that the fish +had also stopped. So we paddled home contented. + +Then, O Walton! O Davy! O Scrope! ye fishers hard by taverns! luxury was +ours of which ye know no more than a Chinaman does of music. Under +the noble yellow birch we cooked our own fish. We used our scanty +kitchen-battery with skill. We cooked with the high art of simplicity. +Where Nature has done her best, only fools rush in to improve: on the +salmonids, fresh and salt, she has lavished her creative refinements; +cookery should only ripen and develop. From our silver gleaming pile +of pounders, we chose the larger and the smaller for appropriate +experiments. Then we tested our experiments; we tasted our examples. +Success. And success in science proves knowledge and skill. We feasted. +The delicacy of our food made each feaster a finer essence. + +So we supped, reclined upon our couch of spruce-twigs. In our good cheer +we pitied the Eft of Katahdin: he might sneer, but he was supperless. We +were grateful to Nature for the grand mountain, for the fair and sylvan +woods, for the lovely river and what it had yielded us. + +By the time we had finished our flaky fare and sipped our chocolate from +the Magdalena, Night announced herself,--Night, a jealous, dark lady, +eclipsed and made invisible all her rivals, that she might solely +possess us. Night's whispers lulled us. The rippling river, the rustling +leaves, the hum of insects grew more audible; and these are gentle +sounds that prove wide quietude in Nature, and tell man that the burr +and buzz in his day-laboring brain have ceased, and he had better be +breathing deep in harmony. So we disposed ourselves upon the fragrant +couch of spruce-boughs, and sank slowly and deeper into sleep, as divers +sink into the thick waters down below, into the dreamy waters far below +the plunge of sunshine. + +By-and-by, as the time came for rising to the surface again, and the +mind began to be half conscious of facts without it, as the diver may +half perceive light through thinning strata of sea, there penetrated +through my last layers of slumber a pungent odor of wetted embers. It +was raining quietly. Drip was the pervading sound, as if the rain-drops +were counting aloud the leaves of the forest. Evidently a resolute and +permanent wetting impended. On rainy days one does not climb Katahdin. +Instead of rising by starlight, breakfasting by gray, and starting by +rosy dawn, it would be policy to persuade night to linger long into the +hours of a dull day. When daylight finally came, dim and sulky, there +was no rivalry among us which should light the fire. We did not leap, +but trickled slowly forth into the inhospitable morning, all forlorn. +Wet days in camp try "grit." "Clear grit" brightens more crystalline, +the more it is rained upon; sham grit dissolves into mud and water. + +Yankees, who take in pulverized granite with every breath of their +native dust, are not likely to melt in a drizzle. We three certainly +did not. We reacted stoutly against the forlorn weather, unpacking our +internal stores of sunshine, as a camel in a desert draws water from his +inner tank when outer water fails. We made the best of it. A breakfast +of trout and trimmings looks nearly as well and tastes nearly as well in +a fog as in a glare: that we proved by experience at Camp Katahdin. + +We could not climb the mountain dark and dim; we would not be idle: what +was to be done? Much. Much for sport and for use. We shouldered the +axe and sallied into the dripping forest. Only a faint smoke from the +smouldering logs curled up among the branches of the yellow birch over +camp. We wanted a big smoke, and chopped at the woods for fuel. Speaking +for myself, I should say that our wood-work was ill done. Iglesias +smiled at my axe-handling, and Cancut at his, as chopping we sent chips +far and wide. + +The busy, keen, short strokes of the axe resounded through the forest. +When these had done their work, and the bungler paused amid his wasteful +_debris_ to watch his toil's result, first was heard a rustle of leaves, +as if a passing whirlwind had alighted there; next came the crack of +bursting sinews; then the groan of a great riving spasm, and the tree, +decapitated at its foot, crashed to earth, with a vain attempt to clutch +for support at the stiff, unpitying arms of its woodland brotherhood. + +Down was the tree,--fallen, but so it should not lie. This tree we +proposed to promote from brute matter, mere lumber, downcast and +dejected, into finer essence: fuel was to be made into fire. + +First, however, the fuel must be put into portable shape. We top-sawyers +went at our prostrate and vanquished non-resistant, and without mercy +mangled and dismembered him, until he was merely a bare trunk, a torso +incapable of restoration. + +While we were thus busy, useful, and happy, the dripping rain, like a +clepsydra, told off the morning moments. The dinner-hour drew nigh. We +had determined on a feast, and trout were to be its daintiest dainty. +But before we cooked our trout, we must, according to sage Kitchener's +advice, catch our trout. They were, we felt confident, awaiting us in +the refrigerate larder at hand. We waited until the confusing pepper of +a shower had passed away and left the water calm. Then softly and deftly +we propelled our bark across to the Ayboljockameegus. We tossed to the +fish humbugs of wool, silk, and feathers, gauds such as captivate the +greedy or the guileless. Again the "gobemouches" trout, the fellows +on the look-out for novelty, dashed up and swallowed disappointing +juiceless morsels, and with them swallowed hooks. + +We caught an apostolic boat-load of beauties fresh and blooming +as Aurora, silver as the morning star, gemmy with eye-spots as a +tiger-lily. + +O feast most festal! Iglesias, of course, was the great artist who +devised and mainly executed it. As well as he could, he covered his pot +and pan from the rain, admitting only enough to season each dish with +gravy direct from the skies. As day had ripened, the banquet grew ripe. +Then as day declined, we reclined on our triclinium of hemlock and +spruce boughs, and made high festival, toasting each other in the +uninebriating flow of our beverages. Jollity reigned. Cancut fattened, +and visibly broadened. Toward the veriest end of the banquet, we seemed +to feel that there had been a slight sameness in its courses. The Bill +of Fare, however, proved the freest variety. And at the close we sat and +sipped our chocolate with uttermost content. No _garçon_, cringing, but +firm, would here intrude with the unhandsome bill. Nothing to pay is the +rarest of pleasures. This dinner we had caught ourselves, we had cooked +ourselves, and had eaten for the benefit of ourselves and no other. +There was nothing to repent of afterwards in the way of extravagance, +and certainly nothing of indigestion. Indigestion in the forest +primeval, in the shadow of Katahdin, is impossible. + +While we dined, we talked of our to-morrow's climb of Katahdin. We were +hopeful. We disbelieved in obstacles. To-morrow would be fine. We would +spring early from our elastic bed and stride topwards. Iglesias nerved +himself and me with a history of his ascent some years before, up the +eastern side of the mountain. He had left the house of Mr. Hunt, the +outsider at that time of Eastern Maine, with a squad of lumbermen, and +with them tramped up the furrow of a land-avalanche to the top, spending +wet and ineffective days in the dripping woods, and vowing then to +return and study the mountain from our present camping-spot. I recalled +also the first recorded ascent of the Natardin or Catardin Mountain by +Mr. Turner in 1804, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's +Collections, and identified the stream up whose valley he climbed with +the Ayboljockameegus. Cancut offered valuable contributions to our +knowledge from his recent ascent with our Boston predecessors. To-morrow +we would verify our recollections and our fancies. + +And so good-night, and to our spruce bed. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +UP KATAHDIN. + + +Next morning, when we awoke, just before the gray of dawn, the sky was +clear and scintillating; but there was a white cotton night-cap on +the head of Katahdin. As we inspected him, he drew his night-cap down +farther, hinting that he did not wish to see the sun that day. When +a mountain is thus in the sulks after a storm, it is as well not to +disturb him: he will not offer the prize of a view. Experience taught us +this: but then experience is only an empiric at the best. + +Besides, whether Katahdin were bare-headed or cloud-capped, it would be +better to blunder upward than lounge all day in camp and eat Sybaritic +dinners. We longed for the nervy climb. We must have it. "Up!" said +tingling blood to brain. "Dash through the forest! Grasp the crag, and +leap the cleft! Sweet flash forth the streamlets from granite fissures. +To breathe the winds that smite the peaks is life." + +As soon as dawn bloomed in the woods we breakfasted, and ferried the +river before sunrise. The ascent subdivides itself into five zones. 1. A +scantily wooded acclivity, where bears abound. 2. A dense, swampy forest +region. 3. Steep, mossy mountain-side, heavily wooded. 4. A belt of +dwarf spruces, nearly impenetrable. 5. Ragged rock. + +Cancut was our leader to-day. There are by far too many blueberries in +the first zone. No one, of course, intends to dally, but the purple +beauties tempted, and too often we were seduced. Still such yielding +spurred us on to hastier speed, when we looked up after delay and saw +the self-denying far ahead. + +To write an epic or climb a mountain is merely a dogged thing; the +result is more interesting to most than the process. Mountains, being +cloud-compellers, are rain-shedders, and the shed water will not always +flow with decorous gayety in dell or glen. Sometimes it stays bewildered +in a bog, and here the climber must plunge. In the moist places great +trees grow, die, fall, rot, and barricade the way with their corpses. +Katahdin has to endure all the ills of mountain being, and we had all +the usual difficulties to fight through doggedly. When we were clumsy, +we tumbled and rose up torn. Still we plodded on, following a path +blazed by the Bostonians, Cancut's late charge, and we grumblingly +thanked them. + +Going up, we got higher and drier. The mountain-side became steeper than +it could stay, and several land-avalanches, ancient or modern, crossed +our path. It would be sad to think that all the eternal hills were +crumbling thus, outwardly, unless we knew that they bubble up inwardly +as fast. Posterity is thus cared for in regard to the picturesque. +Cascading streams also shot by us, carrying light and music. From +them we stole refreshment, and did not find the waters mineral and +astringent, as Mr. Turner, the first climber, calumniously asserts. + +The trees were still large and surprisingly parallel to the mountain +wall. Deep soft moss covered whatever was beneath, and sometimes this +would yield and let the foot measure a crevice. Perilous pitfalls; but +we clambered unharmed. The moss, so rich, deep, soft, and earthily +fragrant, was a springy stair-carpet of a steep stairway. And sometimes +when the carpet slipped and the state of heels over head seemed +imminent, we held to the baluster-trees, as one after wassail clings to +the lamp-post. + +Even on this minor mountain the law of diminishing vegetation can be +studied. The great trees abandoned us, and stayed indolently down in +shelter. Next the little wiry trees ceased to be the comrades of our +climb. They were no longer to be seen planted upon jutting crags, and, +bold as standard-bearers, inciting us to mount higher. Big spruces, +knobby with balls of gum, dwindled away into little ugly dwarf spruces, +hostile, as dwarfs are said to be always, to human comfort. They grew +man-high, and hedged themselves together into a dense thicket. We could +not go under, nor over, nor through. To traverse them at all, we must +recall the period when we were squirrels or cats, in some former state +of being. + +Somehow we pierced, as man does ever, whether he owes it to the beast or +the man in him. From time to time, when in this struggle we came to an +open point of rock, we would remember that we were on high, and turn to +assure ourselves that nether earth was where we had left it. We always +found it _in situ_, in belts green, white, and blue, a tricolor of +woods, water, and sky. Lakes were there without number, forest without +limit. We could not analyze yet, for there was work to do. Also, +whenever we paused, there was the old temptation, blueberries. Every +out-cropping ledge offered store of tonic, ozone-fed blueberries, or +of mountain-cranberries, crimson and of concentrated flavor, or of the +white snowberry, most delicate of fruits that grow. + +As we were creeping over the top of the dwarf wood, Cancut, who was in +advance, suddenly disappeared; he seemed to fall through a gap in the +spruces, and we heard his voice calling in cavernous tones. We crawled +forward and looked over. It was the upper camp of the Bostonians. They +had profited by a hole in the rocks, and chopped away the stunted scrubs +to enlarge it into a snug artificial abyss. It was snug, and so to the +eye is a cell at Sing-Sing. If they were very misshapen Bostonians, they +may have succeeded in lying there comfortably. I looked down ten feet +into the rough chasm, and I saw, _Corpo di Bacco!_ I saw a cork. + +To this station our predecessors had come in an easy day's walk from the +river; here they had tossed through a night, and given a whole day to +finish the ascent, returning hither again for a second night. As we +purposed to put all this travel within one day, we could not stay and +sympathize with the late tenants. A little more squirrel-like skipping +and cat-like creeping over the spruces, and we were out among bulky +boulders and rough _débris_ on a shoulder of the mountain. Alas! the +higher, the more hopeless. Katahdin, as he had taken pains to inform us, +meant to wear the veil all day. He was drawing down the white drapery +about his throat and letting it fall over his shoulders. Sun and wind +struggled mightily with his sulky fit; sunshine rifted off bits of the +veil, and wind seized, whirled them away, and, dragging them over the +spruces below, tore them to rags. Evidently, if we wished to see the +world, we must stop here and survey, before the growing vapor covered +all. We climbed to the edge of Cloudland, and stood fronting the +semicircle of southward view. + +Katahdin's self is finer than what Katahdin sees. Katahdin is distinct, +and its view is indistinct. It is a vague panorama, a mappy, unmethodic +maze of water and woods, very roomy, very vast, very simple,--and these +are capital qualities, but also quite monotonous. A lover of largeness +and scope has the proper emotions stirred, but a lover of variety very +soon finds himself counting the lakes. It is a wide view, and it is a +proud thing for a man six feet or less high, to feel that he himself, +standing on something he himself has climbed, and having Katahdin under +his feet a mere convenience, can see all Maine. It does not make Maine +less, but the spectator more, and that is a useful moral result. Maine's +face, thus exposed, has almost no features: there are no great mountains +visible, none that seem more than green hillocks in the distance. +Besides sky, Katahdin's view contains only the two primal necessities +of wood and water. Nowhere have I seen such breadth of solemn forest, +gloomy, were it not for the cheerful interruption of many fair lakes, +and bright ways of river linking them. + +Far away on the southern horizon we detected the heights of Mount +Desert, our old familiar haunt. All the northern semicircle was lost to +us by the fog. We lost also the view of the mountain itself. All the +bleak, lonely, barren, ancient waste of the bare summit was shrouded +in cold fog. The impressive gray ruin and Titanic havoc of a granite +mountain top, the heaped boulders, the crumbling crags, the crater-like +depression, the long stern reaches of sierra, the dark curving slopes +channelled and polished by the storms and fine drifting mists of aeons, +the downright plunge of precipices, all the savageness of harsh rock, +unsoftened by other vegetation than rusty moss and the dull green +splashes of lichen, all this was hidden, except when the mist, white and +delicate where we stood, but thick and black above, opened whimsically +and delusively, as mountain mists will do, and gave us vistas into the +upper desolation. After such momentary rifts the mist thickened again, +and swooped forward as if to involve our station, but noon sunshine, +reverberated from the plains and valleys and lakes below, was our +ally; sunshine checked the overcoming mist, and it stayed overhead, an +unwelcome parasol, making our August a chilly November. Besides what our +eyes lost, our minds lost, unless they had imagination enough to create +it, the sentiment of triumph and valiant energy that the man of body and +soul feels upon the windy heights, the highest, whence he looks far and +wide, like a master of realms, and knows that the world is his; and they +lost the sentiment of solemn joy that the man of soul recognizes as one +of the surest intimations of immortality, stirring within him, whenever +he is in the unearthly regions, the higher world. + +We stayed studying the pleasant solitude and dreamy breadth of +Katahdin's panorama for a long time, and every moment the mystery of the +mist above grew more enticing. Pride also was awakened. We turned +from sunshine and Cosmos into fog and Chaos. We made ourselves quite +miserable for nought. We clambered up into Nowhere, into a great, white, +ghostly void. We saw nothing but the rough surfaces we trod. We pressed +along crater-like edges, and all below was filled with mist, troubled +and rushing upward like the smoke of a volcano. Up we went,--nothing but +granite and gray dimness. Where we arrived we know not. It was a top, +certainly: that was proved by the fact that there was nothing within +sight. We cannot claim that it was the topmost top; Kimchinjinga might +have towered within pistol-shot; popgun-shot was our extremest range of +vision, except for one instant, when a kind-hearted sunbeam gave us +a vanishing glimpse of a white lake and breadth of forest far in the +unknown North toward Canada. + +When we had thus reached the height of our folly and made nothing by it, +we addressed ourselves to the descent, no wiser for our pains. Descent +is always harder than ascent, for divine ambitions are stronger and +more prevalent than degrading passions. And when Katahdin is befogged, +descent is much more perilous than ascent. We edged along very +cautiously by remembered landmarks the way we had come, and so, after +a dreary march of a mile or so through desolation, issued into welcome +sunshine and warmth at our point of departure. When I said "we," I did +not include the grave-stone peddler. He, like a sensible fellow, had +determined to stay and eat berries rather than breathe fog. While we +wasted our time, he had made the most of his. He had cleared Katahdin's +shoulders of fruit, and now, cuddled in a sunny cleft, slept the sleep +of the well-fed. His red shirt was a cheerful beacon on our weary way. +We took in the landscape with one slow, comprehensive look, and, waking +Cancut suddenly, (who sprang to his feet amazed, and cried "Fire!") we +dashed down the mountain-side. + +It was long after noon; we were some dozen of miles from camp; we must +speed. No glissade was possible, nor plunge such as travellers make down +through the ash-heaps of Vesuvius; but, having once worried through the +wretched little spruces, mean counterfeits of trees, we could fling +ourselves down from mossy step to step, measuring off the distance by +successive leaps of a second each, and alighting, sound after each, on +moss yielding as a cushion. + +On we hastened, retracing our footsteps of the morning across the +avalanches of crumbled granite, through the bogs, along the brooks; +undelayed by the beauty of sunny glade or shady dell, never stopping to +botanize or to classify, we traversed zone after zone, and safely ran +the gantlet of the possible bears on the last level. We found lowland +Nature still the same; Ayboljockameegus was flowing still; so was +Penobscot; no pirate had made way with the birch; we embarked and +paddled to camp. + +The first thing, when we touched _terra firma_, was to look back +regretfully toward the mountain. Regret changed to wrath, when we +perceived its summit all clear and mistless, smiling warmly to the +low summer's sun. The rascal evidently had only waited until we were +out of sight in the woods to throw away his night-cap. + +One long rainy day had somewhat disgusted us with the old +hemlock-covered camp in the glade of the yellow birch, and we were +reasonably and not unreasonably morbid after our disappointment with +Katahdin. We resolved to decamp. In the last hour of sunlight, floating +pleasantly from lovely reach to reach, and view to view, we could choose +a spot of bivouac where no home-scenery would recall any sorry fact of +the past. We loved this gentle gliding by the tender light of evening +over the shadowy river, marking the rhythm of our musical progress by +touches of the paddle. We determined, too, that the balance of bodily +forces should be preserved: legs had been well stretched over the bogs +and boulders; now for the arms. Never did our sylvan sojourn look so +fair as when we quitted it, and seemed to see among the streaming +sunbeams in the shadows the Hamadryads of the spot returned, and +waving us adieux. We forgot how damp and leaks and puddles had forced +themselves upon our intimacy there; we remembered that we were gay, +though wet, and there had known the perfection of Ayboljockameegus +trout. + +As we drifted along the winding river, between the shimmering birches on +either bank, Katahdin watched us well. Sometimes he would show the point +of his violet gray peak over the woods, and sometimes, at a broad bend +of the water, he revealed himself fully--and threw his great image down +beside for our nearer view. We began to forgive him, to disbelieve in +any personal spite of his, and to recall that he himself, seen thus, was +far more precious than any mappy dulness we could have seen from his +summit. One great upright pyramid like this was worth a continent of +grovelling acres. + +Sunset came, and with it we landed at a point below a lake-like stretch +of the river, where the charms of a neighbor and a distant view of the +mountain combined. Cancut the Unwearied roofed with boughs an old frame +for drying moose-hides, while Iglesias sketched, and I worshipped +Katahdin. Has my reader heard enough of it,--a hillock only six thousand +feet high? We are soon to drift away, and owe it here as kindly a +farewell as it gave us in that radiant twilight by the river. + +From our point of view we raked the long stern front tending westward. +Just before sunset, from beneath a belt of clouds evanescing over the +summit, an inconceivably tender, brilliant glow of rosy violet mantled +downward, filling all the valley. Then the violet purpled richer and +richer, and darkened slowly to solemn blue, that blended with the gloom +of the pines and shadowy channelled gorges down the steep. The peak +was still in sunlight, and suddenly, half way down, a band of roseate +clouds, twining and changing like a choir of Bacchantes, soared around +the western edge and hung poised above the unillumined forests at the +mountain-base; light as air they came and went and faded away, ghostly, +after their work of momentary beauty was done. One slight maple, +prematurely ripened to crimson and heralding the pomp of autumn, +repeated the bright cloud-color amid the vivid verdure of a little +island, and its image wavering in the water sent the flame floating +nearly to our feet. + +Such are the transcendent moments of Nature, unseen and disbelieved by +the untaught. The poetic soul lays hold of every such tender pageant of +beauty and keeps it forever. Iglesias, having an additional method of +preservation, did not fail to pencil rapidly the wondrous scene. When +he had finished his dashing sketch of this glory, so transitory, he +peppered the whole with cabalistic cipher, which only he could interpret +into beauty. + +Cancut's camp-fire now began to overpower the faint glimmers of +twilight. The single-minded Cancut, little distracted by emotions, had +heaped together logs enough to heat any mansion for a winter. The warmth +was welcome, and the great flame, with its bright looks of familiar +comradery, and its talk like the complex murmur of a throng, made a +fourth in our party by no means terrible, as some other incorporeal +visitors might have been. Fire was not only a talker, but an important +actor: Fire cooked for us our evening chocolate; Fire held the +candlestick, while we, without much ceremony of undressing, disposed +ourselves upon our spruce-twig couch; and Fire watched over our +slumbers, crouching now as if some stealthy step were approaching, now +lifting up its head and peering across the river into some recess where +the water gleamed and rustled under dark shadows, and now sending far +and wide over the stream and the clearing and into every cleft of the +forest a penetrating illumination, a blaze of light, death to all +treacherous ambush. So Fire watched while we slept, and when safety came +with the earliest gray of morning, it, too, covered itself with ashes +and slept. + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +HOMEWARD. + + +Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful is dawn in the woods. Sweet the first +opalescent stir, as if the vanguard sunbeams shivered as they dashed +along the chilly reaches of night. And the growth of day, through violet +and rose and all its golden glow of promise, is tender and tenderly +strong, as the deepening passions of dawning love. Presently up comes +the sun very peremptory, and says to people, "Go about your business! +Laggards not allowed in Maine! Nothing here to repent of, while you +lie in bed and curse to-day because it cannot shake off the burden of +yesterday; all clear the past here; all serene the future; into it at +once!" + +Birch was ready for us. Objects we travel on, if horses, often stampede +or are stampeded; if wagons, they break down; if shanks, they stiffen; +if feet, they chafe. No such trouble befalls Birch; leak, however, it +will, as ours did this morning. We gently beguiled it into the position +taken tearfully by unwhipped little boys, when they are about to receive +birch. Then, with a firebrand, the pitch of the seams was easily +persuaded to melt and spread a little over the leaky spot, and Birch was +sound as a drum. + +Staunch and sound Birch needed to be, for presently Penobscot, always a +skittish young racer, began to grow lively after he had shaken off the +weighty shadow of Katahdin, and, kicking up his heels, went galloping +down hill, so furiously that we were at last, after sundry frantic +plunges, compelled to get off his back before worse befell us. In the +balmy morning we made our first portage through a wood of spruces. +How light our firkin was growing! its pork, its hard-tack, and its +condiments were diffused among us three, and had passed into muscle. +Lake Degetus, as pretty a pocket lake as there is, followed the carry. +Next came Lake Ambajeejus, larger, but hardly less lovely. Those who +dislike long names may use its shorter Indian title, Umdo. We climbed a +granite crag draped with moss long as the beard of a Druid,--a crag on +the south side of Ambajeejus or Umdo. Thence we saw Katahdin, noble as +ever, unclouded in the sunny morning, near, and yet enchantingly vague, +with the blue sky which surrounded it. It was still an isolate pyramid +rising with no effect from the fair blue lakes and the fair green sea +of the birch-forest,--a brilliant sea of woods, gay as the shallows of +ocean shot through with sunbeams and sunlight reflected upward from +golden sands. + +We sped along all that exquisite day, best of all our poetic voyage. +Sometimes we drifted and basked in sunshine, sometimes we lingered in +the birchen shade; we paddled from river to lake, from lake to river +again; the rapids whirled us along, surging and leaping under us with +magnificent gallop; frequent carries struck in, that we might not lose +the forester in the waterman. It was a fresh world that we traversed +on our beautiful river-path,--new as if no other had ever parted its +overhanging bowers. + +At noon we floated out upon Lake Pemadumcook, the largest bulge of +the Penobscot, and irregular as the verb To Be. Lumbermen name it +Bammydumcook: Iglesias insisted upon this as the proper reading; and as +he was the responsible man of the party, I accepted it. Woods, woody +hills, and woody mountains surround Bammydumcook. I have no doubt parts +of it are pretty and will be famous in good time; but we saw little. By +the time we were fairly out in the lake and away from the sheltering +shore, a black squall to windward, hiding all the West, warned us to +fly, for birches swamp in squalls. We deemed that Birch, having brought +us through handsomely, deserved a better fate: swamped it must not be. +We plied paddle valiantly, and were almost safe behind an arm of the +shore when the storm overtook us, and in a moment more, safe, with a +canoe only half-full of Bammydumcook water. + +It is easy to speak in scoffing tone; but when that great roaring +blackness sprang upon us, and the waves, showing their white teeth, +snarled around, we were far from being in the mood to scoff. It is +impossible to say too much of the charm of this gentle scenery, mingled +with the charm of this adventurous sailing. And then there were no +mosquitoes, no alligators, no serpents uncomfortably hugging the trees, +no miasmas lurking near; and blueberries always. Dust there was none, +nor the things that make dust. But Iglesias and I were breathing AIR, +--Air sweet, tender, strong, and pure as an ennobling love. It was a day +very happy, for Iglesias and I were near what we both love almost best +of all the dearly-beloveds. It is such influence as this that rescues +the thought and the hand of an artist from enervating mannerism. He +cannot be satisfied with vague blotches of paint to convey impressions +so distinct and vivid as those he is forced to take direct from a Nature +like this. He must be true and powerful. + +The storm rolled by and gave us a noble view of Katahdin, beyond a +broad, beautiful scope of water, and rising seemingly directly from it. +We fled before another squall, over another breadth of Bammydumcook, and +made a portage around a great dam below the lake. The world should know +that at this dam the reddest, spiciest, biggest, thickest wintergreen +berries in the world are to be found, beautiful as they are good. + +Birch had hitherto conducted himself with perfect propriety. I, the +novice, had acquired such entire confidence in his stability of +character that I treated him with careless ease, and never listened +to the warnings of my comrades that he would serve me a trick. Cancut +navigated Birch through some white water below the dam, and Birch went +curveting proudly and gracefully along, evidently feeling his oats. +When Iglesias and I came to embark, I, the novice, perhaps a little +intoxicated with wintergreen berries, stepped jauntily into the +laden boat. Birch, alas, failed me. He tilted; he turned; he took in +Penobscot,--took it in by the quart, by the gallon, by the barrel; he +would have sunk without mercy, had not Iglesias and Cancut succeeded +in laying hold of a rock and restoring equilibrium. I could not have +believed it of Birch. I was disappointed, and in consternation; and if +I had not known how entirely it was Birch's fault that everybody +was ducked and everybody now had a wet blanket, I should have felt +personally foolish. I punished myself for another's fault and my own +inexperience by assuming the wet blankets as my share at the next carry. +I suppose few of my readers imagine how many pounds of water a blanket +can absorb. + +After camps at Katahdin, any residence in the woods without a stupendous +mountain before the door would have been tame. It must have been this, +and not any wearying of sylvan life, that made us hasten to reach the +outermost log-house at the Millinoket carry before nightfall. The +sensation of house and in-door life would be a new one, and so +satisfying in itself that we should not demand beautiful objects to meet +our first blink of awakening eyes. + +An hour before sunset, Cancut steered us toward a beach, and pointed out +a vista in the woods, evidently artificial, evidently a road trodden +by feet and hoofs, and ruled by parallel wheels. A road is one of the +kindliest gifts of brother man to man: if a path in the wilderness, it +comes forward like a friendly guide offering experience and proposing +a comrade dash deeper into the unknown world; if a highway, it is the +great, bold, sweeping character with which civilization writes its +autograph upon a continent. Leaving our plunder on the beach, beyond +the reach of plunderers, whose great domain we were about to enter, we +walked on toward the first house, compelled at parting to believe, that, +though we did not love barbarism less, we loved civilization more. In +the morning, Cancut should, with an ox-cart, bring Birch and our traps +over the three miles of the carry. + + +CHAPTER XV. + +OUT OF THE WOODS. + + +What could society do without women and children? Both we found at the +first house, twenty miles from the second. The children buzzed about us; +the mother milked for us one of Maine's vanguard cows. She baked for +us bread, fresh bread,--such bread! not staff of life,--life's +vaulting-pole. She gave us blueberries with cream of cream. Ah, what a +change! We sat on chairs, at a table, and ate from plates. There was a +table-cloth, a salt-cellar made of glass, of glass never seen at +camps near Katahdin. There was a sugar-bowl, a milk-jug, and other +paraphernalia of civilization, including--O memories of Joseph +Bourgogne!--a dome of baked beans, with a crag of pork projecting from +the apex. We partook decorously, with controlled elbows, endeavoring to +appear as if we were accustomed to sit at tables and manage plates. The +men, women, and children of Millinoket were hospitable and delighted to +see strangers, and the men, like all American men in the summer before +a Presidential election, wanted to talk politics. Katahdin's last +full-bodied appearance was here; it rises beyond a breadth of black +forest, a bulkier mass, but not so symmetrical as from the southern +points of view. We slept that night on a feather-bed, and took cold for +want of air, beneath a roof. + +By the time we had breakfasted, Cancut arrived with Birch on an +ox-sledge. Here our well-beloved west branch of the Penobscot, called +of yore Norimbagua, is married to the east branch, and of course by +marriage loses his identity, by-and-by, changing from the wild, free, +reckless rover of the forest to a tamish family-man style of river, +useful to float rafts and turn mills. However, during the first moments +of the honeymoon, the happy pair, Mr. Penobscot and Miss Milly Noket, +now a unit under the marital name, are gay enough, and glide along +bowery reaches and in among fair islands, with infinite endearments and +smiles, making the world very sparkling and musical there. By-and-by +they fall to romping, and, to avoid one of their turbulent frolics, +Cancut landed us, as he supposed, on the mainland, to lighten the canoe. +Just as he was sliding away down-stream, we discovered that he had left +us upon an island in the midst of frantic, impassable rapids. "Stop, +stop, John Gilpin!" and luckily he did stop, otherwise he would have +gone on to tidewater, ever thinking that we were before him, while we, +with our forest appetites, would have been glaring hungrily at each +other, or perhaps drawing lots for a cannibal doom. Once again, as we +were shooting a long rapid, a table-top rock caught us in mid-current. +We were wrecked. It was critical. The waves swayed us perilously this +way and that. Birch would be full of water, or overturned, in a moment. +Small chance for a swimmer in such maelströms! All this we saw, but had +no time to shudder at. Aided by the urgent stream, we carefully and +delicately--for a coarse movement would have been death--wormed our boat +off the rock and went fleeting through a labyrinth of new perils, onward +with a wild exhilaration, like galloping through prairie on fire. Of all +the high distinctive national pleasures of America, chasing buffalo, +stump-speaking, and the like, there is none so intense as shooting +rapids in a birch. Whenever I recall our career down the Penobscot, a +longing comes over me to repeat it. + +We dropped down stream without further adventures. We passed the second +house, the first village, and other villages, very white and wide-awake, +melodiously named Nickertow, Pattagumpus, and Mattascunk. We spent the +first night at Mattawamkeag. We were again elbowed at a tavern table, +and compelled to struggle with real and not ideal pioneers for fried +beefsteak and soggy doughboys. The last river day was tame, but not +tiresome. We paddled stoutly by relays, stopping only once, at the +neatest of farm-houses, to lunch on the most airy-substantial bread and +baked apples and cream. It is surprising how confidential a traveller +always is on the subject of his gastronomic delights. He will have the +world know how he enjoyed his dinner, perhaps hoping that the world by +sympathy will enjoy its own. + +Late in the afternoon of our eighth day from Greenville, Moosehead Lake, +we reached the end of birch-navigation, the great mill-dams of Indian +Oldtown, near Bangor. Acres of great pine logs, marked three crosses and +a dash, were floating here at the boom; we saw what Maine men suppose +timber was made for. According to the view acted upon at Oldtown, +Senaglecouna has been for a century or centuries training up its lordly +pines, that gang-saws, worked by Penobscot, should shriek through their +helpless cylinders, gnashing them into boards and chewing them into +sawdust. + +Poor Birch! how out of its element it looked, hoisted on a freight-car +and travelling by rail to Bangor! There we said adieu to Birch and +Cancut. Peace and plenteous provender be with him! Journeys make friends +or foes; and we remember our fat guide, not as one who from time to time +just did not drown us, but as the jolly comrade of eight days crowded +with novelty and beauty, and fine, vigorous, manly life. END. + + * * * * * + + +A WOMAN. + + + Not perfect, nay! but full of tender wants.--THE PRINCESS + +I sat by my window sewing, one bright autumn day, thinking much of +twenty other things, and very little of the long seam that slipped away +from under my fingers slowly, but steadily, when I heard the front-door +open with a quick push, and directly into my open door entered Laura +Lane, with a degree of impetus that explained the previous sound in the +hall. She threw herself into a chair before me, flung her hat on the +floor, threw her shawl across the window-sill, and looked at me without +speaking: in fact, she was quite too much out of breath to speak. + +I was used to Laura's impetuousness; so I only smiled and said, "Good +morning." + +"Oh!" said Laura, with a long breath, "I have got something to tell you, +Sue." + +"That's nice," said I; "news is worth double here in the country; tell +me slowly, to prolong the pleasure." + +"You must guess first. I want to have you try your powers for once; +guess, do!" + +"Mr. Lincoln defeated?" + +"Oh, no,--at least not that I know of; all the returns from this State +are not in yet, of course not from the others; besides, do you think I'd +make such a fuss about politics?" + +"You might," said I, thinking of all the beautiful and brilliant women +that in other countries and other times had made "fuss" more potent than +Laura's about politics. + +"But I shouldn't," retorted she. + +"Then there is a new novel out?" + +"No!" (with great indignation). + +"Or the parish have resolved to settle Mr. Hermann?" + +"How stupid you are, Sue! Everybody knew that yesterday." + +"But I am not everybody." + +"I shall have to help you, I see," sighed Laura, half provoked. +"Somebody is going to be married." + +"Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle!" + +Laura stared at me. I ought to have remembered she was eighteen, and +not likely to have read Sévigné. I began more seriously, laying down my +seam. + +"Is it anybody I know, Laura?" + +"Of course, or you wouldn't care about it, and it would be no fun to +tell you." + +"Is it you?" + +Laura grew indignant. + +"Do you think I should bounce in, in this way, to tell you _I_ was +engaged?" + +"Why not? shouldn't you be happy about it?" + +"Well, if I were, I should"---- + +Laura dropped her beautiful eyes and colored. + + "The thoughts of youth are long, long + thoughts." + +I am sure she felt as much strange, sweet shyness sealing her girlish +lips at that moment as when she came, very slowly and silently, a year +after, to tell me she was engaged to Mr. Hermann. I had to smile and +sigh both. + +"Tell me, then, Laura; for I cannot guess." + +"I'll tell you the gentleman's name, and perhaps you can guess the +lady's then: it is Frank Addison." + +"Frank Addison!" echoed I, in surprise; for this young man was one I +knew and loved well, and I could not think who in our quiet village had +sufficient attraction for his fastidious taste. + +He was certainly worth marrying, though he had some faults, being as +proud as was endurable, as shy as a child, and altogether endowed with a +full appreciation, to say the least, of his own charms and merits: but +he was sincere, and loyal, and tender; well cultivated, yet not priggish +or pedantic; brave, well-bred, and high-principled; handsome besides. I +knew him thoroughly; I had held him on my lap, fed him with sugar-plums, +soothed his child-sorrows, and scolded his naughtiness, many a time; I +had stood with him by his mother's dying bed and consoled him by my own +tears, for his mother I loved dearly; so, ever since, Frank had been +both near and dear to me, for a mutual sorrow is a tie that may +bind together even a young man and an old maid in close and kindly +friendship. I was the more surprised at his engagement because I thought +he would have been the first to tell me of it; but I reflected that +Laura was his cousin, and relationship has an etiquette of precedence +above any other social link. + +"Yes,--Frank Addison! Now guess, Miss Sue! for he is not here to tell +you,--he is in New York; and here in my pocket I have got a letter for +you, but you shan't have it till you have well guessed." + +I was--I am ashamed to confess it--but I was not a little comforted +at hearing of that letter. One may shake up a woman's heart with every +alloy of life, grind, break, scatter it, till scarce a throb of its +youth beats there, but to its last bit it is feminine still; and I felt +a sudden sweetness of relief to know that my boy had not forgotten me. + +"I don't know whom to guess, Laura; who ever marries after other +people's fancy? If I were to guess Sally Hetheridge, I might come as +near as I shall to the truth." + +Laura laughed. + +"You know better," said she. "Frank Addison is the last man to marry a +dried-up old tailoress." + +"I don't know that he is; according to his theories of women and +marriage, Sally would make him happy. She is true-hearted, I am +sure,--generous, kind, affectionate, sensible, and poor. Frank has +always raved about the beauty of the soul, and the degradation of +marrying money,--therefore, Laura, I believe he is going to marry a +beauty and an heiress. I guess Josephine Bowen." + +"Susan!" exclaimed Laura, with a look of intense astonishment, "how +could you guess it?" + +"Then it is she?" + +"Yes, it is,--and I am so sorry! such a childish, giggling, silly little +creature! I can't think how Frank could fancy her; she is just like Dora +in "David Copperfield,"--a perfect gosling! I am as vexed"---- + +"But she is exquisitely pretty." + +"Pretty! well, that is all; he might as well have bought a nice picture, +or a dolly! I am out of all patience with Frank. I haven't the heart to +congratulate him." + +"Don't be unreasonable, Laura; when you get as old as I am, you will +discover how much better and greater facts are than theories. It's all +very well for men to say,-- + + 'Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,'-- + +the soul is all they love,--the fair, sweet character, the lofty mind, +the tender woman's heart, and gentle loveliness; but when you come down +to the statistics of love and matrimony, you find Sally Hetheridge at +sixty an old maid, and Miss Bowen at nineteen adored by a dozen men and +engaged to one. No, Laura, if I had ten sisters, and a fairy godmother +for each, I should request that ancient dame to endow them all with +beauty and silliness, sure that then they would achieve a woman's best +destiny,--a home." + +Laura's face burned indignantly; she hardly let me finish before she +exclaimed,-- + +"Susan Lee! I am ashamed of you! Here are you, an old maid, as happy as +anybody, decrying all good gifts to a woman, except beauty, because, +indeed, they stand in the way of her marriage! as if a woman was only +made to be a housekeeper!" + +Laura's indignation amused me. I went on. + +"Yes, I am happy enough; but I should have been much happier, had I +married. Don't waste your indignation, dear; you are pretty enough +to excuse your being sensible, and you ought to agree with my ideas, +because they excuse Frank, and yours do not." + +"I don't want to excuse him; I am really angry about it. I can't bear to +have Frank throw himself away; she is pretty now, but what will she be +in ten years?" + +"People in love do not usually enter into such remote calculations; love +is to-day's delirium; it has an element of divine faith in it, in not +caring for the morrow. But, Laura, we can't help this matter, and we +have neither of us any conscience involved in it. Miss Bowen may be +better than we know. At any rate, Frank is happy, and that ought to +satisfy both you and me just now." + +Laura's eyes filled with tears. I could see them glisten on the dark +lashes, as she affected to tie her hat, all the time untying it as fast +as ever the knot slid. She was a sympathetic little creature, and loved +Frank very sincerely, having known him as long as she could remember. +She gave me a silent kiss, and went away, leaving the letter, yet +unopened, lying in my lap. I did not open it just then. I was thinking +of Josephine Bowen. + +Every summer, for three years, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen had come to Ridgefield +for country-air, bringing with them their adopted daughter, whose +baptismal name had resigned in favor of the pet appellation "Kitten,"--a +name better adapted to her nature and aspect than the _Impératrice_ +appellation that belonged to her. She was certainly as charming a little +creature as ever one saw in flesh and blood. Her sweet child's face, her +dimpled, fair cheeks, her rose-bud of a mouth, and great, wistful, blue +eyes, that laughed like flax-flowers in a south-wind, her tiny, round +chin, and low, white forehead, were all adorned by profuse rings and +coils and curls of true gold-yellow, that never would grow long, or be +braided, or stay smooth, or do anything but ripple and twine and push +their shining tendrils out of every bonnet or hat or hood the little +creature wore, like a stray parcel of sunbeams that would shine. Her +delicate, tiny figure was as round as a child's,--her funny hands as +quaint as some fat baby's, with short fingers and dimpled knuckles. She +was a creature as much made to be petted as a King-Charles spaniel,--and +petted she was, far beyond any possibility of a crumpled rose-leaf. Mrs. +Bowen was fat, loving, rather foolish, but the best of friends and the +poorest of enemies; she wanted everybody to be happy, and fat, and well +as she was, and would urge the necessity of wine, and entire idleness, +and horse-exercise, upon a poor minister, just as honestly and +energetically as if he could have afforded them: an idea to the contrary +never crossed her mind spontaneously, but, if introduced there, brought +forth direct results of bottles, bank-bills, and loans of ancient +horses, only to be checked by friendly remonstrance, or the suggestion +that a poor man might be also proud. Mr. Bowen was tall and spare, a +man of much sense and shrewd kindliness, but altogether subject and +submissive to "Kitten's" slightest wish. She never wanted anything; no +princess in a story-book had less to desire; and this entire spoiling +and indulgence seemed to her only the natural course of things. She +took it as an open rose takes sunshine, with so much simplicity, +and heartiness, and beaming content, and perfume of sweet, careless +affection, that she was not given over to any little vanities or +affectations, but was always a dear, good little child, as happy as the +day was long, and quite without a fear or apprehension. I had seen +very little of her in those three summers, for I had been away at the +sea-side, trying to fan the flickering life that alone was left to me +with pungent salt breezes and stinging baptisms of spray, but I had +liked that little pretty well. I did not think her so silly as Laura +did: she seemed to me so purely simple, that I sometimes wondered if her +honest directness and want of guile were folly or not. But I liked to +see her, as she cantered past my door on her pony, the gold tendrils +thick clustered about her throat and under the brim of her black hat, +and her bright blue eyes sparkling with the keen air, and a real +wild-rose bloom on her smiling face. She was a prettier sight even than +my profuse chrysanthemums, whose masses of garnet and yellow and white +nodded languidly to the autumn winds to-day. + +I recalled myself from this dream of recollection, better satisfied with +Miss Bowen than I had been before. I could see just how her beauty had +bewitched Frank,--so bright, so tiny, so loving: one always wants to +gather a little, gay, odor-breathing rose-bud for one's own, and such +she was to him. + +So then I opened his letter. It was dry and stiff: men's letters almost +always are; they cannot say what they feel; they will be fluent of +statistics, or description, or philosophy, or politics, but as to +feeling,--there they are dumb, except in real love-letters, and, of +course, Frank's was unsatisfactory accordingly. Once, toward the end, +came out a natural sentence: "Oh, Sue! if you knew her, you wouldn't +wonder!" So he had, after all, felt the apology he would not speak; he +had some little deference left for his deserted theories. + +Well I knew what touched his pride, and struck that little revealing +spark from his deliberate pen: Josephine Bowen was rich, and he only a +poor lawyer in a country-town: he felt it even in this first flush of +love, and to that feeling I must answer when I wrote him,--not merely to +the announcement, and the delight, and the man's pride. So I answered +his letter at once, and he answered mine in person. I had nothing to say +to him, when I saw him; it was enough to see how perfectly happy and +contented he was,--how the proud, restless eyes, that had always looked +a challenge to all the world, were now tranquil to their depths. Nothing +had interfered with his passion. Mrs. Bowen liked him always, Mr. Bowen +liked him now; nobody had objected, it had not occurred to anybody to +object; money had not been mentioned any more than it would have been in +Arcadia. Strange to say, the good, simple woman, and the good, shrewd +man had both divined Frank's peculiar sensitiveness, and respected it. + +There was no period fixed for the engagement, it was indefinite as yet, +and the winter, with all its excitements of South and North, passed by +at length, and the first of April the Bowens moved out to Ridgefield. It +was earlier than usual; but the city was crazed with excitement, and Mr. +Bowen was tried and worn; he wanted quiet. Then I saw a great deal of +Josephine, and in spite of Laura, and her still restless objections to +the child's childish, laughing, inconsequent manner, I grew into liking +her: not that there seemed any great depth to her; she was not specially +intellectual, or witty, or studious, or practical; she did not try to +be anything: perhaps that was her charm to me. I had seen so many women +laboring at themselves to be something, that one who was content to live +without thinking about it was a real phenomenon to me. Nothing bores me +(though I be stoned for the confession, I must make it!) more than a +woman who is bent on improving her mind, or forming her manners, or +moulding her character, or watching her motives, with that deadly-lively +conscientiousness that makes so many good people disagreeable. Why can't +they consider the lilies, which grow by receiving sun and air and dew +from God, and not hopping about over the lots to find the warmest corner +or the wettest hollow, to see how much bigger and brighter they can +grow? It was real rest to me to have this tiny, bright creature come +in to me every day during Frank's office-hours as unintentionally as a +yellow butterfly would come in at the window. Sometimes she strayed to +the kitchen-porch, and, resting her elbows on the window-sill and her +chin on both palms, looked at me with wondering eyes while I made bread +or cake; sometimes she came by the long parlor-window, and sat down on a +_brioche_ at my feet while I sewed, talking in her direct, unconsidered +way, so fresh, and withal so good and pure, I came to thinking the day +very dull that did not bring "Kitten" to see me. + +The nineteenth of April, in the evening, my door opened again with an +impetuous bang; but this time it was Frank Addison, his eyes blazing, +his dark cheek flushed, his whole aspect fired and furious. + +"Good God, Sue! do you know what they've done in Baltimore?" + +"What?" said I, in vague terror, for I had been an alarmist from the +first: I had once lived at the South. + +"Fired on a Massachusetts regiment, and killed--nobody knows how many +yet; but killed, and wounded." + +I could not speak: it was the lighted train of a powder-magazine burning +before my eyes. Frank began to walk up and down the room. + +"I must go! I must! I must!" came involuntarily from his working lips. + +"Frank! Frank! remember Josephine." + +It was a cowardly thing to do, but I did it. Frank turned ghastly white, +and sat down in a chair opposite me. I had, for the moment, quenched his +ardor; he looked at me with anxious eyes, and drew a long sigh, almost a +groan. + +"Josephine!" he said, as if the name were new to him, so vitally did the +idea seize all his faculties. + +"Well, dear!" said a sweet little voice at the door. + +Frank turned, and seemed to see a ghost; for there in the door-way stood +"Kitten," her face perhaps a shade calmer than ordinary, swinging in one +hand the tasselled hood she wore of an evening, and holding her shawl +together with the other. Over her head we discerned the spare, upright +shape of Mr. Bowen looking grim and penetrative, but not unkindly. + +"What is the matter?" went on the little lady. + +Nobody answered, but Frank and I looked at each other. She came in now +and went toward him, Mr. Bowen following at a respectful distance, as if +he were her footman. + +"I've been looking for you everywhere," said she, with the slightest +possible suggestion of reserve, or perhaps timidity, in her voice. +"Father went first for me, and when you were not at Laura's, or the +office, or the post-office, or Mrs. Sledge's, then I knew you were here; +so I came with him, because--because"--she hesitated the least bit +here--"we love Sue." + +Frank still looked at her with his soul in his eyes, as if he wanted to +absorb her utterly into himself and then die. I never saw such a look +before; I hope I never may again; it haunts me to this day. + +I can pause now to recall and reason about the curious, exalted +atmosphere that seemed suddenly to have surrounded us, as if bare +spirits communed there, not flesh and blood. Frank did not move; he sat +and looked at her standing near him, so near that her shawl trailed +against his chair; but presently when she wanted to grasp something, she +moved aside and took hold of another chair,--not his: it a little thing, +but it interpreted her. + +"Well?" said he, in a hoarse tone. + +Just then she moved, as I said, and laid one hand on the back of a +chair: it was the only symptom of emotion she showed; her voice was as +childish-clear and steady as before. + +"You want to go, Frank, and I thought you would rather be married to me +first; so I came to find you and tell you I would." + +Frank sprang to his feet like a shot man; I cried; Josephine stood +looking at us quite steadily, her head a little bent toward me, her eyes +calm, but very wide open; and Mr. Bowen gave an audible grunt. I suppose +the right thing for Frank to have done in any well-regulated novel would +have been to fall on his knees and call her all sorts of names; but +people never do--that is, any people that I know--just what the +gentlemen in novels do; so he walked off and looked out of the window. +To my aid came the goddess of slang. I stopped snuffling directly. + +"Josephine," said I, solemnly, "you are a brick!" + +"Well, I should think so!" said Mr. Bowen, slightly sarcastic. + +Josey laughed very softly. Frank came back from the window, and then the +three went off together, she holding by her father's arm, Frank on his +other side. I could not but look after them as I stood in the hall-door, +and then I came back and sat down to read the paper Frank had flung on +the floor when he came in. It diverted my mind enough from myself to +enable me to sleep; for I was burning with self-disgust to think of +my cowardice. I, a grown woman, supposed to be more than ordinarily +strong-minded by some people, fairly shamed and routed by a girl Laura +Lane called "Dora"! + +In the morning, Frank came directly after breakfast. He had found his +tongue now, certainly,--for words seemed noway to satisfy him, talking +of Josephine; and presently she came, too, as brave and bright as ever, +sewing busily on a long housewife for Frank; and after her, Mrs. Bowen, +making a huge pin-ball in red, white, and blue, and full of the trunk +she was packing for Frank to carry, to be filled with raspberry-jam, +hard gingerbread, old brandy, clove-cordial, guava-jelly, strong +peppermints, quinine, black cake, cod-liver oil, horehound-candy, +Brandreth's pills, damson-leather, and cherry-pectoral, packed in with +flannel and cotton bandages, lint, lancets, old linen, and cambric +handkerchiefs. + +I could not help laughing, and was about to remonstrate, when Frank +shook his head at me from behind her. He said afterward he let her go +on that way, because it kept her from crying over Josephine. As for +the trunk, he should give it to Miss Dix as soon as ever he reached +Washington. + +In a week, Frank had got his commission as captain of a company in a +volunteer regiment; he went into camp at Dartford, our chief town, and +set to work in earnest at tactics and drill. The Bowens also went to +Dartford, and the last week in May came back for Josey's wedding. I am +a superstitious creature,--most women are,--and it went to my heart +to have them married in May; but I did not say so, for it seemed +imperative, as the regiment were to leave for Washington in June, early. + +The day but one before the wedding was one of those warm, soft days that +so rarely come in May. My windows were open, and the faint scent of +springing grass and opening blossoms came in on every southern breath of +wind. Josey had brought her work over to sit beside me. She was hemming +her wedding-veil,--a long cloud of _tulle_; and as she sat there, +pinching the frail stuff in her fingers, and handling her needle with +such deft little ways, as if they were old friends and understood each +other, there was something so youthful, so unconscious, so wistfully +sweet in her aspect, I could not believe her the same resolute, brave +creature I had seen that night in April. + +"Josey," said I, "I don't know how you can be willing to let Frank go." + +It was a hard thing for me to say, and I said it without thinking. + +She leaned back in her chair, and pinched her hem faster than ever. + +"I don't know, either," said she. "I suppose it was because I ought. I +don't think I am so willing now, Sue: it was easy at first, for I was +so angry and grieved about those Massachusetts men; but now, when I get +time to think, I do ache over it! I never let him know; for it is just +the same right now, and he thinks so. Besides, I never let myself grieve +much, even to myself, lest he might find it out. I must keep bright till +he goes. It would be so very hard on him, Susy, to think I was crying at +home." + +I said no more,--I could not; and happily for me, Frank came in with +a bunch of wild-flowers, that Josey took with a smile as gay as the +columbines, and a blush that outshone the "pinkster-bloomjes," as our +old Dutch "chore-man" called the wild honeysuckle. A perfect shower of +dew fell from them all over her wedding-veil. + +The day of her marriage was showery as April, but a gleam of soft, +fitful sunshine streamed into the little church windows, and fell across +the tiny figure that stood by Frank Addison's side, like a ray of +glory, till the golden curls glittered through her veil, and the fresh +lilies-of-the-valley that crowned her hair and ornamented her simple +dress seemed to send out a fresher fragrance, and glow with more pearly +whiteness. Mrs. Bowen, in a square pew, sobbed, and snuffled, and sopped +her eyes with a lace pocket-handkerchief, and spilt cologne all over +her dress, and mashed the flowers on her French hat against the dusty +pew-rail, and behaved generally like a hen that has lost her sole +chicken. Mr. Bowen sat upright in the pew-corner, uttering sonorous +hems, whenever his wife sobbed audibly; he looked as dry as a stick, and +as grim as Bunyan's giant, and chewed cardamom-seeds, as if he were a +ruminating animal. + +After the wedding came lunch: it was less formal than dinner, and +nobody wanted to sit down before hot dishes and go through with the +accompanying ceremonies. For my part, I always did hate gregarious +eating: it is well enough for animals, in pasture or pen; but a thing +that has so little that is graceful or dignified about it as this taking +food, especially as the thing is done here in America, ought, in my +opinion, to be a solitary act. I never bring my quinine and iron to my +friends and invite them to share it; why should I ask them to partake +of my beef, mutton, and pork, with the accompanying mastication, the +distortion of face, and the suppings and gulpings of fluid dishes that +many respectable people indulge in? No,--let me, at least, eat alone. +But I did not do so to-day; for Josey, with the most unsentimental air +of hunger, sat down at the table and ate two sandwiches, three pickled +mushrooms, a piece of pie, and a glass of jelly, with a tumbler of ale +besides. Laura Lane sat on the other side of the table, her great +dark eyes intently fixed on Josephine, and a look in which wonder was +delicately shaded with disgust quivering about her mouth. She was a +feeling soul, and thought a girl in love ought to live on strawberries, +honey, and spring-water. I believe she really doubted Josey's affection +for Frank, when she saw her eat a real mortal meal on her wedding-day. +As for me, I am a poor, miserable, unhealthy creature, not amenable to +ordinary dietetic rules, and much given to taking any excitement, above +a certain amount in lieu of rational food; so I sustained myself on a +cup of coffee, and saw Frank also make tolerable play of knife and fork, +though he did take some blanc-mange with his cold chicken, and profusely +peppered his Charlotte-Russe! + +Mrs. Bowen alternately wept and ate pie. Mr. Bowen said the jelly tasted +of turpentine, and the chickens must have gone on Noah's voyage, they +were so tough; he growled at the ale, and asked nine questions about the +coffee, all of a derogatory sort, and never once looked at Josephine, +who looked at him every time he was particularly cross, with a rosy +little smile, as if she knew why! The few other people present behaved +after the ordinary fashion; and when we had finished, Frank and +Josephine, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen, Laura Lane and I, all took the train for +Dartford. Laura was to stay two weeks, and I till the regiment left. + +An odd time I had, after we were fairly settled in our quiet hotel, with +those two girls. Laura was sentimental, sensitive, rather high-flown, +very shy, and self-conscious; it was not in her to understand Josey at +all. We had a great deal of shopping to do, as our little bride had put +off buying most of her finery till this time, on account of the few +weeks between the fixing of her marriage-day and its arrival. It was +pretty enough to see the _naïve_ vanity with which she selected her +dresses and shawls and laces,--the quite inconsiderate way in which she +spent her money on whatever she wanted. One day we were in a dry-goods' +shop, looking at silks; among them lay one of Marie-Louise blue,--a +plain silk, rich from its heavy texture only, soft, thick, and perfect +in color. + +"I will have that one," said Josephine, after she had eyed it a moment, +with her head on one side, like a canary-bird. "How much is it?" + +"Two fifty a yard, Miss," said the spruce clerk, with an inaccessible +air. + +"I shall look so nice in it!" Josey murmured. "Sue, will seventeen yards +do? it must be very full and long; I can't wear flounces." + +"Yes, that's plenty," said I, scarce able to keep down a smile at +Laura's face. + +She would as soon have smoked a cigar on the steps of the hotel as have +mentioned before anybody, much less a supercilious clerk, that she +should "look so nice" in anything. Josey never thought of anything +beyond the fact, which was only a fact. So, after getting another dress +of a lavender tint, still self-colored, but corded and rich, because it +went well with her complexion, and a black one, that "father liked to +see against her yellow wig, as he called it," Mrs. Josephine proceeded +to a milliner's, where, to Laura's further astonishment, she bought +bonnets for herself, as if she had been her own doll, with an utter +disregard of proper self-depreciation, trying one after another, and +discarding them for various personal reasons, till at last she fixed on +a little gray straw, trimmed with gray ribbon and white daisies, "for +camp," she said, and another of white lace, a fabric calculated to wear +twice, perhaps, if its floating sprays of clematis did not catch in any +parasol on its first appearance. She called me to see how becoming both +the bonnets were, viewed herself in various ways in the glass, and at +last announced that she looked prettiest in the straw, but the lace was +most elegant. To this succeeded purchases of lace and shawls, that still +farther opened Laura's eyes, and made her face grave. She confided to +me privately, that, after all, I must allow Josephine was silly and +extravagant. I had just come from that little lady's room, where she sat +surrounded by the opened parcels, saying, with the gravity of a child,-- + +"I do like pretty things, Sue! I like them more now than I used to, +because Frank likes me. I am so glad I'm pretty!" + +I don't know how it was, but I could not quite coincide with Laura's +strictures. Josey was extravagant, to be sure; she was vain; but +something so tender and feminine flavored her very faults that they +charmed me. I was not an impartial judge; and I remembered, through all, +that April night, and the calm, resolute, self-poised character that +invested the lovely, girlish face with such dignity, strength, and +simplicity. No, she was not silly; I could not grant that to Laura. + +Every day we drove to the camp, and brought Frank home to dinner. Now +and then he stayed with us till the next day, and even Laura could not +wonder at his "infatuation," as she had once called it, when she saw how +thoroughly Josephine forgot herself in her utter devotion to him; over +this, Laura's eyes filled with sad forebodings. + +"If anything should happen to him, Sue, it will kill her," she said. +"She never can lose him and live. Poor little thing! how could Mr. Bowen +let her marry him?" + +"Mr. Bowen lets her do much as she likes, Laura, and always has, I +imagine." + +"Yes, she has been a spoiled child, I know, but it is such a pity!" + +"_Has_ she been spoiled? I believe, as a general thing, more children +are spoiled by what the Scotch graphically call 'nagging' than by +indulgence. What do you think Josey would have been, if Mrs. Brooks had +been her mother?" + +"I don't know, quite; unhappy, I am sure; for Mrs. Brooks's own children +look as if they had been fed on chopped catechism, and whipped early +every morning, ever since they were born. I never went there without +hearing one or another of them told to sit up, or sit down, or keep +still, or let their aprons alone, or read their Bibles; and Joe Brooks +confided to me in Sunday-school that he called Deacon Smith 'old +bald-head,' one day, in the street, to see if a bear wouldn't come and +eat him up, he was so tired of being a good boy!" + +"That's a case in point, I think, Laura; but what a jolly little boy! he +ought to have a week to be naughty in, directly." + +"He never will, while his mother owns a rod!" said she, emphatically. + +I had beguiled Laura from her subject; for, to tell the truth, it was +one I did not dare to contemplate; it oppressed and distressed me too +much. + +After Laura went home, we stayed in Dartford only a week, and then +followed the regiment to Washington. We had been there but a few days, +before it was ordered into service. Frank came into my room one night to +tell me. + +"We must be off to-morrow, Sue,--and you must take her back to +Ridgefield at once. I can't have her here. I have told Mr. Bowen. If we +should be beaten,--and we may,--raw troops may take a panic, or may +fight like veterans,--but if we should run, they will make a bee-line +for Washington. I should go mad to have her here with a possibility of +Rebel invasion. She must go; there is no question." + +He walked up and down the room, then came back and looked me straight in +the face. + +"Susan, if I never come back, you will be her good friend, too?" + +"Yes," said I, meeting his eye as coolly as it met mine: I had learned a +lesson of Josey. "I shall see you in the morning?" + +"Yes"; and so he went back to her. + +Morning came. Josephine was as bright, as calm, as natural, as the June +day itself. She insisted on fastening "her Captain's" straps on his +shoulders, purloined his cumbrous pin-ball and put it out of sight, and +kept even Mrs. Bowen's sobs in subjection by the intense serenity of +her manner. The minutes seemed to go like beats of a fever-pulse; +ten o'clock smote on a distant bell; Josephine had retreated, as if +accidentally, to a little parlor of her own, opening from our common +sitting-room. Frank shook hands with Mr. Bowen; kissed Mrs. Bowen +dutifully, and cordially too; gave me one strong clasp in his arms, and +one kiss; then went after Josephine. I closed the door softly behind +him. In five minutes by the ticking clock he came out, and strode +through the room without a glance at either of us. I had heard her say +"Good bye" in her sweet, clear tone, just as he opened the door; but +some instinct impelled me to go in to her at once: she lay in a dead +faint on the floor. + +We left Washington that afternoon, and went straight back to Ridgefield. +Josey was in and out of my small house continually: but for her father +and mother, I think she would have stayed with me from choice. Rare +letters came from Frank, and were always reported to me, but, of course, +never shown. If there was any change in her manner, it was more steadily +affectionate to her father and mother than ever; the fitful, playful +ways of her girlhood were subdued, but, except to me, she showed no +symptom of pain, no show of apprehension: with me alone she sometimes +drooped and sighed. Once she laid her little head on my neck, and, +holding me to her tightly, half sobbed,-- + +"Oh, I wish--I wish I could see him just for once!" + +I could not speak to answer her. + +As rumors of a march toward Manassas increased, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen took +her to Dartford: there was no telegraph-line to Ridgefield, and but one +daily mail, and now a day's delay of news might be a vital loss. I could +not go with them; I was too ill. At last came that dreadful day of Bull +Run. Its story of shame and blood, trebly exaggerated, ran like fire +through the land. For twenty-four long hours every heart in Ridgefield +seemed to stand still; then there was the better news of fewer dead +than the first report, and we knew that the enemy had retreated, but no +particulars. Another long, long day, and the papers said Colonel ----'s +regiment was cut to pieces; the fourth mail told another story: the +regiment was safe, but Captains Addison, Black, and--Jones, I think, +were missing. The fifth day brought me a letter from Mr. Bowen. Frank +was dead, shot through the heart, before the panic began, cheering on +his men; he had fallen in the very front rank, and his gallant company, +at the risk of their lives, after losing half their number as wounded or +killed, had brought off his body, and carried it with them in retreat, +to find at last that they had ventured all this for a lifeless corpse! +He did not mention Josephine, but asked me to come to them at once, as +he was obliged to go to Washington. I could not, for I was too ill to +travel without a certainty of being quite useless at my journey's end. I +could but just sit up. Five days after, I had an incoherent sobbing sort +of letter from Mrs. Bowen, to say that they had arranged to have the +funeral at Ridgefield the next day but one,--that Josephine would come +out, with her, the night before, and directly to my house, if I was able +to receive them. I sent word by the morning's mail that I was able, and +went myself to the station to meet them. + +They had come alone, and Josey preceded her mother into the little room, +as if she were impatient to have any meeting with a fresh face over. She +was pale as any pale blossom of spring, and as calm. Her curls, tucked +away under the widow's-cap she wore, and clouded by the mass of crape +that shrouded her, left only a narrow line of gold above the dead quiet +of her brow. Her eyes were like the eyes of a sleep-walker: they seemed +to see, but not to feel sight. She smiled mechanically, and put a cold +hand into mine. For any outward expression of emotion, one might have +thought Mrs. Bowen the widow: her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, her +nose was red, her lips tremulous, her whole face stained and washed with +tears, and the skin seemed wrinkled by their salt floods. She had cried +herself sick,--more over Josephine than Frank, as was natural. + +It was but a short drive over to my house, but an utterly silent one. +Josephine made no sort of demonstration, except that she stooped to pat +my great dog as we went in. I gave her a room that opened out of mine, +and put Mrs. Bowen by herself. Twice in the night I stole in to look at +her: both times I found her waking, her eyes fixed on the open window, +her face set in its unnatural quiet; she smiled, but did not speak. Mrs. +Bowen told me in the morning that she had neither shed a tear nor slept +since the news came; it seemed to strike her at once into this cold +silence, and so she had remained. About ten, a carriage was sent over +from the village to take them to the funeral. This miserable custom of +ours, that demands the presence of women at such ceremonies, Mrs. Bowen +was the last person to evade; and when I suggested to Josey that she +should stay at home with me, she looked surprised, and said, quietly, +but emphatically, "Oh, no!" + +After they were gone, I took my shawl and went out on the lawn. There +was a young pine dense enough to shield me from the sun, sitting under +which I could see the funeral-procession as it wound along the river's +edge up toward the burying-ground, a mile beyond the station. But there +was no sun to trouble me; cool gray clouds brooded ominously over all +the sky; a strong south-wind cried, and wailed, and swept in wild gusts +through the woods, while in its intervals a dreadful quiet brooded over +earth and heaven,--over the broad weltering river, that, swollen by +recent rain, washed the green grass shores with sullen flood,--over +the heavy masses of oak and hickory trees that hung on the farther +hill-side,--over the silent village and its gathering people. The +engine-shriek was borne on the coming wind from far down the valley. +There was an air of hushed expectation and regret in Nature itself that +seemed to fit the hour to its event. + +Soon I saw the crowd about the station begin to move, and presently the +funeral-bell swung out its solemn tones of lamentation; its measured, +lingering strokes, mingled with the woful shrieking of the wind and the +sighing of the pine-tree overhead, made a dirge of inexpressible force +and melancholy. A weight of grief seemed to settle on my very breath: it +was not real sorrow; for, though I knew it well, I had not felt yet that +Frank was dead,--it was not real to me,--I could not take to my stunned +perceptions the fact that he was gone. It is the protest of Nature, +dimly conscious of her original eternity, against this interruption of +death, that it should always be such an interruption, so incredible, so +surprising, so new. No,--the anguish that oppressed me now was not the +true anguish of loss, but merely the effect of these adjuncts; the pain +of want, of separation, of reaching in vain after that which is gone, of +vivid dreams and tearful waking,--all this lay in wait for the future, +to be still renewed, still suffered and endured, till time should be no +more. Let all these pangs of recollection attest it,--these involuntary +bursts of longing for the eyes that are gone and the voice that is +still,--these recoils of baffled feeling seeking for the one perfect +sympathy forever fled,--these pleasures dimmed in their first +resplendence for want of one whose joy would have been keener and +sweeter to us than our own,--these bitter sorrows crying like children +in pain for the heart that should have soothed and shared them! No,-- +there is no such dreary lie as that which prates of consoling Time! You +who are gone, if in heaven you know how we mortals fare, you know that +life took from you no love, no faith,--that bitterer tears fall for you +to-day than ever wet your new graves,--that the gayer words and the +recalled smiles are only like the flowers that grow above you, symbols +of the deeper roots we strike in your past existence,--that to the +true soul there is no such thing as forgetfulness, no such mercy as +diminishing regret! + +Slowly the long procession wound up the river,--here, black with plumed +hearse and sable mourners,--there, gay with regimental band and bright +uniforms,--no stately, proper funeral, ordered by custom and marshalled +by propriety, but a straggling array of vehicles: here, the doctor's old +chaise,--there, an open wagon, a dusty buggy, a long, open omnibus, +such as the village-stable kept for pleasure-parties or for parties of +mourning who wanted to go _en masse_. + +All that knew Frank, in or about Ridgefield, and all who had sons or +brothers in the army, swarmed to do him honor; and the quaint, homely +array crept slowly through the valley, to the sound of tolling bell and +moaning wind and the low rush of the swollen river,--the first taste +of war's desolation that had fallen upon us, the first dark wave of a +whelming tide! + +As it passed out of sight, I heard the wheels cease, one by one, their +crunch and grind on the gravelled road up the slope of the grave-yard. +I knew they had reached that hill-side where the dead of Ridgefield +lie calmer than its living; and presently the long-drawn notes of that +hymn-tune consecrated to such occasions--old China--rose and fell in +despairing cadences on my ear. If ever any music was invented for the +express purpose of making mourners as distracted as any external thing +can make them, it is the bitter, hopeless, unrestrained wail of this +tune. There is neither peace nor resignation in it, but the very +exhaustion of raving sorrow that heeds neither God nor man, but +cries out, with the soulless agony of a wind-harp, its refusal to be +comforted. + +At length it was over, and still in that same dead calm Josephine came +home to me. Mrs. Bowen was frightened, Mr. Bowen distressed. I could not +think what to do, at first; but remembering how sometimes a little thing +had utterly broken me down from a regained calmness after loss, some +homely association, some recall of the past, I begged of Mr. Bowen to +bring up from the village Frank's knapsack, which he had found in one of +his men's hands,--the poor fellow having taken care of that, while he +lost his own: "For the captain's wife," he said. As soon as it came, I +took from it Frank's coat, and his cap and sword. My heart was in my +mouth as I entered Josephine's room, and saw the fixed quiet on her face +where she sat. I walked in, however, with no delay, and laid the things +down on her bed, close to where she sat. She gave one startled look at +them and then at me; her face relaxed from all its quiet lines; she sank +on her knees by the bedside, and, burying her head in her arms, cried, +and cried, and cried, so helplessly, so utterly without restraint, that +I cried, too. It was impossible for me to help it. At last the tears +exhausted themselves; the dreadful sobs ceased to convulse her; all +drenched and tired, she lifted her face from its rest, and held out her +arms to me. I took her up, and put her to bed like a child. I hung the +coat and cap and sword where she could see them. I made her take a cup +of broth, and before long, with her eyes fixed on the things I had hung +up, she fell asleep, and slept heavily, without waking, till the next +morning. + +I feared almost to enter her room when I heard her stir; I had dreaded +her waking,--that terrible hour that all know who have suffered, the dim +awakening shadow that darkens so swiftly to black reality; but I need +not have dreaded it for her. She told me afterward that in all that +sleep she never lost the knowledge of her grief; she did not come into +it as a surprise. Frank had seemed to be with her, distant, sad, yet +consoling; she felt that he was gone, but not utterly,--that there was +drear separation and loneliness, but not forever. + +When I went in, she lay there awake, looking at her trophy, as she came +to call it, her eyes with all their light quenched and sodden out with +crying, her face pale and unalterably sad, but natural in its sweetness +and mobility. She drew me down to her and kissed me. + +"May I get up?" she asked; and then, without waiting for an answer, went +on,--"I have been selfish, Sue; I will try to be better now; I won't +run away from my battle. Oh, how glad I am he didn't run away! It is +dreadful now, dreadful! Perhaps, if I had to choose if he should have +run away or--or this, I should have wanted him to run,--I'm afraid I +should. But I am glad now. If God wanted him, I'm glad he went from the +front ranks. Oh, those poor women whose husbands ran away, and were +killed, too!" + +She seemed to be so comforted by that one thought! It was a strange +trait in the little creature; I could not quite fathom it. + +After this, she came down-stairs and went about among us, busying +herself in various little ways. She never went to the grave-yard; but +whenever she was a little tired, I was sure to find her sitting in her +room with her eyes on that cap and coat and sword. Letters of condolence +poured in, but she would not read them or answer them, and they all fell +into my hands. I could not wonder; for, of all cruel conventionalities, +visits and letters of condolence seem to me the most cruel. If friends +can be useful in lifting off the little painful cares that throng in the +house of death till its presence is banished, let them go and do their +work quietly and cheerfully; but to make a call or write a note, to +measure your sorrow and express theirs, seems to me on a par with +pulling a wounded man's bandages off and probing his hurt, to hear him +cry out and hear yourself say how bad it must be! + +Laura Lane was admitted, for Frank's sake, as she had been his closest +and dearest relative. The day she came, Josey had a severe headache, and +looked wretchedly. Laura was shocked, and showed it so obviously, that, +had there been any real cause for her alarm, I should have turned her +out of the room without ceremony, almost before she was fairly in it. As +soon as she left, Josey looked at me and smiled. + +"Laura thinks I am going to die," said she; "but I'm not. If I could, +I wouldn't, Sue; for poor father and mother want me, and so will the +soldiers by-and-by." A weary, heart-breaking look quivered in her face +as she went on, half whispering,--"But I should--I _should_ like to see +him!" + +In September she went away. I had expected it ever since she spoke of +the soldiers needing her. Mrs. Bowen went to the sea-side for her annual +asthma. Mr. Bowen went with Josephine to Washington. There, by some +talismanic influence, she got admission to the hospitals, though she +was very pretty, and under thirty. I think perhaps her pale face and +widow's-dress, and her sad, quiet manner, were her secret of success. +She worked here like a sprite; nothing daunted or disgusted her. She +followed the army to Yorktown, and nursed on the transport-ships. One +man said, I was told, that it was "jes' like havin' an apple-tree blow +raound, to see that Mis' Addison; she was so kinder cheery an' pooty, +an' knew sech a sight abaout nussin', it did a feller lots of good only +to look at her chirpin' abaout." + +Now and then she wrote to me, and almost always ended by declaring she +was "quite well, and almost happy." If ever she met with one of Frank's +men,--and all who were left reënlisted for the war,--he was sure to be +nursed like a prince, and petted with all sorts of luxuries, and told +it was for his old captain's sake. Mr. and Mrs. Bowen followed her +everywhere, as near as they could get to her, and afforded unfailing +supplies of such extra hospital-stores as she wanted; they lavished on +her time and money and love enough to have satisfied three women, but +Josey found use for it all--for her work. Two months ago, they all came +back to Dartford. A hospital had been set up there, and some one was +needed to put it in operation; her experience would be doubly useful +there, and it was pleasant for her to be so near Frank's home, to be +among his friends and hers. + +I went in, to do what I could, being stronger than usual, and found +her hard at work. Her face retained its rounded outline, her lips had +recovered their bloom, her curls now and then strayed from the net under +which she carefully tucked them, and made her look as girlish as ever, +but the girl's expression was gone; that tender, patient, resolute look +was born of a woman's stern experience; and though she had laid aside +her widow's-cap, because it was inconvenient, her face was so sad in its +repose, so lonely and inexpectant, she scarce needed any outward symbol +to proclaim her widowhood. Yet under all this new character lay still +some of those childish tastes that made, as it were, the "fresh perfume" +of her nature: everything that came in her way was petted; a little +white kitten followed her about the wards, and ran to meet her, whenever +she came in, with joyful demonstrations; a great dog waited for her at +home, and escorted her to and from the hospital; and three canaries hung +in her chamber;--and I confess here, what I would not to Laura, that she +retains yet a strong taste for sugar-plums, gingerbread, and the "Lady's +Book." She kept only so much of what Laura called her vanity as to be +exquisitely neat and particular in every detail of dress; and though a +black gown, and a white linen apron, collar, and cuffs do not afford +much room for display, yet these were always so speckless and spotless +that her whole aspect was refreshing. + +Last week there was a severe operation performed in the hospital, and +Josephine had to be present. She held the poor fellow's hand till he +was insensible from the kindly chloroform they gave him, and, after the +surgeons were through, sat by him till night, with such a calm, cheerful +face, giving him wine and broth, and watching every indication of pulse +or skin, till he really rallied, and is now doing well. + +As I came over, the next day, I met Doctor Rivers at the door of her +ward. + +"Really," said he, "that little Mrs. Addison is a true heroine!" + +The kitten purred about my feet, and as I smiled assent to him, I said +inwardly to myself,-- + +"Really, she is a true woman!" + + + + +ABOUT WARWICK. + + +Between bright, new Leamington, the growth of the present century, +and rusty Warwick, founded by King Cymbeline in the twilight ages, a +thousand years before the mediaeval darkness, there are two roads, +either of which may be measured by a sober-paced pedestrian in less than +half an hour. + +One of these avenues flows out of the midst of the smart parades and +crescents of the former town,--along by hedges and beneath the shadow of +great elms, past stuccoed Elizabethan villas and wayside ale-houses, and +through a hamlet of modern aspect,--and runs straight into the principal +thoroughfare of Warwick. The battlemented turrets of the castle, +embowered half-way up in foliage, and the tall, slender tower of St. +Mary's Church, rising from among clustered roofs, have been visible +almost from the commencement of the walk. Near the entrance of the town +stands St. John's School-House, a picturesque old edifice of stone, with +four peaked gables in a row, alternately plain and ornamented, and wide, +projecting windows, and a spacious and venerable porch, all overgrown +with moss and ivy, and shut in from the world by a high stone fence, not +less mossy than the gabled front. There is an iron gate, through the +rusty open-work of which you see a grassy lawn, and almost expect to +meet the shy, curious eyes of the little boys of past generations, +peeping forth from their infantile antiquity into the strangeness of our +present life. I find a peculiar charm in these long-established English +schools, where the school-boy of to-day sits side by side, as it were, +with his great-grandsire, on the same old benches, and often, I believe, +thumbs a later, but unimproved edition of the same old grammar or +arithmetic. The new-fangled notions of a Yankee school-committee would +madden many a pedagogue, and shake down the roof of many a time-honored +seat of learning, in the mother-country. + +At this point, however, we will turn back, in order to follow up the +other road from Leamington, which was the one that I loved best to take. +It pursues a straight and level course, bordered by wide gravel-walks +and overhung by the frequent elm, with here a cottage and there a villa, +on one side a wooded plantation, and on the other a rich field of grass +or grain, until, turning at right angles, it brings you to an arched +bridge over the Avon. Its parapet is a balustrade carved out of +freestone, into the soft substance of which a multitude of persons have +engraved their names or initials, many of them now illegible, while +others, more deeply cut, are illuminated with fresh green moss. These +tokens indicate a famous spot; and casting our eyes along the smooth +gleam and shadow of the quiet stream, through a vista of willows that +droop on either side into the water, we behold the gray magnificence of +Warwick Castle, uplifting itself among stately trees, and rearing its +turrets high above their loftiest branches. We can scarcely think the +scene real, so completely do those machicolated towers, the long line of +battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out +our indistinct ideas of the antique time. It might rather seem as if the +sleepy river (being Shakspeare's Avon, and often, no doubt, the mirror +of his gorgeous visions) were dreaming now of a lordly residence that +stood here many centuries ago; and this fantasy is strengthened, +when you observe that the image in the tranquil water has all the +distinctness of the actual structure. Either might be the reflection of +the other. Wherever Time has gnawed one of the stones, you see the +mark of his tooth just as plainly in the sunken reflection. Each is so +perfect, that the upper vision seems a castle in the air, and the lower +one an old stronghold of feudalism, miraculously kept from decay in an +enchanted river. + +A ruinous and ivy-grown bridge, that projects from the bank a little on +the hither side of the castle, has the effect of making the scene appear +more entirely apart from the every-day world, for it ends abruptly in +the middle of the stream,--so that, if a cavalcade of the knights and +ladies of romance should issue from the old walls, they could never +tread on earthly ground, any more than we, approaching from the side of +modern realism, can overleap the gulf between our domain and theirs. +Yet, if we seek to disenchant ourselves, it may readily be done. +Crossing the bridge on which we stand, and passing a little farther on, +we come to the entrance of the castle, abutting on the highway, and +hospitably open at certain hours to all curious pilgrims who choose to +disburse half a crown or so towards the support of the Earl's domestics. +The sight of that long series of historic rooms, full of such splendors +and rarities as a great English family necessarily gathers about itself, +in its hereditary abode, and in the lapse of ages, is well worth the +money, or ten times as much, if indeed the value of the spectacle could +be reckoned in money's-worth. But after the attendant has hurried you +from end to end of the edifice, repeating a guide-book by rote, and +exorcising each successive hall of its poetic glamour and witchcraft +by the mere tone in which he talks about it, you will make the doleful +discovery that Warwick Castle has ceased to be a dream. It is better, +methinks, to linger on the bridge, gazing at Caesar's Tower and Guy's +Tower in the dim English sunshine above, and in the placid Avon below, +and still keep them as thoughts in your own mind, than climb to their +summits, or touch even a stone of their actual substance. They will have +all the more reality for you, as stalwart relics of immemorial time, if +you are reverent enough to leave them in the intangible sanctity of a +poetic vision. + +From the bridge over the Avon, the road passes in front of the +castle-gate, and soon enters the principal street of Warwick, a little +beyond St. John's School-House, already described. Chester itself, most +antique of English towns, can hardly show quainter architectural shapes +than many of the buildings that border this street. They are mostly of +the timber-and-plaster kind, with bowed and decrepit ridge-poles, and a +whole chronology of various patchwork in their walls; their low-browed +door-ways open upon a sunken floor; their projecting stories peep, as +it were, over one another's shoulders, and rise into a multiplicity of +peaked gables; they have curious windows, breaking out irregularly all +over the house, some even in the roof, set in their own little peaks, +opening lattice-wise, and furnished with twenty small panes of +lozenge-shaped glass. The architecture of these edifices (a visible +oaken framework, showing the whole skeleton of the house,--as if a man's +bones should be arranged on his outside, and his flesh seen through the +interstices) is often imitated by modern builders, and with sufficiently +picturesque effect. The objection is, that such houses, like all +imitations of by-gone styles, have an air of affectation; they do not +seem to be built in earnest; they are no better than playthings, or +overgrown baby-houses, in which nobody should be expected to encounter +the serious realities of either birth or death. Besides, originating +nothing, we leave no fashions for another age to copy, when we ourselves +shall have grown antique. + +Old as it looks, all this portion of Warwick has overbrimmed, as it +were, from the original settlement, being outside of the ancient wall. +The street soon runs under an arched gateway, with a church or some +other venerable structure above it, and admits us into the heart of +the town. At one of my first visits, I witnessed a military display. A +regiment of Warwickshire militia, probably commanded by the Earl, was +going through its drill in the market-place; and on the collar of one of +the officers was embroidered the Bear and Ragged Staff, which has been +the cognizance of the Warwick earldom from time immemorial. The soldiers +were sturdy young men, with the simple, stolid, yet kindly, faces of +English rustics, looking exceedingly well in a body, but slouching into +a yeoman-like carriage and appearance, the moment they were dismissed +from drill. Squads of them were distributed everywhere about the +streets, and sentinels were posted at various points; and I saw a +sergeant, with a great key in his hand, (big enough to have been the key +of the castle's main entrance when the gate was thickest and heaviest,) +apparently setting a guard. Thus, centuries after feudal times are +past, we find warriors still gathering under the old castle-walls, and +commanded by a feudal lord, just as in the days of the King-Maker, who, +no doubt, often mustered his retainers in the same market-place where I +beheld this modern regiment. + +The interior of the town wears a less old-fashioned aspect than the +suburbs through which we approach it; and the High Street has shops with +modern plate-glass, and buildings with stuccoed fronts, exhibiting as +few projections to hang a thought or sentiment upon as if an architect +of to-day had planned them. And, indeed, so far as their surface goes, +they are perhaps new enough to stand unabashed in an American street; +but behind these renovated faces, with their monotonous lack of +expression, there is probably the substance of the same old town that +wore a Gothic exterior in the Middle Ages. The street is an emblem of +England itself. What seems new in it is chiefly a skilful and fortunate +adaptation of what such a people as ourselves would destroy. The new +things are based and supported on sturdy old things, and derive a +massive strength from their deep and immemorial foundations, though with +such limitations and impediments as only an Englishman could endure. +But he likes to feel the weight of all the past upon his back; and, +moreover, the antiquity that overburdens him has taken root in his +being, and has grown to be rather a hump than a pack, so that there is +no getting rid of it without tearing his whole structure to pieces. In +my judgment, as he appears to be sufficiently comfortable under the +mouldy accretion, he had better stumble on with it as long as he can. +He presents a spectacle which is by no means without its charm for a +disinterested and unincumbered observer. + +When the old edifice, or the antiquated custom or institution, appears +in its pristine form, without any attempt at intermarrying it with +modern fashions, an American cannot but admire the picturesque effect +produced by the sudden cropping up of an apparently dead-and-buried +state of society into the actual present, of which he is himself a part. +We need not go far in Warwick without encountering an instance of the +kind. Proceeding westward through the town, we find ourselves confronted +by a huge mass of natural rock, hewn into something like architectural +shape, and penetrated by a vaulted passage, which may well have been one +of King Cymbeline's original gateways; and on the top of the rock, over +the archway, sits a small, old church, communicating with an ancient +edifice, or assemblage of edifices, that look down from a similar +elevation on the side of the street. A range of trees half hides the +latter establishment from the sun. It presents a curious and venerable +specimen of the timber-and-plaster style of building, in which some of +the finest old houses in England are constructed; the front projects +into porticos and vestibules, and rises into many gables, some in a row, +and others crowning semi-detached portions of the structure; the windows +mostly open on hinges, but show a delightful irregularity of shape and +position; a multiplicity of chimneys break through the roof at their own +will, or, at least, without any settled purpose of the architect. The +whole affair looks very old,--so old, indeed, that the front bulges +forth, as if the timber framework were a little weary, at last, of +standing erect so long; but the state of repair is so perfect, and there +is such an indescribable aspect of continuous vitality within the system +of this aged house, that you feel confident that there may be safe +shelter yet, and perhaps for centuries to come, under its time-honored +roof. And on a bench, sluggishly enjoying the sunshine, and looking into +the street of Warwick as from a life apart, a few old men are generally +to be seen, wrapped in long cloaks, on which you may detect the +glistening of a silver badge representing the Bear and Ragged Staff. +These decorated worthies are some of the twelve brethren of Leicester's +Hospital,--a community which subsists to-day under the identical modes +that were established for it in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and of +course retains many features of a social life that has vanished almost +everywhere else. + +The edifice itself dates from a much older period than the charitable +institution of which it is now the home. It was the seat of a religious +fraternity far back in the Middle Ages, and continued so till Henry +VIII. turned all the priesthood of England out-of-doors, and put the +most unscrupulous of his favorites into their vacant abodes. In many +instances, the old monks had chosen the sites of their domiciles so +well, and built them on such a broad system of beauty and convenience, +that their lay-occupants found it easy to convert them into stately and +comfortable homes; and as such they still exist, with something of the +antique reverence lingering about them. The structure now before us +seems to have been first granted to Sir Nicholas Lestrange, who perhaps +intended, like other men, to establish his household gods in the niches +whence he had thrown down the images of saints, and to lay his hearth +where an altar had stood. But there was probably a natural reluctance +in those days (when Catholicism, so lately repudiated, must needs Lave +retained an influence over all but the most obdurate characters) to +bring one's hopes of domestic prosperity and a fortunate lineage into +direct hostility with the awful claims of the ancient religion. At all +events, there is still a superstitious idea, betwixt a fantasy and a +belief, that the possession of former Church-property has drawn a curse +along with it, not only among the posterity of those to whom it was +originally granted, but wherever it has subsequently been transferred, +even if honestly bought and paid for. There are families, now inhabiting +some of the beautiful old abbeys, who appear to indulge a species of +pride in recording the strange deaths and ugly shapes of misfortune that +have occurred among their predecessors, and may be supposed likely to +dog their own pathway down the ages of futurity. Whether Sir Nicholas +Lestrange, in the beef-eating days of Old Harry and Elizabeth, was a +nervous man, and subject to apprehensions of this kind, I cannot tell; +but it is certain that he speedily rid himself of the spoils of the +Church, and that, within twenty years afterwards, the edifice became the +property of the famous Dudley, Earl of Leicester, brother of the Earl of +Warwick. He devoted the ancient religious precinct to a charitable use, +endowing it with an ample revenue, and making it the perpetual home of +twelve poor, honest, and war-broken soldiers, mostly his own retainers, +and natives either of Warwickshire or Gloucestershire. These veterans, +or others wonderfully like them, still occupy their monkish dormitories +and haunt the time-darkened corridors and galleries of the hospital, +leading a life of old-fashioned comfort, wearing the old-fashioned +cloaks, and burnishing the identical silver badges which the Earl of +Leicester gave to the original twelve. He is said to have been a bad man +in his day; but he has succeeded in prolonging one good deed into what +was to him a distant future. + +On the projecting story, over the arched entrance, there is the date, +1571, and several coats-of-arms, either the Earl's or those of his +kindred, and immediately above the door-way a stone sculpture of the +Bear and Ragged Staff. + +Passing through the arch, we find ourselves in a quadrangle, or +inclosed court, such as always formed the central part of a great +family-residence in Queen Elizabeth's time, and earlier. There can +hardly be a more perfect specimen of such an establishment than +Leicester's Hospital. The quadrangle is a sort of sky-roofed hall, to +which there is convenient access from all parts of the house. The four +inner fronts, with their high, steep roofs and sharp gables, look into +it from antique windows, and through open corridors and galleries along +the sides; and there seems to be a richer display of architectural +devices and ornaments, quainter carvings in oak, and more fantastic +shapes of the timber framework, than on the side towards the street. On +the wall opposite the arched entrance are the following inscriptions, +comprising such moral rules, I presume, as were deemed most essential +for the daily observance of the community: "HONOR ALL MEN"--"FEAR +GOD"--"HONOR THE KING"--"LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD"; and again, as if this +latter injunction needed emphasis and repetition among a household of +aged people soured with the hard fortune of their previous lives,--"BE +KINDLY AFFECTIONED ONE TO ANOTHER." One sentence, over a door +communicating with the Master's side of the house, is addressed to +that dignitary,--"HE THAT RULETH OVER MEN MUST BE JUST." All these +are charactered in black-letter, and form part of the elaborate +ornamentation of the Louse. Everywhere--on the walls, over windows and +doors, and at all points where there is room to place them--appear +escutcheons of arms, cognizances, and crests, emblazoned in their proper +colors, and illuminating the ancient quadrangle with their splendor. One +of these devices is a large image of a porcupine on an heraldic wreath, +being the crest of the Lords de Lisle. But especially is the cognizance +of the Bear and Ragged Staff repeated over and over, and over again and +again, in a great variety of attitudes, at full-length and half-length, +in paint and in oaken sculpture, in bas-relief and rounded image. +The founder of the hospital was certainly disposed to reckon his own +beneficence as among the hereditary glories of his race; and had he +lived and died a half-century earlier, he would have kept up an old +Catholic custom by enjoining the twelve bedesmen to pray for the welfare +of his soul. + +At my first visit, some of the brethren were seated on the bench outside +of the edifice, looking down into the street; but they did not vouchsafe +me a word, and seemed so estranged from modern life, so enveloped in +antique customs and old-fashioned cloaks, that to converse with them +would have been like shouting across the gulf between our age and +Queen Elizabeth's. So I passed into the quadrangle, and found it quite +solitary, except that a plain and neat old woman happened to be crossing +it, with an aspect of business and carefulness that bespoke her a woman +of this world, and not merely a shadow of the past. Asking her if I +could come in, she answered very readily and civilly that I might, and +said that I was free to look about me, hinting a hope, however, that I +would not open the private doors of the brotherhood, as some visitors +were in the habit of doing. Under her guidance, I went into what was +formerly the great hall of the establishment, where King James I. had +once been feasted by an Earl of Warwick, as is commemorated by an +inscription on the cobwebbed and dingy wall. It is a very spacious and +barn-like apartment, with a brick floor, and a vaulted roof, the rafters +of which are oaken beams, wonderfully carved, but hardly visible in +the duskiness that broods aloft. The hall may have made a splendid +appearance, when it was decorated with rich tapestry, and illuminated +with chandeliers, cressets, and torches glistening upon silver dishes, +while King James sat at supper among his brilliantly dressed nobles; +but it has come to base uses in these latter days,--being improved, +in Yankee phrase, as a brewery and wash-room, and as a cellar for the +brethren's separate allotments of coal. + +The old lady here left me to myself, and I returned into the quadrangle. +It was very quiet, very handsome, in its own obsolete style, and must be +an exceedingly comfortable place for the old people to lounge in, when +the inclement winds render it inexpedient to walk abroad. There are +shrubs against the wall, on one side; and on another is a cloistered +walk, adorned with stags' heads and antlers, and running beneath a +covered gallery, up to which ascends a balustraded staircase. In the +portion of the edifice opposite the entrance-arch are the apartments +of the Master; and looking into the window, (as the old woman, at no +request of mine, had specially informed me that I might,) I saw a low, +but vastly comfortable parlor, very handsomely furnished, and altogether +a luxurious place. It had a fireplace with an immense arch, the antique +breadth of which extended almost from wall to wall of the room, though +now fitted up in such a way that the modern coal-grate looked very +diminutive in the midst. Gazing into this pleasant interior, it seemed +to me, that, among these venerable surroundings, availing himself of +whatever was good in former things, and eking out their imperfection +with the results of modern ingenuity, the Master might lead a not +unenviable life. On the cloistered side of the quadrangle, where the +dark oak panels made the inclosed space dusky, I beheld a curtained +window reddened by a great blaze from within, and heard the bubbling and +squeaking of something--doubtless very nice and succulent--that was +being cooked at the kitchen-fire. I think, indeed, that a whiff or +two of the savory fragrance reached my nostrils; at all events, the +impression grew upon me that Leicester's Hospital is one of the jolliest +old domiciles in England. + +I was about to depart, when another old woman, very plainly dressed, +but fat, comfortable, and with a cheerful twinkle in her eyes, came in +through the arch, and looked curiously at me. This repeated apparition +of the gentle sex (though by no means under its loveliest guise) had +still an agreeable effect in modifying my ideas of an institution which +I had supposed to be of a stern and monastic character. She asked +whether I wished to see the hospital, and said that the porter, whose +office it was to attend to visitors, was dead, and would be buried that +very day, so that the whole establishment could not conveniently be +shown me. She kindly invited me, however, to visit the apartment +occupied by her husband and herself; so I followed her up the antique +staircase, along the gallery, and into a small, oak-panelled parlor, +where sat an old man in a long blue garment, who arose and saluted me +with much courtesy. He seemed a very quiet person, and yet had a look of +travel and adventure, and gray experience, such as I could have fancied +in a palmer of ancient times, who might likewise have worn a similar +costume. The little room was carpeted and neatly furnished; a portrait +of its occupant was hanging on the wall; and on a table were two swords +crossed,--one, probably, his own battle-weapon, and the other, which +I drew half out of the scabbard, had an inscription on the blade, +purporting that it had been taken from the field of Waterloo. My +kind old hostess was anxious to exhibit all the particulars of their +housekeeping, and led me into the bed-room, which was in the nicest +order, with a snow-white quilt upon the bed; and in a little intervening +room was a washing and bathing apparatus,--a convenience (judging from +the personal aspect and atmosphere of such parties) seldom to be met +with in the humbler ranks of British life. + +The old soldier and his wife both seemed glad of somebody to talk with; +but the good woman availed herself of the privilege far more copiously +than the veteran himself, insomuch that he felt it expedient to give her +an occasional nudge with his elbow in her well-padded ribs. "Don't you +be so talkative!" quoth he; and, indeed, he could hardly find space for +a word, and quite as little after his admonition as before. Her nimble +tongue ran over the whole system of life in the hospital. The brethren, +she said, had a yearly stipend, (the amount of which she did not +mention,) and such decent lodgings as I saw, and some other advantages, +free; and instead of being pestered with a great many rules, and made +to dine together at a great table, they could manage their little +household-matters as they liked, buying their own dinners, and having +them cooked in the general kitchen, and eating them snugly in their own +parlors. "And," added she, rightly deeming this the crowning privilege, +"with the Master's permission, they can have their wives to take care of +them; and no harm comes of it; and what more can an old man desire?" +It was evident enough that the good dame found herself in what she +considered very rich clover, and, moreover, had plenty of small +occupations to keep her from getting rusty and dull; but the veteran +impressed me as deriving far less enjoyment from the monotonous ease, +without fear of change or hope of improvement, that had followed upon +thirty years of peril and vicissitude. I fancied, too, that, while +pleased with the novelty of a stranger's visit, he was still a little +shy of becoming a spectacle for the stranger's curiosity; for, if he +chose to be morbid about the matter, the establishment was but an +almshouse, in spite of its old-fashioned magnificence, and his fine blue +cloak only a pauper's garment, with a silver badge on it that perhaps +galled his shoulder. In truth, the badge and the peculiar garb, though +quite in accordance with the manners of the Earl of Leicester's age, +are repugnant to modern prejudices, and might fitly and humanely be +abolished. + +A year or two afterwards I paid another visit to the hospital, and found +a new porter established in office, and already capable of talking like +a guide-book about the history, antiquities, and present condition of +the charity. He informed me that the twelve brethren are selected from +among old soldiers of good character, whose private resources must +not exceed an income of five pounds; thus excluding all commissioned +officers, whose half-pay would of course be more than that amount. They +receive from the hospital an annuity of eighty pounds each, besides +their apartments, a garment of fine blue cloth, an annual abundance of +ale, and a privilege at the kitchen-fire; so that, considering the class +from which they are taken, they may well reckon themselves among the +fortunate of the earth. Furthermore, they are invested with political +rights, acquiring a vote for member of Parliament in virtue either +of their income or brotherhood. On the other hand, as regards their +personal freedom and conduct, they are subject to a supervision which +the Master of the hospital might render extremely annoying, were he so +inclined; but the military restraint under which they have spent the +active portion of their lives makes it easier for them to endure the +domestic discipline here imposed upon their age. The porter bore his +testimony (whatever were its value) to their being as contented and +happy as such a set of old people could possibly be, and affirmed that +they spent much time in burnishing their silver badges, and were as +proud of them as a nobleman of his star. These badges, by-the-by, except +one that was stolen and replaced in Queen Anne's time, are the very same +that decorated the original twelve brethren. + +I have seldom met with a better guide than my friend the porter. +He appeared to take a genuine interest in the peculiarities of the +establishment, and yet had an existence apart from them, so that he +could the better estimate what those peculiarities were. To be sure, his +knowledge and observation were confined to external things, but, so +far, had a sufficiently extensive scope. He led me up the staircase +and exhibited portions of the timber framework of the edifice that are +reckoned to be eight or nine hundred years old, and are still neither +worm-eaten nor decayed; and traced out what had been a great hall, in +the days of the Catholic fraternity, though its area is now filled up +with the apartments of the twelve brethren; and pointed to ornaments of +sculptured oak, done in an ancient religious style of art, but hardly +visible amid the vaulted dimness of the roof. Thence we went to the +chapel--the Gothic church which I noted several pages back--surmounting +the gateway that stretches half across the street. Here the brethren +attend daily prayer, and have each a prayer-book of the finest paper, +with a fair, large type for their old eyes. The interior of the chapel +is very plain, with a picture of no merit for an altar-piece, and +a single old pane of painted glass in the great eastern window, +representing--no saint, nor angel, as is customary in such cases--but +that grim sinner, the Earl of Leicester. Nevertheless, amid so many +tangible proofs of his human sympathy, one comes to doubt whether the +Earl could have been such a hardened reprobate, after all. + +We ascended the tower of the chapel, and looked down between its +battlements into the street, a hundred feet below us; while clambering +half-way up were foxglove-flowers, weeds, small shrubs, and tufts of +grass, that had rooted themselves into the roughnesses of the stone +foundation. Far around us lay a rich and lovely English landscape, with +many a church-spire and noble country-seat, and several objects of high +historic interest. Edge Hill, where the Puritans defeated Charles I., is +in sight on the edge of the horizon, and much nearer stands the house +where Cromwell lodged on the night before the battle. Right under our +eyes, and half-enveloping the town with its high-shouldering wall, so +that all the closely compacted streets seemed but a precinct of the +estate, was the Earl of Warwick's delightful park, a wide extent of +sunny lawns, interspersed with broad contiguities of forest-shade. Some +of the cedars of Lebanon were there,--a growth of trees in which the +Warwick family take an hereditary pride. The two highest towers of the +castle heave themselves up out of a mass of foliage, and look down in a +lordly manner upon the plebeian roofs of the town, a part of which are +slate-covered, (these are the modern houses,) and a part are coated with +old red tiles, denoting the more ancient edifices. A hundred and sixty +or seventy years ago, a great fire destroyed a considerable portion +of the town, and doubtless annihilated many structures of a remote +antiquity; at least, there was a possibility of very old houses in the +long past of Warwick, which King Cymbeline is said to have founded in +the year ONE of the Christian era! + +And this historic fact or poetic fiction, whichever it may be, brings to +mind a more indestructible reality than anything else that has occurred +within the present field of our vision; though this includes the scene +of Guy of Warwick's legendary exploits, and some of those of the Round +Table, to say nothing of the Battle of Edge Hill. For perhaps it was +in the landscape now under our eyes that Post-humus wandered with the +King's daughter, the sweet, chaste, faithful, and courageous Imogen, the +tenderest and womanliest woman that Shakspeare ever made immortal in +the world. The silver Avon, which we see flowing so quietly by the gray +castle, may have held their images in its bosom. + +The day, though it began brightly, had long been overcast, and the +clouds now spat down a few spiteful drops upon us, besides that the +east-wind was very chill; so we descended the winding tower-stair, and +went next into the garden, one side of which is shut in by almost the +only remaining portion of the old city-wall. A part of the garden-ground +is devoted to grass and shrubbery, and permeated by gravel-walks, in the +centre of one of which is a beautiful stone vase of Egyptian sculpture, +having formerly stood on the top of a Nilometer, or graduated pillar +for measuring the rise and fall of the River Nile. On the pedestal is +a Latin inscription by Dr. Parr, who (his vicarage of Hatton being so +close at hand) was probably often the Master's guest, and smoked his +interminable pipe along these garden-walks. Of the vegetable-garden, +which lies adjacent, the lion's share is appropriated to the Master, and +twelve small, separate patches to the individual brethren, who cultivate +them at their own judgment and by their own labor; and their beans +and cauliflowers have a better flavor, I doubt not, than if they had +received them directly from the dead hand of the Earl of Leicester, like +the rest of their food. In the farther part of the garden is an arbor +for the old men's pleasure and convenience, and I should like well to +sit down among them there, and find out what is really the bitter and +the sweet of such a sort of life. As for the old gentlemen themselves, +they put me queerly in mind of the Salem Custom-House, and the venerable +personages whom I found so quietly at anchor there. + +The Master's residence, forming one entire side of the quadrangle, +fronts on the garden, and wears an aspect at once stately and homely. +It can hardly have undergone any perceptible change with in three +centuries; but the garden, into which its old windows look, has probably +put off a great many eccentricities and quaintnesses, in the way of +cunningly clipped shrubbery, since the gardener of Queen Elizabeth's +reign threw down his rusty shears and took his departure. The present +Master's name is Harris; he is a descendant of the founder's family, a +gentleman of independent fortune, and a clergyman of the Established +Church, as the regulations of the hospital require him to be. I know +not what are his official emoluments; but, according to all English +precedent, an ancient charitable fund is certain to be held directly for +the behoof of those who administer it, and perhaps incidentally, in a +moderate way, for the nominal beneficiaries; and, in the case before us, +the brethren being so comfortably provided for, the Master is likely to +be at least as comfortable as all the twelve together. Yet I ought not, +even in a distant land, to fling an idle gibe against a gentleman of +whom I really know nothing, except that the people under his charge bear +all possible tokens of being tended and cared for as sedulously as if +each of them sat by a warm fireside of his own, with a daughter bustling +round the hearth to make ready his porridge and his titbits. It is +delightful to think of the good life which a suitable man, in the +Master's position, has an opportunity to lead,--linked to time-honored +customs, welded in with an ancient system, never dreaming of radical +change, and bringing all the mellowness and richness of the past down +into these railway-days, which do not compel him or his community +to move a whit quicker than of yore. Everybody can appreciate the +advantages of going ahead; it might be well, sometimes, to think whether +there is not a word or two to be said in favor of standing still, or +going to sleep. + +From the garden we went into the kitchen, where the fire was burning +hospitably, and diffused a genial warmth far and wide, together with the +fragrance of some old English roast-beef, which, I think must at that +moment have been nearly to a turn. The kitchen is a lofty, spacious, +and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace by a sort of +semicircular oaken screen, or, rather, an arrangement of heavy and +high-backed settles, with an ever open entrance between them, on either +side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff, +three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and +unctuous kitchen-smoke. The ponderous mantel-piece, likewise of carved +oak, towers high towards the dusky ceiling, and extends its mighty +breadth to take in a vast area of hearth, the arch of the fireplace +being positively so immense that I could compare it to nothing but the +city-gateway. Above its cavernous opening were crossed two ancient +halberds, the weapons, possibly, of soldiers who had fought under +Leicester in the Low Countries; and elsewhere on the walls were +displayed several muskets, which some of the present inmates of the +hospital may have levelled against the French. Another ornament of the +mantel-piece was a square of silken needlework or embroidery, faded +nearly white, but dimly representing that wearisome Bear and Ragged +Staff, which we should hardly look twice at, only that it was wrought by +the fair fingers of poor Amy Robsart, and beautifully framed in oak from +Kenilworth Castle at the expense of a Mr. Conner, a countryman of our +own. Certainly, no Englishman would be capable of this little bit of +enthusiasm. Finally, the kitchen-firelight glistens on a splendid +display of copper flagons, all of generous capacity, and one of them +about as big as a half-barrel; the smaller vessels contain the customary +allowance of ale, and the larger one is filled with that foaming liquor +on four festive occasions of the year, and emptied amain by the jolly +brotherhood. I should be glad to see them do it; but it would be an +exploit fitter for Queen Elizabeth's age than these degenerate times. + +The kitchen is the social hall of the twelve brethren. In the day-time, +they bring their little messes to be cooked here, and eat them in their +own parlors; but after a certain hour, the great hearth is cleared and +swept, and the old men assemble round its blaze, each with his tankard +and his pipe, and hold high converse through the evening. If the Master +be a fit man for his office, methinks he will sometimes sit down +sociably among them; for there is an elbow-chair by the fireside which +it would not demean his dignity to fill, since it was occupied by King +James at the great festival of nearly three centuries ago. A sip of the +ale and a whiff of the tobacco-pipe would put him in friendly relations +with his venerable household; and then we can fancy him instructing them +by pithy apothegms and religious texts which were first uttered here by +some Catholic priest and have impregnated the atmosphere ever since. If +a joke goes round, it shall be of an elder coinage than Joe Miller's, as +old as Lord Bacon's collection, or as the jest-book that Master Slender +asked for when he lacked small-talk for sweet Anne Page. No news shall +be spoken of, later than the drifting ashore, on the northern coast, +of sonic stern-post or figure-head, a barnacled fragment of one of the +great galleons of the Spanish Armada. What a tremor would pass through +the antique group, if a damp newspaper should suddenly be spread to dry +before the fire! They would feel as if either that printed sheet or they +themselves must be an unreality. What a mysterious awe, if the shriek +of the railway-train, as it reaches the Warwick station, should ever so +faintly invade their ears! Movement of any kind seems inconsistent with +the stability of such an institution. Nevertheless, I trust that the +ages will carry it along with them; because it is such a pleasant kind +of dream for an American to find his way thither, and behold a piece of +the sixteenth century set into our prosaic times, and then to depart, +and think of its arched door-way as a spell-guarded entrance which will +never be accessible or visible to him any more. + +Not far from the market-place of Warwick stands the great church of St. +Mary's: a vast edifice, indeed, and almost worthy to be a cathedral. +People who pretend to skill in such matters say that it is in a poor +style of architecture, though designed (or, at least, extensively +restored) by Sir Christopher Wren; but I thought it very striking, with +its wide, high, and elaborate windows, its tall tower, its immense +length, and (for it was long before I outgrew this Americanism, the +love of an old thing merely for the sake of its age) the tinge of gray +antiquity over the whole. Once, while I stood gazing up at the tower, +the clock struck twelve with a very deep intonation, and immediately +some chimes began to play, and kept up their resounding music for five +minutes, as measured by the hand upon the dial. It was a very delightful +harmony, as airy as the notes of birds, and seemed a not unbecoming +freak of half-sportive fancy in the huge, ancient, and solemn church; +although I have seen an old-fashioned parlor-clock that did precisely +the same thing, in its small way. + +The great attraction of this edifice is the Beauchamp (or, as the +English, who delight in vulgarizing their fine old Norman names, call +it, the Beechum) Chapel, where the Earls of Warwick and their kindred +have been buried, from four hundred years back till within a recent +period. It is a stately and very elaborate chapel, with a large window +of ancient painted glass, as perfectly preserved as any that I remember +seeing in England, and remarkably vivid in its colors. Here are several +monuments with marble figures recumbent upon them, representing the +Earls in their knightly armor, and their dames in the ruffs and +court-finery of their day, looking hardly stiffer in stone than they +must needs have been in their starched linen and embroidery. The +renowned Earl of Leicester of Queen Elizabeth's time, the benefactor +of the hospital, reclines at full length on the tablet of one of these +tombs, side by side with his Countess,--not Amy Robsart, but a lady who +(unless I have confused the story with some other mouldy scandal) is +said to have avenged poor Amy's murder by poisoning the Earl himself. +Be that as it may, both figures, and especially the Earl, look like the +very types of ancient Honor and Conjugal Faith. In consideration of +his long-enduring kindness to the twelve brethren, I cannot consent to +believe him as wicked as he is usually depicted; and it seems a marvel, +now that so many well-established historical verdicts have been +reversed, why some enterprising writer does not make out Leicester to +have been the pattern nobleman of his age. + +In the centre of the chapel is the magnificent memorial of its founder, +Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI. On a richly +ornamented altar-tomb of gray marble lies the bronze figure of a knight +in gilded armor, most admirably executed: for the sculptors of those +days had wonderful skill in their own style, and could make so life-like +an image of a warrior, in brass or marble, that, if a trumpet were +sounded over his tomb, you would expect him to start up and handle his +sword. The Earl whom we now speak of, however, has slept soundly in +spite of a more serious disturbance than any blast of a trumpet, unless +it were the final one. Some centuries after his death, the floor of the +chapel fell down and broke open the stone coffin in which he was buried; +and among the fragments appeared the Earl of Warwick, with the color +scarcely faded out of his checks, his eyes a little sunken, but in other +respects looking as natural as if he had died yesterday. But exposure to +the atmosphere appeared to begin and finish the long-delayed process of +decay in a moment, causing him to vanish like a bubble; so that, almost +before there had been time to wonder at him, there was nothing left of +the stalwart Earl save his hair. This sole relic the ladies of Warwick +made prize of, and braided it into rings and brooches for their own +adornment; and thus, with a chapel and a ponderous tomb built on purpose +to protect his remains, this great nobleman could not help being brought +untimely to the light of day, nor even keep his love-locks on his skull +after he had so long done with love. There seems to be a fatality that +disturbs people in their sepulchres, when they have been over-careful to +render them magnificent and impregnable,--as witness the builders of +the Pyramids, and Hadrian, Augustus, and the Scipios, and most other +personages whose mausoleums have been conspicuous enough to attract the +violator; and as for dead men's hair, I have seen a lock of King Edward +the Fourth's, of a reddish-brown color, which perhaps was once twisted +round the delicate forefinger of Mistress Shore. + +The direct lineage of the renowned characters that lie buried in this +splendid chapel has long been extinct. The earldom is now held by +the Grevilles, descendants of the Lord Brooke who was slain in the +Parliamentary War; and they have recently (that is to say, within +a century) built a burial-vault on the other side of the church, +calculated (as the sexton assured me, with a nod as if be were pleased) +to afford suitable and respectful accommodation to as many as fourscore +coffins. Thank Heaven, the old man did not call them "CASKETS"!--a vile +modern phrase, which compels a person of sense and good taste to shrink +more disgustfully than ever before from the idea of being buried at +all. But as regards those eighty coffins, only sixteen have as yet +been contributed; and it may be a question with some minds, not merely +whether the Grevilles will hold the earldom of Warwick until the +full number shall be made up, but whether earldoms and all manner of +lordships will not have faded out of England long before those many +generations shall have passed from the castle to the vault. I hope not. +A titled and landed aristocracy, if anywise an evil and an incumbrance, +is so only to the nation which is doomed to bear it on its shoulders; +and an American, whose sole relation to it is to admire its picturesque +effect upon society, ought to be the last man to quarrel with what +affords him so much gratuitous enjoyment. Nevertheless, conservative +as England is, and though I scarce ever found an Englishman who seemed +really to desire change, there was continually a dull sound in my ears +as if the old foundations of things were crumbling away. Some time or +other,--by no irreverent effort of violence, but, rather, in spite of +all pious efforts to uphold a heterogeneous pile of institutions that +will have outlasted their vitality,--at some unexpected moment, there +must come a terrible crash. The sole reason why I should desire it to +happen in my day is, that I might be there to see! But the ruin of my +own country is, perhaps, all that I am destined to witness; and that +immense catastrophe (though I am strong in the faith that there is a +national lifetime of a thousand years in us yet) would serve any man +well enough as his final spectacle on earth. + +If the visitor is inclined to carry away any little memorial of Warwick, +he had better go to an Old Curiosity Shop in the High Street, where +there is a vast quantity of obsolete gewgaws, great and small, and many +of them so pretty and ingenious that you wonder how they came to be +thrown aside and forgotten. As regards its minor tastes, the world +changes, but does not improve; it appears to me, indeed, that there have +been epochs of far more exquisite fancy than the present one, in matters +of personal ornament, and such delicate trifles as we put upon a +drawing-room table, a mantel-piece, or a what-not. The shop in question +is near the East Gate, but is hardly to be found without careful +search, being denoted only by the name of "REDFERN," painted not very +conspicuously in the top-light of the door. Immediately on entering, we +find ourselves among a confusion of old rubbish and valuables, ancient +armor, historic portraits, ebony cabinets inlaid with pearl, tall, +ghostly clocks, hideous old China, dim looking-glasses in frames of +tarnished magnificence,--a thousand objects of strange aspect, and +others that almost frighten you by their likeness in unlikeness to +things now in use. It is impossible to give an idea of the variety of +articles, so thickly strewn about that we can scarcely move without +overthrowing some great curiosity with a crash, or sweeping away some +small one hitched to our sleeves. Three stories of the entire house are +crowded in like manner. The collection, even as we see it exposed to +view, must have been got together at great cost; but the real treasures +of the establishment lie in secret repositories, whence they are not +likely to be drawn forth at an ordinary summons; though, if a gentleman +with a competently long purse should call for them, I doubt not that +the signet-ring of Joseph's friend Pharaoh, or the Duke of Alva's +leading-staff, or the dagger that killed the Duke of Buckingham, or +any other almost incredible thing, might make its appearance. Gold +snuff-boxes, antique gems, jewelled goblets, Venetian wine-glasses, +(which burst when poison is poured into them, and therefore must not be +used for modern wine-drinking,) jasper-handled knives, painted Sevres +teacups,--in short, there are all sorts of things that a virtuoso +ransacks the world to discover. + +It would be easier to spend a hundred pounds in Mr. Redfern's shop than +to keep it in one's pocket; but, for my part, I contented myself with +buying a little old spoon of silver-gilt, and fantastically shaped, and +got it at all the more reasonable rate because there happened to be no +legend attached to it. I could supply any deficiency of that kind at +much less expense than re-gilding the spoon! + + * * * * * + + +LYRICS OF THE STREET. + + +III. + +THE CHARITABLE VISITOR. + + + She carries no flag of fashion, her clothes are but passing plain, + Though she comes from a city palace all jubilant with her reign. + She threads a bewildering alley, with ashes and dust thrown out, + And fighting and cursing children, who mock as she moves about. + + Why walk you this way, my lady, in the snow and slippery ice? + These are not the shrines of virtue,--here misery lives, and vice: + Rum helps the heart of starvation to a courage bold and bad; + And women are loud and brawling, while men sit maudlin and mad. + + I see in the corner yonder the boy with the broken arm, + And the mother whose blind wrath did it, strange guardian from childish + harm. + That face will grow bright at your coming, but your steward might come + as well, + Or better the Sunday teacher that helped him to read and spell. + + Oh! I do not come of my willing, with froward and restless feet; + I have pleasant tasks in my chamber, and friends well-beloved to greet. + To follow the dear Lord Jesus I walk in the storm and snow; + Where I find the trace of His footsteps, there lilies and roses grow. + + He said that to give was blessed, more blessed than to receive; + But what could He take, dear angels, of all that we had to give, + Save a little pause of attention, and a little thrill of delight, + When the dead were waked from their slumbers, and the blind recalled to + sight? + + Say, the King came forth with the morning, and opened His palace-doors, + Thence flinging His gifts like sunbeams that break upon marble floors; + But the wind with wild pinions caught them, and carried them round + about: + Though I looked till mine eyes were dazzled, I never could make them out. + + But He bade me go far and find them, "go seek them with zeal and pain; + The hand is most welcome to me that brings me mine own again; + And those who follow them farthest, with faithful searching and sight, + Are brought with joy to my presence, and sit at my feet all night." + + So, hither and thither walking, I gather them broadly cast; + Where yonder young face doth sicken, it may be the best and last. + In no void or vague of duty I come to his aid to-day; + I bring God's love to his bed-side, and carry God's gift away. + + + + +MR. AXTELL. + +PART V. + + +"Miss Anna! Miss Anna! Doctor Percival is waiting for you," were the +opening words of the next day's life. Its bells had had no influence in +restoring me to consciousness of existence. I never have liked metallic +commanders. Now Jeffy's Ethiopian tones were inspiriting, and to their +music I began the mystic march of another day. + +Doctor Percival was not out of patience, it seemed, with waiting; for, +as I went in, he was so engrossed with a morning paper that he did not +even look up, or notice me, until I made myself vocal, and then only to +say,-- + +"Ring for breakfast, Anna; I shall have done by the time it comes." + +"It is here, father"; and he dropped the newspaper, turned his chair to +the table, leaned his arms upon it, covered his precious face with two +thin, quivering hands, and remained thus, whilst I prepared coffee, and +lingered as long as possible in the seeming occupation. + +Jeffy--and I suspect that the mischievous African designed the +act--overturned the coffee in handing it to my father, who is not +endowed with the most equable temper ever consigned to mortals; but this +morning he did not give Jeffy even a severe look, for his eyes were full +of tender pity, such as I had never seen in them in all the past. + +"How is your patient?" I asked. + +"Better, thank God!" he replied. + +"Were you with him all night?" + +"Yes, all night. I must go out this morning to see some patients. I'll +send up a nurse from the hospital on my way. I don't think the delirium +will return before mid-day; can you watch him till then, Anna?"--and +he asked with a seeming doubt either of my willingness or my ability, +perhaps a mingling of both. + +I did not like to recount my serious failures with Miss Axtell, but I +answered,-- + +"I will try." + +Before he went, he took me in to the place of my watching. The gentleman +was asleep. The housekeeper was quite willing to relinquish her office. +The good physician gave me orders concerning the febrifuge to be +administered in case of increase of febrile symptoms, and saying that +"it wouldn't be long ere some one came to relieve me," he bent over the +sleeping patient for an instant, and the next was gone. + +I think a half-hour must have fled in silence, when Jeffy stole in, his +eyes opening as Chloe's had done not many days agone, when the vision +of myself was painted thereon. I upheld a cautionary index, and he was +still as a mouse, but like a mouse he proceeded to investigate; he +opened a bureau-drawer the least way, and pushing his arm in where my +laces were wont to dwell, he drew out, with exultant delight, the wig +before mentioned. + +"What _do_ you s'pose _he_ wants with this thing'?" whispered Jeffy; and +he pointed to the soft, fair masses of curling hair that rested against +the pillow. + +Jeffy was a spoiled boy,--"my doing," everybody said, and it may +have been truly. He was Chloe's son, and had inherited her ways and +affectionate heart, and for these I forgave him much. + +I said, "Hush!"--whereupon he lifted up the wig and deposited it upon +the top of his tangled circlets of hair before I could stay him. + +I reached out my hand for it, not venturing on words, for fear of +disturbing the patient; but Jeffy, with unpardonable wilfulness, danced +out of my circuit, and at the same instant the sick man turned his head, +and beheld Jeffy in the possession of his property. Jeffy looked very +repentant, said in low, deprecatory tones, "I'm sorry," and, depositing +the wig in the drawer, hastened to escape, which I know he would not +have done but for the disabled condition of the invalid, who could only +look his wrath. I had so hoped that he would sleep until some one came; +but this unfortunate Jeffy had dissipated my hope, and left me in +pitiable dilemma. + +In the vain endeavor to restore the scattered influence of Morpheus, +I flew to one of the aids of the mystic god, and beseeching its +assistance, I prepared to administer the draught. I could not find a +spoon on the instant. When I did, I made a mistake in dropping the +opiate, and was obliged to commence anew, and all the while that +handsome face, with large, pleading eyes in it, held me in painful +duress. When I turned towards him and held the glass to his lips, I +trembled, as I had not done, even in the church, when Abraham Axtell and +I stood before the opened entrance into earth. All the words that I that +day had heard in the tower were ringing like clarions in the air, and +they shook me with their vibrant forces. + +"Am _I_ in heaven?" + +It was the same voice that had said to Miss Axtell, "Will you send me +out again?" that spake these words. + +Was he going into delirium again? I was desirous of keeping him upon our +planet, and I said,-- + +"Oh, no,--they don't need morphine in heaven." + +"They need _you_ there, though. You must go _now_," he said; and he made +an effort to take the glass from my hand. + +"I have never been in heaven," I said. + +"Then they deceive, they deceive, and there isn't any heaven! Oh, what +if after all there shouldn't be such a place?" + +He lifted up his one usable hand in agony. + +"We wait until we die, before going there," I said; "I am alive, don't +you see?" + +"Alive, and not dead? you! whom I killed eighteen years ago, have you +come to reproach me now? Oh, I have suffered, even to atonement, for it! +You would pardon, if you only knew what I have suffered for you." + +Surely delirium had returned. I urged the poor man to take the contents +of the glass. + +He promised, upon condition of my forgiveness,--forgiveness for having +killed me, who never had been killed, who was surely alive. Jeffy had +come in again, and had listened to the pleading. + +"Why don't you tell him yes, Miss Anna? He doesn't know a word he's +sayin'. It'll keep him quiet like; he's like a baby," he whispered, with +a covert pull at my dress by way of impressment. + +And so, guided by Chloe's boy, I said, "I forgive." + +"Why don't you go, if you forgive me? I don't like to keep you here, +when you belong up there"; and he pointed his words by the aid of his +available hand. + +I knew then _why_ Miss Axtell had loved this man: it was simply one of +those cruel, compulsory offerings up of self, that allure one, in open +sight of torture, on to the altar. Oh, poor woman! why hath thy Maker +so forsaken thee? And in mute wonder at this most wondrous wrong, that +crept into mortal life when the serpent went out through Eden and +left an opening in the Garden, I forgot for the while my present +responsibility, in compassionate pity for the pale, beautiful lady in +Redleaf, into whose heart this man had come,--unwillingly, I knew, when +I looked into his face, and yet, _having come, must grow into its Eden, +even unto the time that Eternity shadows;_ and I sent out the arms of my +spirit, and twined them invisibly around her, who truly had spoken when +she said, "I want you," with such hungry tones. God, the Infinite, +has given me comprehension of such women, has given me His own loving +pity,--in little human grains, it is true, but they come from "the +shining shore." "Miss Axtell does want me," I thought; "she is right,--I +am gladness to her." + +"Will you go?" came from the invalid. + +"A woman, loving thus, never comes alone into a friend's heart," +something said; "you must receive her shadow"; and I looked at the +person who had said, "Will you go?" + +There are various words used in the dictionary of life, descriptive +of men such as him now before me. They mostly are formed in syllables +numbering four and five, which all integrate in the one word +_irresistible_: how pitifully I abhor that word!--every letter has a +serpent-coil in it. "Love thy neighbor even as thyself." It is good that +these words came just here to wall themselves before the torrent that +might not have been stayed until I had laid the mountain of my thought +upon the sycophantic syllabication that the world loves to "lip" unto +the world,--the false world, that, blinded, blinds to blinder blindness +those that fain would behold. There is a crying out in the earth for +a place of torment; there are sins for which we want what God hath +prepared for the wicked. + +"Are you going?"--and this time there was plaintive moaning in the +accents. + +"You must take him in, too," my spirit whispered; and I acted the "I +will" that formed in the mental court where my soul sat enthroned,--my +own judge. + +"Oh, no, I am not going away," I said; "I am come to stay with you, +until some one else comes." + +A certain resignment of opposition seemed to be effected. I knew it +would be so,--it is in all such natures,--and he seemed intent upon +making atonement for his imaginary wrong, since I would stay. + +"Mary, I didn't mean to kill you," he said; "I wouldn't have destroyed +your young life; oh! I wouldn't;--but I did! I did!" + +"You make some strange mistake; you ought not to talk," I urged, +surprised at this second time being called Mary. + +"Yes, I guess 'twas a mistake,--you're right, all a mistake,--I didn't +mean to kill you; but I did _him_, though. Oh! I wanted to destroy +him,--_he hadn't any pity, he wouldn't yield_. But it's _you_, Mary, +_you_ oughtn't to hear me say such things of _him_." + +"I am not Mary, I am Miss Percival; and you may tell me." + +"I beg pardon, I had no right to call you Mary; but it is there, now, on +your tomb-stone in the old church-yard,--Mary Percival,--there isn't any +Miss there. Do they call you Miss Percival in heaven?"--and he began to +sing, deep, stirring songs of rhythmic melody, that catch up individual +existences and bear them to congregated continents, where mountains sing +and seas respond, amid the _encore_ of starry spheres. + +O Music! if we could but divine thee, dear divinity, thou mightst be +less divine! then let us be content to be divinized in thee!--and I was. +I let him sing, knowing that it was in delirium; and for the moment my +wonder ceased concerning Miss Axtell's love for Herbert. + +This while, Jeffy stood speechless, transfused into melody. Whence came +this love of Africans for harmonious measure? Oh, I remember: the scroll +of song whereon were written the accents of the joyed morning-stars, +when they grew jubilant that earth stood create, was let fall by an +angel upon Afric's soil. No one of the children of the land was found of +wisdom sufficient to read the hieroglyphs; therefore the sacred roll was +divided among the souls in the nation: unto each was given one note from +the divine whole. + +"Jeffy must have received a semi-breve as his portion," I thought, for +he was rapt in ecstasy. + +"Oh, sing again!" he said, unconsciously, when, exhausted, the invalid +reached the shore of Silence,--where he did not long linger, for he +changed his song to lament that he could not reach his ship, that would +sail before he could recover; and he made an effort to rise. He fell +back, fainting. + +It seemed a great blessing that at this moment the housekeeper +introduced the person Doctor Percival had sent. + +That night, and for many after, it seemed, my father looked extremely +anxious. I did not see the patient again until the eventful twenty-fifth +of March was past. + +Two days only was I permitted for my visit. Would Miss Axtell expect me? +or had she, it might be, forgotten that she had asked my presence? + +My father had not forgotten the obligation of the ring of gold; he made +allusion to it in the moment of parting, and I felt it tightening about +me more and more as the miles of sea and land rolled back over our +separation; and a question, asked long ago and unanswered yet, was +repeated in my mental realm,--"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of +the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" and I said, "I will not +try." + +It was evening when I arrived at the parsonage. Sophie was full of sweet +sisterly joy on seeing me, and of surprise when I told her what had +occurred in our father's house. It was so unprecedented, this taking in +a stranger whose name and home were unknown; for I could not tell Sophie +my conviction that father had discovered who the patient was. + +"Miss Axtell is almost well." Sophie gave the information before I found +time to ask. "She pleases to be quite charming to me. I hope she will be +equally gracious to you." And so I hoped. + +From out the ark of the round year God sends some day-doves of summer +into the barren spring-time, to sing of coming joys and peck the buds +into opening. One of His sending brooded over Redleaf when I walked +forth in its morning-time to redeem my promise. + +"Miss Percival! I'm so glad!" + +Katie showed me into the room that once I had been so much afraid of. +She did not long leave me there. + +"Miss Lettie would like to see you in her room." + +Sophie was right. She is almost well. + +"Come!" was the sole word that met my entering in; then followed two +small acts, supposed to be conventionalities. Isn't it good that all +suppositions are _not_ based upon truth? I thought it good then. I hope +I may away on to the dawning of the new life. + +This was my first seeing of Miss Axtell in her self-light. She said,-- + +"This is the only day that I have been down in time for +breakfast,"--she, who looked as if the fair Dead-Sea fruits had been all +of sustenance that had dropped through the leaden waves for her; and +an emotion of awe swept past me, borne upon the renewal of the +consciousness that I had been made essential to her. + +"I knew that you would come," she continued. "Oh! I have great +confidence in you; you must never disappoint me,--will you?"--and, +playfully, she motioned me to the footstool where she had appointed me a +place on the first night when she told me of her mother, dead. + +I assured her that I should. I must begin that moment by mentioning the +time of my visit's duration. + +"How long?" and there was import in the tone of her voice. + +"I must be at home to-morrow morning." + +"No reprieve?" + +I answered, "None,"--and turned the circlet of obligation upon my +finger. + +"I am glad you told me; I like limits; I wish to know the precise moment +when my rainbows will disband. It's very nice, meeting Fate half-way; +there's consolation in knowing that it will have as far to go as you on +the return voyage." + +I smiled; a little inward ripple of gladness sent muscle-waves to my +lips. She noticed it, and her tone changed. + +"I see, I see, my good little Anemone! You don't know how exultant it +is to stand alone, above the forest of your fellows,--to lift up your +highest bough of feeling,--to meet the Northland's fiercest courser that +thinks to lay you low. Did you ever turn to see the expression with +which the last leap of wind is met, the peculiar suavity of the bowing +of the boughs, that says as plainly as ever did speaking leaves, '_You +have left me myself_'? You don't understand these things, you small +wind-flower, that have grown sheltered from all storms!" + +"One would think not, Miss Axtell, but"--and I paused until she bade me +"Go on." + +"Perhaps it is vanity,--I hope not,--but it seems to me that I have a +mirror of all Nature set into the frame of my soul. It isn't a part of +myself; it is a mental telescope, that resolves the actions of all the +people around me into myriads of motives, atomies of inducement, that I +see woven and webbed around them, by the sight-power given. Besides, I +am not an anemone,--oh, no! I am something more substantial." + +"I see, very"; and before I could divine her intent, she had lifted up +my face in both her hands and held my eyes in her own intensity of gaze, +as, oh, long ago! I remember my mother to have done, when she doubted my +perfect truth. + +Miss Axtell was engaged in looking over old treasured letters, bits of +memory-memoranda, when I arrived. She had laid them aside to greet me, +somewhat hastily, and a rustling commotion testified their feeling at +their summary disposal. Now she sat framed in by the yellow-and-white +foam, that had settled to motionlessness,--an island in the midst of +waves of memory. + +"Did you bring my treasures?" were the first words, after investigating +my truth. + +"They are safely here." + +I gave the package. + +She made no mention of former occurrences. She trusted me implicitly, +with that far-deep of confidence that says, "Explanation would be +useless; your spirit recognizes mine." She only said, drooping her regal +head with the slightest dip into motion,-- + +"I want to tell you a story; it is of people who are, some in heaven and +some upon the earth;--a story with which you must have something to do +for me, because I cannot do it for myself. I did not intend telling so +soon, but my disbanded rainbow lies in the future." + +Before commencing, she wandered up and down the room a little, stopped +before the dressing-bureau, brushed back the hair, with many repetitions +of stroke, from the temples wherein so much of worship had been +gathered, smoothed down the swollen arches of veinery that fretted +across either temple's dome, looked one moment into the censers of +incense that burned always with emotionary fires, flashed out a little +superabundant flame into the cold quicksilver, turned the key, fastening +our two selves in, examined the integrity of the latch leading into the +dressing-room beyond, threw up the window-sash,--the same one that Mr. +Axtell had lifted to look out into the night for her,--asked, "should I +be cold, if she left it open?" looked contentment at my negative answer, +rolled the lounge out to where her easy-chair was still vibrating in +memory of her late presence, made me its occupant, reached out for the +package over which I had been guardian, pinioned it between her two +beautiful hands, laid it down one moment to wrap a shawl around me, +then, resuming it, sat where she had when she said, "I want to tell you +a story," and perhaps she was praying. I may never know, but it was many +moments before she made answer to my slight touch, "Yes, child, I have +not forgotten," and with face hidden from me she told me her story. + + +MISS AXTELL'S STORY. + + +"Alice Axtell was my sister. Eighteen years ago last August-time she was +here. + +"There has been beauty in the Axtell race; in her it was radiant. It +would have been truth to say, 'She is beautiful.' + +"I said that it was August-time,--the twenty-seventh day of the month. +Alice and I had been out in the little bay outside of Redcliff beach, +with your sister. You don't remember her: she was like you. Doctor +Percival had given Mary a boat, taught her to row it, and she had that +afternoon given Alice a first lesson in the art. The day went down hot +and sultry; we lingered on the cooler beach until near evening. We +saw clouds lying dark along the western horizon, and that voiceless +lightnings played in them. Then we came home. The air was tiresome, the +walk seemed endless; still Alice and Mary lingered at the gate of your +father's house to say their last words. The mid-summer weariness was +over us both, as we reached home. We came up to this room,--our room +then. Alice said,-- + +"'I think I shall go to bed, I'm so tired.' + +"She closed the blinds. As she did so, a crash of thunder came. + +"'We're going to have a thunder-shower, after all,' she said; 'how +quickly it is coming up! Come and see.' + +"I looked a moment out. Jet masses of vapor were curling up amid the +stars, blotting out, one by one, their brightness from the sky. Alice +was always timid in thunder-storms. She shuddered, as a second flash +pealed out its thunder, and crept up to me. I put my arms around her, +and rested my cheek against her head. She was trembling violently. + +"'Lie down, Allie; let me close the other blinds; don't look out any +longer.' + +"Our mother came in. + +"'I came to see if the windows were all down,' she said; 'it will rain +in a moment'; and she hurried away, and I heard her closing, one after +another, the windows that had been all day open. + +"Alice lay for a long time quietly. The storm uprose with fearful might; +it shook the house in its passing grasp, and I sat by this table, +listening to the music wrought out of the thunderous echoes. + +"'Couldn't we have a window open?' Alice asked; 'I feel stifled in +here'; and she went across the room and lifted the sash before I was +aware. + +"I looked around, when I heard the noise. The same instant there came a +blinding, dazzling light; then, that awful vacuous rattle in the throat +of thunder that tells it comes in the name of Death the destroyer. + +"'Oh, Allie, come away!' I screamed. + +"In obedience to my wish, she leaned towards me; but, oh, her face! I +caught her, ere she fell, even. I sent out the wings of my voice, but no +one heard me, no one came. I could not lift her in my arms, so I laid +her upon the floor, and ran down. + +"'Go to Alice,--the lightning!' was all I could say, and it was enough. +I heard groans before I gained the street. + +"My pale, silent sister was stronger than the storm which flapped its +wings around me and threatened to take me to its eyry; but it did not; +it permitted me to gain Doctor Percival's door. I was dazzled with the +lightning, only my brain was distinct with 'its skeleton of woe,' when I +found myself in your father's house. + +"I could not see the faces that were there. I asked for Doctor Percival. +Some one answered, 'He is not come home. What has happened?' and Mary +ran forward in alarm. + +"'It is lightning! Oh, come!' was all that I could utter; and with me +there went out into the pouring rain every soul that was there when I +went in. + +"'She is dead; there is nothing to be done.' + +"Three hours after the stroke, these words came. Then I looked up. +Alice, with her little white face of perfect beauty, lay upon that bed. +Thunder-storms would never more make her tremble, never awake to fear +the spirit gone. It was Doctor Percival from whom these fateful words +came. I had had so much hope! In very desperation of feeling, I strove +to look up to his face. My eyes were arrested before they reached him. + +"'By what?' did you ask?" + +Her long silence had incited me to question, and she turned her face to +me, and slowly said,-- + +"By the Lightning of Life. + +"Two sisters, in one night,--one unto Death, the other unto Life. Beside +Doctor Percival was standing one. I do not know what he was like, I +cannot tell you; but, believe me, it is solemnly true, that, that +instant, this human being flashed into my heart and soul. I saw, and +felt, and have heard the rolling thunder that followed the flash to this +very hour. It was very hard, over my Alice. If I had only been she, how +much, how much happier it would have been!--and yet it must have been +wiser. She could not have endured to the end. She would have failed in +the bitterness of the trial. + +"My Alice! I am devoutly thankful that you are safe in heaven!"--and for +a moment the hands were lifted up from the treasured packet; they closed +over it, and she went on. + +"Alice was wrapped up in earth. In the moment when the first fold of the +clod-mantle, that trails about us all at the last, fell protectingly +over her, I was in that condition of superlative misery that cries out +for something to the very welkin that sends down such harsh hardness; +and I hurried my eyes out of the open grave, only to find them again +arrested by the same soul that had stood beside Doctor Percival and +Alice in her death. They said something to me, kinder than ever came out +of the blue vault, and yet they awoke the fever of resistance. I would +have no thought but that of Alice. What right had any other to come in +then and there? + +"September came. Its days brought my sorrow to me ever anew. The early +dew baptized it; the great sun laid his hot hand upon its brow and named +it Death, in the name of the Mighty God; and the evening stars looked +down on me, rocking Alice in my soul, and singing lamentful lullabies +to her, sleeping, till such time as Lethean vapors curled through the +horizon of my mind, and hid its formless shadows of suffering. + +"Mary Percival was Alice's best friend; as such, she came to comfort and +to mourn with me. One day, it was the latest of September's thirty, Mary +lured me on to the sea-shore, and into her small boat once more. Little +echoes of gladness sprang up from the sea; voices from Alice's silence +floated on the unbroken waves. + +"'You look a little like yourself again; I'm so glad to see it!' Mary +said. 'There comes Mr. McKey. I wonder what brings him here.' + +"I looked up, and saw, slowly walking on to the point at which Mary was +securing her boat, the possessor of the existence that had come into +mine. There was no way for me to flee, except seaward; and of two +suicides I chose the pleasanter, and I stayed. + +"'Who is it, Mary?' I had time to question, and she to answer. + +"'It is Bernard McKey; he has come to study medicine in papa's office; +he came the night Alice died.' + +"He was too near to permit of questioning more, and so I stood upon the +seashore and saw my fate coming close. + +"Mary simply said, 'Good evening,' to him, followed by the requisite +introductory words that form the basis of acquaintance. + +"'I think Miss Axtell and I scarcely need an introduction,' he said; +nevertheless he looked the pleasure it had strewed into his field, and +guarded it, as a careful husbandman would choicest seed. + +"He asked the style of question which monosyllables can never answer, to +which responding, one has to offer somewhat of herself; and all the +time of that sombre autumn, there grew from out the chasm of the +lightning-stroke luxuriant foliage. I gave it all the resistance of my +nature, yet I knew, as the consumptive knows, that I should be conquered +by my conqueror. It was only the old story of the captive polishing +chains to wear them away; and yet Mr. McKey was simply very civil and +intentionally kind, where he might have been courteously indifferent. +Abraham was away when Bernard McKey came to Redleaf. For more than +twelve months this terrible something had been working its power into +my soul. Yet we were not lovers,"--and Miss Axtell made the +_pronunciamiento_ as if she held the race mentioned in utmost +veneration. "Day by day brought to me new reasons why Bernard McKey must +be unto me only a medical student in Doctor Percival's office, and the +stars sealed all that the day had done; whilst no night of sky was +without a wandering comet, whereon was inscribed, in letters that +flashed every way, the sentence that came with the lightning-stroke; +even storms drowned it not; winter's cold did not freeze it. Verily, +little friend, _I know that God had put it into Creation for me, and yet +there seemed His own law written against it_"; and Miss Axtell's tones +grew very soft and tremulously low, as she said,-- + +"Mr. McKey had faults that could not, existing in action, make any woman +happy: do you think happiness was meant for woman?" + +She waited my answer in the same way that she had done when she was +ill and asked if I liked bitters concealed. She waited as long without +reply. The pause grew oppressive, and I spanned it by an assurance of +individual possessive happiness. + +"Anemones never know which way the wind blows, until it comes down close +to the ground," she said; "but souls which are on bleak mountain-summits +_must_ watch whirlwinds, poised in space, and note their airy march. So +I saw, clearly cut into the rock of the future, my own face, with all +the lines and carvings wrought into it that the life of Bernard McKey +would chisel out, and I only waited. I might have waited on forever, for +Mr. McKey had not cast one pebbly word that must send up wavy ripples +from deep spirit-waters; he only wandered, as any other might have +done, upon the shore of my life, along its quiet, dewy sands, above its +chalk-cliffs, and by the side of its green, sloping shores. He never +questioned why rose and fell the waves; he never went down where 'tide, +the moon-slave, sleeps,' to find the foundations of my heart's mainland. +I had only seen him standing at times, as one sees a person upon a +ship's deck, peering off over Earth's blue ocean-cheek, simply in mute, +solemn wonder at what may be beyond, without one wish to speed the ship +on. + +"It might have been forever thus, but Abraham came home. He is my +brother, you know. If he made me suffer, he has been made to suffer +with me. Bernard McKey was Doctor Percival's favorite. He made him his +friend, and was everything to him that friend could be. I cannot tell +you my story without mention of my brother, he has been so woven into +every part of it. An unaccountable fancy for the study of medicine +developed itself in his erratic nature soon after he came home; and he +relinquished his brilliant prospects and devoted himself to the little +white office near Doctor Percival's house, with Bernard McKey for his +hourly companion. The two had scarce a thought in common: one was +impulsive, prone to throw himself on the stream of circumstance, to waft +with the wind, and blossom with the spring; the other was the great +mountain-pine, distilling the same aroma in all atmospheres, extending +fibrous roots against Nature's granite, whenceever it comes up. How +could the two harmonize? They could not, and a time of trial came. We +knew, before it came, why Doctor Percival's little white office held +Abraham so many hours in the day. It was because the Mountain-Pine found +in the moss of Redleaf the sweet Trailing-Arbutus." + +She asked me if I knew the flower; and when I answered her with my words +of love of it, she said, "she had always thought it was one of Eden's +own bits of blossomry, that, missing man from the hallowed grounds, +crept out to know his fate, and, finding him so forlornly unblest, had +sacrificed its emerald leaves, left in the Garden, and, creeping into +mosses, lived, waiting for man's redemption. We used to call Mary +'The Arbutus,' and it was pleasant to see the great rough branches of +Abraham's nature drooping down, more and more, toward the pink-and-white +pale flower that looked into the sky, from a level as lofty as the +Pine's highest crown. Abraham goes out to search for the type of Mary +every spring"; and rising, she brought to me the waxen buds that were +yet unopened. + +I took them in my hands, with the same feeling that I would have done a +tress of Mary's hair, or a fragment that she had handled. I think Miss +Axtell divined this feeling; for she cautiously opened the door leading +into her brother's room, and finding that he was not there, she bade me +"come and see." It was Mary's portrait that once more I looked upon; +framed in a wreath of the trailing-arbutus, it was hanging just where he +could look at it at night, as I my strange tower-key. + +We went back. Miss Axtell closed the sash; she was looking weary and +pale. I was afraid she would suffer harm from the continued recital. She +said "No," to my fear,--that "it must all be spoken now, once, and that +forever,"--and I listened unto the story's end. + +"One year had passed since Alice's death before Abraham's coming. +Another had almost fled before the eventful time when I began to feel +the weight of my cross. I know not how it came to Abraham's knowledge +that Bernard McKey felt in his soul my presence. I only know that +he came home one night, with a storm of rage whitening his lips and +furrowing his forehead. He came up here, where I was sitting. I had +watched his figure coming through tree-openings from Doctor Percival's +house, and mingled with the memories of the fair young girl whom I had +seen dead by lightning were fears for Mary Percival. For several days +she had been ill, and I knew that Abraham felt anxious; therefore I did +not wonder at his hasty coming in and instant seeking of me. He came +quite close. He wound his face in between me and the darkening sky; he +whispered hoarsely,-- + +"'Do you care for him?' + +"'What is it, Abraham?' I asked, startled by his words and manner, but +with not the faintest idea of the meaning entering in with his words. + +"'Bernard McKey, is he anything to you?' + +"'You've no right to question me thus,' I said. + +"'And you will not answer me?' + +"'I will not, Abraham.' + +"The next morning Abraham was gone. He had not told me of his intended +absence. He had only left a note, stating the time of his return. + +"It was a week ere he came. Mary had not improved in his absence, yet no +one deemed her very ill. + +"I dreaded Abraham's coming home, because he had left me in silent +anger; but how could I have replied to his question otherwise than I +did? No one, not Mr. McKey himself, had asked me; and should I give him, +my brother, my answer first? + +"Lazily the village-clock swung out the hours that summer's afternoon. +The stroke of three awakened me. I had not seen Mary that day. + +"'I would go and see her,' I decided. + +"'She was sleeping, the dear child,' Chloe said. 'She would come and +tell me when she was awake, if I would wait.' + +"I said that I would stay awhile, and I wandered out under the shade of +the great whispering trees, to wait the waking hour. + +"I remember the events of that afternoon, as Mary and Martha must have +remembered the day on which Lazarus came up from the grave unto them. + +"The air was still, save a humming in the very tree-tops that must have +been only echoes tangled there, breezes that once blew past. The long +grape-arbor at the end of the lawn looked viny and cool. I walked up and +down under the green archway, until Chloe's words summoned me. + +"Mary was 'better,' she said; 'a few days, and she should feel quite +strong, she hoped'; but she looked weary, and I only waited a little +while, until her father and mother came in, and then I went. + +"Mr. McKey was sitting in the door of the little white office. He came +out to meet me ere I had reached the street,--asked if I was on my way +home. + +"I said 'Yes,' with the lazy sort of languor born of the indolence of +the hour. + +"'Have you energy enough for a walk to the sea-shore?' he asked. + +"It had been my wish that very day. I had not been there since Mary's +illness. I hesitated in giving an answer. Abraham would be home at +sunset. + +"'Don't go, if it is only to please me,' he said. + +"'I am going to please myself,' I answered; 'only I wish to be at home +on Abraham's coming.' + +"That afternoon, Bernard McKey for the first time told me of himself, +and what the two years in Redleaf had done for him. One month more, and +he should leave it. He put into words the memory of that first look +across the dead. He talked to me, until the sea lost its sunlight +sheen,--until I no longer heard its beat of incoming tide,--until I +forgot the hour for Abraham's coming. It was he who reminded me of it. +Once more we paced the sands, already sown with our many footsteps, +that the advancing waters would soon overwhelm. After that we went +village-ward. The gloaming had come down when we reached home. + +"'Abraham must have been an hour here,' I thought, as alone I went in. + +"He met me in the hall. + +"'Where have you been, Lettie?' was his greeting. + +"'On the sands.' + +"'Not alone?' + +"'No, Abraham; Bernard McKey has been with me.' + +"'By what right?' he demanded, with that mighty power of voice that is +laid up within him for especial occasions. + +"'By the right that I gave him, by the right that is his to walk with +me,' I said; for I grew defiant, and felt a renewal of strength, enough +to tell Abraham the truth. + +"Don't start so, Anemone," she said to me. "You think defiance +unwomanly, and so do I; but it was for once only, and I felt that my +brother had no right to question me. + +"But one word came from his lips, as he confronted me there, with folded +arms; it was,-- + +"'When?' + +"'This very afternoon, Abraham.' + +"Mother came out at the moment. She saw the cloud on Abraham's brow even +in the dim light. She asked, 'What is it?' and Abraham answered us both +at the same time. + +"He had been to the home of Bernard McKey. He proved to my mother's +utmost satisfaction that her daughter had no right to care for one like +Bernard McKey. He did not know the right that came on that night almost +two years before. He saw that his proofs were idle to me; but he said +'he had another, one that I would accept, for I was an Axtell.' + +"'Yes, Abraham, I am an Axtell, and I shall prove my right to the name, +come what will'; and without waiting to hear more, I glided into the +darkness up-stairs. + +"For a long time I heard mother and Abraham talking together; it seemed +as if they would never cease. At last, mother sent up to know if I was +not coming to take my tea. I had forgotten its absence till then. I went +down. A half-hour later, during which time a momentous mist of silence +hung over the house, I heard steps approaching. You know that it was +summer time, and the windows were all thrown open, after the heat of the +day. I had been wondering where every one was gone. I recognized both of +the comers, as their footsteps fell upon the walk, but I heard no words. +Oh, would there had been none to come! I heard Abraham go on up the +stairs, and knew that he was searching for me. I knew who had come in +with him, and I arose from my concealment in the unlighted library, and +went into the parlor. It was Mr. McKey who sat there. + +"'What is it?' I asked,--for a gnome of ill was walking up and down in +my brain, as we had walked on the sands so few hours before. + +"'What is it? I don't know,' he said. 'Your brother asked me to come +over for a few minutes.' + +"Evidently Abraham had not shown him one coal of the fire that burned +under his cool seeming. That is the way with these mountain pine-trees: +one never knows how deep into volcanic fires their roots are plunged. + +"'Something has happened,' I whispered. 'Whatever comes, bear it +bravely.' + +"He laughed, a low, rippling laugh, like the breaking up of ever so many +songs all at once; and the notes had not floated down to rest, when +mother and Abraham came in. Mr. McKey arose to greet my mother. She +stood proudly erect, her regal head unbending, her eyes straight on, +into an endless future, in which he must have no part,--that I saw. +Whatever he discerned there, he, too, stood before her and my brother. +Abraham handed me a letter, saying, 'Read that, for your proof.' + +"And I read. The letter bore the signature of Bernard McKey. The date +was the night of Alice's death. The words descriptive of the scene +chiselled into my brain were on that fair paper-surface; and there were +others, words which only one man may write to one woman. I read it on to +the end. + +"'You are right, Abraham,' I said, 'and I thank you for my proof'; and +without one word for the pale, handsome face that stood beseechingly +between me and the great future, through which I gazed, I went forth +alone into the starry night. Anywhere, to be alone with God, leaving +that trio of souls in there; and as I fled past the windows, I heard my +mother speak terrible words to one that was, yes, even then, myself. +Some angel must have come down the starry way to guide me; for, without +seeking it, without consciousness of whither I fled, I found myself near +the old church, where, from the day of my solemn baptism within its +walls, I had gone up to the weekly worship. I crept up close to the +door. In the shadow there no one would see me; and so, upon the hard +stones, I writhed through the anguish of the fire and iceberg that made +war in my heart. + +"Then came unto me the old inheritance, the gift of towering pride; and +I said unto myself, 'No one shall think I sorrow; no one shall know that +an Axtell has sipped from a poisoned cup; no one shall see a leaf of +myrtle in my garden of life'; and from off the friendly granite steps +that had received me in my hour of bitterness, I went back to my home. + +"What, could have happened there, that I had not been missed? Father was +absent from Redleaf. Bernard McKey was coming down the walk. I hid in +the shrubbery, and let him pass. Oh, would that I had spoken to him, +then, there! It would have saved so much misery on the round globe! + +"But I did not. I stood breathless until he entered Doctor Percival's +house; then I waited a moment to determine my own course; I wanted to +gain my room undiscovered. I saw the same figure come out; I knew it by +the light that the open door threw around it; and a moment later, in the +still air,--I knew the sound, it was the unlocking of the little white +office. Then I stole in, and fled to my refuge. No one had discovered my +absence. + +"The night went by. I did not sleep. I did not weep,--oh, no! it was not +a case for tears; there are some sorrows that cannot be counted out in +drops; a flood comes, a great freshet rises in the soul, and whirls +spirit, mind, and body on, on, until the Mighty Hand comes down and +lifts the poor wreck out of the flood, and dries it in the sun of His +absorption. + +"It was morning at last. Slowly up the ascent, to heights of glory, +walked the stars, waving toward earth, as they went, their wafting of +golden light, and sending messages of love to the dark, round world, +over which they had kept such solemn watch,--sending them down, borne +by rays of early morning; and still I sat beside the window, where all +through the night I had suffered. My mother and Abraham had sought to +see me, but I had answered, with calm words, that I chose to be alone; +and they had left me there, and gone to their nightly rest." + +Miss Axtell hid her face a little while; then, lifting it up, she went +to the window so often mentioned, beckoned me thither, pointed to the +house where my life had commenced, to a door opening out on the eastern +side, and said,-- + +"I wish you to look at that door one moment; out of it came my doom that +midsummer's morning. Light had just gained ascendency over darkness, +when I saw Chloe come out. I knew instantly that something had happened +there. The poor creature crept out of the house,--I saw her go,--and +kneeling down behind that great maple-tree, she lifted up her arms to +heaven, and I heard, or thought I heard her, moaning. Then, whilst I +watched, she got up, looked over at our house, from window to window; +once more she raised her hands, as if invoking some power for help, and +went in. + +"I brushed back the hair that my fingers had idly threaded in unrest, +looked one moment, in the dim twilight of morning, to see what changes +my war-fare had wrought, then, cautiously, breathlessly, for fear of +awakening some one, I went out. The night-dew lay heavy on the lawn. I +heeded it not. I knew that trouble had come to Doctor Percival's house. +I went to the door that Chloe had opened. No one seemed awake; deep +stillness brooded over and in the dwelling. Could I have been mistaken? +Whilst I stood in doubt whether to go or stay, there came a long, +sobbing moan, that peopled the dwelling with woe. + +"It came from Mary's room. Thither I went. There stood Doctor and Mrs. +Percival beside Mary, and she--was dead. + +"I shudder now, as I did then, though eighteen years have rolled their +wheels of misery between,--shudder, as I look in memory into that room +again, and see your father standing in the awful grief that has no +voice, see your mother lifting up her words of moaning, up where I so +late had watched the feet of stars walking into heaven. I don't know how +long it was, I had lost the noting of time, but I remember growing into +rigidness. I remember Bernard McKey's wild, wretched face in the room; I +remember hearing him ask if it was all over. I remember Abraham's coming +in; I _felt_, when through his life the east-wind went, withering it up +within him. I do not know how I went home. I asked no questions. Mary +was dead; she had gone whither Alice went. It seemed little consolation +to me to ask when or how she died. + +"Father came home that day. Mother forgot me for Abraham: love of him +was her life. Father did not know, no one had told him, the events of +the night before; he thought me sorrowing for Mary, and so I was; my +grief seemed weak and small before this reality of sorrow. + +"It was late in the day, and I was trying to get some sleep, when Chloe +sent a request to see me. I had not seen her since I knew why she had +hid her suffering behind the tree in the morning. I saw that she had +something to say beside telling me of Mary; for she looked cautiously +around the room, as if fearing other ears might be there to hear. + +"'Oh! oh! Miss Lettie,' she said, 'I stayed with Miss Mary last night. I +must have gone to sleep when she went away; but I'm afraid, I'm afraid +it wasn't the sickness that killed her.' + +"'What then? what was it, Chloe?' I asked, whilst the tears fell fast +from her eyes. + +"'Doctor Percival gave her some medicine just afore he went to bed, +and she said she was "very sick"; she said so a good many times, Miss +Lettie, afore I went to sleep.' + +"'You don't think it was the medicine that killed her?'--for a horrible +thought had come in to me. + +"'I hope not, but I'm afraid'; and with a still lower, whispering tone, +and another frightened look about the room, Chloe took from under her +shawl a small cup. She held it up close to me, and her voice penetrated +with its meaning all the folds of my thought,--'Chloe's afraid Miss Mary +drank her death in here.' + +"'Give it to me,' I said; and I snatched at the cup. Catching it from +her, I looked into it. The draught had been taken; the sediment only lay +dried upon it. + +"'You think so, Chloe? How could it have been? You say Doctor Percival +gave it to her?' + +"She said that 'Mr. Abraham had been in to see her a little while,--only +a few moments. Something was the matter with him. Miss Mary talked, +just a few words; what they were she did not hear,--she was in the next +room,--only, when he went away, she heard her say, "Don't do it; you may +be wrong, and then you'll be sorry as long as you live"; and then +Mr. Abraham shut the door heavy-like and was gone. Afterwards Doctor +Percival came up,--said Miss Mary must sleep, she had more fever; asked +her so many kind questions, and was just going down to go to the office +for something to give her, when he met Master McKey coming in. I heard +my master ask him to go for it. And I doesn't know anything more, Miss +Lettie. I came to tell you.' + +"I asked her 'if she had told any one else? if any one had seen the +cup?' + +"She said, 'No'; and I made her promise me that she would never mention +it, never speak of it to any living soul. + +"She promised, and she has kept her promise faithfully to this day." + +I thought, at this pause in the story, of Chloe's hiding chloroform from +me. + +"I had myself seen Bernard McKey go out to the office that night. Had +he given poison to Mary Percival? And with the question the hot answer +came, 'Never!--he did not do it!' + +"Chloe went, leaving the cup with me. + +"I knew that I must see Bernard. How? The household were absorbed in +Abraham. His condition perilled his reason. Doctor Percival came over +every hour to see him, and I was sure that his hair whitened from time +to time. It was terrible to hear Abraham declaring that he had killed +Mary,--that he might have granted her request. And as often as his eyes +fell upon me, his words changed to, 'It was for you that I did it,--for +my sister!' And whilst all sorrowed and watched him, I sought my +opportunity. 'It would never come to me,' I thought, 'I must go to it'; +and under cover of looking upon the face of Mary, I went out to seek +Bernard. + +"We met before I reached the house; we should have passed in silence, +had I not spoken. It was the same hour as that in which we had come from +the sands the night before. What a horrible lifetime had intervened! I +said that 'I had some words for him.' He stood still in the air that +throbbed in waves over me. He was speechlessly calm just then. + +"'I expected no words after my judgment,' at length he said,--for I knew +not how to open my terrible theme; 'will you tell me on what evidence +you judge?' + +"What a trifle then seemed any merely human love in the presence of +Death! I was almost angry that he should once think of it. + +"'It is something of more importance than the human affection with which +you play,' I said. 'It is a life, the life of Mary Percival, that last +night went out,--and how? Was it by this cup?'--and I handed the cup to +him. + +"He looked simple amazement, as he would have done, had it been a rock +or flower; he did not offer to take it,--still I held it out. + +"'Will you examine the contents,' I asked, 'and report to me the +result?' + +"'Certainly I will, Miss Axtell,' he said; and with it he walked to the +office. + +"I watched him through the window. I saw him coolly apply various tests. +The third one seemed satisfactory. + +"He came to the door. I was very near, and went in + +"'This is nothing Miss Mary had,--it is poison,' he said. + +"He was innocent; I knew it in the very depth of my soul. How could I +tell him the deed his hand had done? But I must, and I did. I told him +how Chloe had brought the cup to me. When I had done, he said,-- + +"'You believe this of me?' + +"I answered,-- + +"'The cup is now in your hand; judge you of its work'; and I told him +how I had seen him come out the night before,--that I was in the +shrubbery when he went to the office. + +"The words of his answer came; they were iron in my heart, though spoken +not to me. + +"'O my God, why hast Thou let me do this?' he cried, and went past me +out of the little white office,--out, as I had done, into the open air, +in my sorrow, the night before. + +"I would not lose sight of him; I followed on; and, as I went, I thought +I heard a rustling in the leaves. A momentary horror swept past me, lest +some one had been watching,--listening, perhaps,--but I did not pause. +I must know how, where, Bernard would hide his misery. It was not quite +dark; I could not run through the night, as I had done before; I must +follow on at a respectable pace, stop to greet the village-people who +were come out in the cool of the evening, and all the while keep in view +that figure, hastening, for what I knew not, but on to the sands, whilst +those whom I met stayed me to ask how Mary Percival died. I passed the +last of the village-houses. There was nothing before me now but Nature +and this unhappy soul. I lost sight of him; I came to the sands; I saw +only long, low flats stretching far out,--beyond them the line of foam. +The moon was not yet gone; but its crescent momently lessened its light. +I went up and down the shore two or three times, going on a little +farther each time, meeting nothing,--nothing but the fear that stood on +the sands before me, whichever way I turned. It bent down from the sky +to tell me of its presence; it came surging up behind me; and one awful +word was on its face and in its voice. I remember shutting my eyes to +keep it out; I remember putting my fingers into my ears to still its +voice. I was so helpless, so alone to do, so threadless of action, +that--_I prayed_. + +"People pray in this world from so many causes,--it matters not what +or how; the hour for prayer comes into every life at some time of its +earthly course, whether softly falling and refreshing as the early rain, +or by the north-wind's icy path. Mine came then, on the sands; my spirit +went out of my mortality unto God for help,--solely because that which I +wanted was not in me, not in all the earth. + +"I stooped down to see if the figure I sought was outlined on the rim of +sky that brightened at the sea's edge: it was not there, not seaward. +I tried to call: the air refused the weight of my voice; it went no +farther than the lips, out of which it quivered and fell: I could not +call. I took the dark tide-mark for my guide, and began searching +landward. I went a little way, then stopped to look and listen: no +sight, no sound. The long sedge-grass gave rustling sighs of motion, as +I passed near, and disturbed the air for a moment. A night-bird uttered +its cry out of the tall reeds. The moon went down. The tide began to +come in; with it came up the wind. The memory of Alice, of Mary, walked +with and did not leave me, until I gained the little cove wherein Mary's +boat lay secure. The tide had not reached it. Mary's boat! I remember +thinking--a mere drop of thought it was, as I hurried on, but it held +all the animalcules of emotion that round out a lifetime--that Mary +never more would come to unloose the bound boat, never more in it go +forth to meet the joys that wander in from unknown shores. I saw the +boat lying dark along the water's edge. 'I would run down a moment,' I +thought, 'run down to speak a word of comfort, as if it were a living +thing.' + +"Mary's boat was not alone; it had a companion. I thought it was +Bernard. I drew near and spoke his name. Doctor Percival answered me. +I do not think that he recognized my voice. He turned around with a +startled movement, for I was quite close, and asked, 'Who is it?' + +"I did not answer. I turned and fled away into the darkness, across the +sands, that answer no footsteps with echoes. It was a comfort to feel +that he was out there, between me and the boundless space of sea. + +"When I draw near the confines of Hereafter's shore, I think I shall +feel the same kind of comfort, if some soul that I knew has gone out +just before me; it will cape the boundary-line of 'all-aloneness.'" + +Miss Axtell must have forgotten that she was talking to me, as she +retraced her steps and thoughts of that night, for, with this thought, +she seemed to "wander out into silence." + +Katie brought her back by coming up to say that "Mr. Abraham was waiting +to know if she would go out a little while, it was so fine." + +Miss Axtell said that "she would not go,--she would wait." + +Katie went to carry the message. Miss Axtell wandered a little. Between +her words and memories I picked up the thread for her, and she went on +before me. + +"I took the direction of the village-pier, when I fled from Doctor +Percival. An unusual number of boats had come in. I heard noises amid +the shipping. At any other time I should have avoided the place. Now I +drew near. + +"Two men were slowly walking down the way. I heard one of them ask, 'Do +you know who it is?' + +"The other replied, 'No, I never saw him before; we had better watch +him; he went on in a desperate way. I've seen it before, and it ended +in'---- + +"He did not finish, although I was thirsting for the words; they both +seemed arrested suddenly, then started on, and I watched whither they +went. + +"There was now no light, save that of the stars. I could scarcely keep +them in sight. I went nearer,--hid myself behind one of the posts on the +pier. They had gone upon one of the boats,--that which lay farthest down +the stream. It was Bernard that they watched. I found him with my eyes +before they reached where he stood. A boy came singing from his daily +work; he passed close beside me, and, as he went, he beat upon the post +with a boat's oar. I waited until I could come from my hiding-place +without his seeing; then I went after him. I sent him for 'the gentleman +that had gone down there,' telling him to say that 'a lady wished to see +him.' + +"Bernard came. I told him that I had been searching for him on the +sands,--that I wanted to talk to him; and he and I walked on again, +village-ward, as we had done on the last night. It was very hard to +begin, to open the cruel theme,--to say to this person, who walked with +folded arms, and eyes that I knew had no external sight, what I thought; +but I must. When I had said all that I would have said to any other +human soul, under like darkness, he lighted up the night of his sin with +strange fires. He poured upon his family's past the light hereditary. +Abraham had been true in his statements. Bernard McKey was not +well-born. He told me this: that his father had been a destroyer of +life; that God had been his Judge, and had now set the seal of the +father's sin into the son's heart. Oh, it was fearful, this tide of +agony with which that soul was overwhelmed! He pictured his deed. +Abraham had found out the crime of his father, had cruelly sent it home +on his own head, had said that a murderer's son could never find rest in +the family of Axtell, had sent him forth, with hatred in his heart, to +work out in shadow the very deed his father had wrought in substance, to +destroy Mary Percival, the child of his best friend, and to strike from +off the earth Abraham's arch of light. It was wonderful: a chance, a +change, had killed Mary. + +"Doctor Percival had that very afternoon, while we were gone, wrought +changes in the little white office; hence the fatal mistake. Bernard had +gone in, taken up a bottle from the very place where the article wanted +had stood for two years, poured its contents into the cup, carried it +in, and no hand stayed him. He was too blinded by suffering to see for +himself. Doctor Percival's hand gave the draught, and Mary was dead. +What should be done? + +"'What shall I do? What would you have me to do?' asked Bernard. + +"We were come to the church on our way. I stayed my steps, and thought +of the letter that Abraham had given me; it came up for the first time +since I knew of Mary's death. But I did not allude to it. I could not +acknowledge, even to him, that I knew another had received the words +that should have been spoken only to me; and sincerely I told him that +he must go away, at once and for always,--that the deed his hand had +unknowingly done must be borne in swift, solemn current through his +life,--that he must live beside it until it reached the ocean to come: +it could do no good to reveal it; it could arouse only new misery; it +seemed better that it should be written on marble and in memory that +'God took her.' + +"He took up the silence that came after my words, and filled it with an +echoing question:-- + +"'If I go out, and bear this deed, as you say bear it, in silence and in +suffering, will you,--you, to whom God has given a good inheritance, who +know not the rush and roar of any evil in your soul, whose spring rises +far back in ancestral natures,--will you stand between me and all this +that I must bear? Will you be my rock, set here, in this village? May I +come back at times, and tell you how I endure? If you will promise me +this, I will go.' + +"Why should he come to me? why not to the other one, to whom he told of +Alice's death two years ago? He did not know that pride was the ever +vernal sin of _my_ race, that I had it to battle with. But I conquered, +and promised I would help him, since it was all I had to do. A few more +words were spoken; he was to write to me when he would come; and we +parted, there, at the old church-door,--he promising to live, to try and +make atonement for his sin,--I to hold his deed in keeping, alone of all +the world, save Chloe, and in her I had trust. I did not see him again: +he left the following day. + +"You remember that I heard a rustling in the shrubbery, when Bernard +fled from the office. It was my mother, watching me. She had seen and +heard sufficient to convince her of what had been done. Mothers are +endowed with wonderful intuitive perception. Abraham had been her one +love from his childhood. Now came a strife in her nature. Bernard McKey +had wronged Abraham, had taken the light out of his life, and a great +longing for his punishment came up. How should it be effected? She +believed that open judgment would awaken resistance in me,--that I would +stand beside him then, in the face of all the world, and recompense him +for his punishment,--I, an Axtell, her daughter. So she came to me with +a compromise. She told me that she had heard what had been said,--that +she knew the deed, had seen the cup,--that Abraham, knowing the act, +would never forgive it, though done, as she acknowledged, in error; +and she, my mother, to save the family, made conditions. Her knowledge +should remain hers only, if Bernard McKey should remain such as he now +was to me,--never to be more. + +"'An easy condition,' I thought, 'since the letter Abraham gave'; and I +said the two words to my mother,-- + +"'I promise.' + +"'My daughter,' was her only answer; and she touched her child's +forehead with two burning lips, and went away to watch Abraham through +the night,--watch him tread the dark way, without Mary. + +"Where now was the Mountain-Pine? higher than the Arbutus? + +"Our mother had her trial. When she heard Abraham reproaching himself +with having brought on a return of fever by refusing Mary's wish, of +having been the means of her death, I know her heart ached to say, 'It +was not you, Abraham, it was Bernard McKey who killed her.' But no, she +did not; family pride towered above affection, and she was true to her +promise, true to the last. She died with the secret hers. + +"Bernard McKey's absence was much wondered at, although it began only +one month earlier than the appointed time. Doctor Percival mourned his +going as if he had been his son; he spoke to me of it. Mary was buried. +I remember your little face on her burial-day; it was bright, and +unconscious of the sad scene"; and Miss Axtell now sought to look into +it, but it was not to be seen. I think she must have forgotten, at +times, that it was to Mary's sister that she was telling her story. She +waited a little, until I asked her to "tell me more." + +"The face of that Autumn grew rosy, wrinkled, and died upon Winter's +snowy bed; and yet I lived, and Abraham, and Bernard McKey perhaps,--I +knew not. The year was nearly gone since Mary died, and no ray of +knowledge had come from him. Every day I re-read those words written to +some fair woman-soul, until after so many readings they began to take +root in my heart. I found it out one day, and I began vigorously to tear +them up. It was on the evening of the same day that Abraham came home: +he had been away for several weeks. He left, with intentional seeming, a +paper where I should see it; he had read with almost careless eyes what +mine fell upon, for he believed that Bernard McKey was forgotten by me; +he had kindly forborne to mention his name, since that one night wherein +all our misery grew. I found there what I believed to be his death: +the name and age were his own; the place was nothing,--_he_ might be +anywhere. My mother saw it, and a gladness, yes, a gladness came into +her face: I watched its coming up. She thought she might now tell +Abraham; but no, I held her to the promise. It had but two conditions: +mine was to be perpetual; hers must be so. + +"After that I grew pitiful for the poor heart that must have been made +sorrowful by these words that never more would come into it, and so I +picked up the trembling little roots that had been cast out, put them +back into the warm soil, and let them grow: they might join hers now, +for together they could twine around immortal bowers; and, as they grew, +a great longing came up to go out and find this woman-soul who had drawn +out such words from lips sealed forever. But no chance happened: no one +came to our quiet village from the remote town in which she was when +these words, that now were become mine, were penned." + + + + +MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." + + +In the dead of the night which closed upon the bloody field of Antietam, +my household was startled from its slumbers by the loud summons of a +telegraphic messenger. The air had been heavy all day with rumors of +battle, and thousands and tens of thousands had walked the streets with +throbbing hearts, in dread anticipation of the tidings any hour might +bring. + +We rose hastily, and presently the messenger was admitted. I took the +envelope from his hand, opened it, and read:-- + +Hagerstown 17th + +To---- H---- + +Capt. H---- wounded shot through the neck thought not mortal at +Keedysville + +WILLIAM G LEDUC + +_Through_ the neck,--no bullet left in wound. Windpipe, food-pipe, +carotid, jugular, half a dozen smaller, but still formidable, vessels, a +great braid of nerves, each as big as a lamp-wick, spinal cord,--ought +to kill at once, if at all. _Thought not_ mortal, or _not thought_ +mortal,--which was it? The first; that is better than the second would +be.--"Keedysville, a post-office, Washington Co., Maryland." Leduc? +Leduc? Don't remember that name.--The boy is waiting for his money. A +dollar and thirteen cents. Has nobody got thirteen cents? Don't keep +that boy waiting,--how do we know what messages he has got to carry? + +The boy _had_ another message to carry. It was to the father of +Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder Dwight, informing him that his son was +grievously wounded in the same battle, and was lying at Boonsborough, +a town a few miles this side of Keedysville. This I learned the +next morning from the civil and attentive officials at the Central +Telegraph-Office. + +Calling upon this gentleman, I found that he meant to leave in the +quarter past two o'clock train, taking with him Dr. George H. Gay, an +accomplished and energetic surgeon, equal to any difficult question or +pressing emergency. I agreed to accompany them, and we met in the cars. +I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in having companions whose society +would be a pleasure, whose feelings would harmonize with my own, and +whose assistance I might, in case of need, be glad to claim. + +It is of the journey which we began together, and which I finished +apart, that I mean to give my "Atlantic" readers an account. They must +let me tell my story in my own way, speaking of many little matters that +interested or amused me, and which a certain leisurely class of elderly +persons, who sit at their firesides and never travel, will, I hope, +follow with a kind of interest. For, besides the main object of my +excursion, I could not help being excited by the incidental sights +and occurrences of a trip which to a commercial traveller or a +newspaper-reporter would seem quite commonplace and undeserving of +record. There are periods in which all places and people seem to be in +a conspiracy to impress us with their individuality,--in which every +ordinary locality seems to assume a special significance and to claim +a particular notice,--in which every person we meet is either an old +acquaintance or a character; days in which the strangest coincidences +are continually happening, so that they get to be the rule, and not the +exception. Some might naturally think that anxiety and the weariness of +a prolonged search after a near relative would have prevented my taking +any interest in or paying any regard to the little matters around me. +Perhaps it had just the contrary effect, and acted like a diffused +stimulus upon the attention. When all the faculties are wide-awake +in pursuit of a single object, or fixed in the spasm of an absorbing +emotion, they are often-times clairvoyant in a marvellous degree in +respect to many collateral things, as Wordsworth has so forcibly +illustrated in his sonnet on the Boy of Windermere, and as Hawthorne +has developed with such metaphysical accuracy in that chapter of his +wondrous story where Hester walks forth to meet her punishment. + +Be that as it may,--though I set out with a full and heavy heart, though +many times my blood chilled with what were perhaps needless and unwise +fears, though I broke through all my habits without thinking about them, +which is almost as hard in certain circumstances as for one of our young +fellows to leave his sweet-heart and go into a Peninsular campaign, +though I did not always know when I was hungry nor discover that I was +thirsting, though I had a worrying ache and inward tremor underlying all +the outward play of the senses and the mind, yet it is the simple truth +that I did look out of the car-windows with an eye for all that passed, +that I did take cognizance of strange sights and singular people, that I +did act much as persons act from the ordinary promptings of curiosity, +and from time to time even laugh very nearly as those do who are +attacked with a convulsive sense of the ridiculous, the epilepsy of the +diaphragm. + +By a mutual compact, we talked little in the cars. A communicative +friend is the greatest nuisance to have at one's side during a +railroad-journey, especially if his conversation is stimulating and in. +itself agreeable. "A fast train and a 'slow' neighbor," is my motto. +Many times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized +into an hour or two of blissful reverie, my thoughts shaken up by the +vibrations into all sorts of new and pleasing patterns, arranging +themselves in curves and nodal points, like the grains of sand in +Chladni's famous experiment,--fresh ideas coming up to the surface, +as the kernels do when a measure of corn is jolted in a farmer's +wagon,--all this without volition, the mechanical impulse alone keeping +the thoughts in motion, as the mere act of carrying certain watches in +the pocket keeps them wound up,--many times, I say, just as my brain was +beginning to creep and hum with this delicious locomotive intoxication, +some dear detestable friend, cordial, intelligent, social, radiant, has +come up and sat down by me and opened a conversation which has broken +my day-dream, unharnessed the flying horses that were whirling along +my fancies and hitched on the old weary omnibus-team of every-day +associations, fatigued my hearing and attention, exhausted my voice, and +milked the breasts of my thought dry during the hour when they should +have been filling themselves full of fresh juices. My friends spared me +this trial. + +So, then, I sat by the window and enjoyed the slight tipsiness +produced by short, limited, rapid oscillations, which I take to be the +exhilarating stage of that condition which reaches hopeless inebriety +in what we know as sea-sickness. Where the horizon opened widely, it +pleased me to watch the curious effect of the rapid movement of near +objects contrasted with the slow motion of distant ones. Looking from +a right-hand window, for instance, the fences close by glide swiftly +backward, or to the right, while the distant hills not only do not +appear to move backward, but look by contrast with the fences near at +hand as if they were moving forward, or to the left; and thus the whole +landscape becomes a mighty wheel revolving about an imaginary axis +somewhere in the middle-distance. + +My companions proposed to stay at one of the best-known and +longest-established of the New-York caravansaries, and I accompanied +them. We were particularly well lodged, and not uncivilly treated. The +traveller who supposes that he is to repeat the melancholy experience of +Shenstone, and have to sigh over the reflection that he has found "his +warmest welcome at an inn," has something to learn at the offices of +the great city-hotels. The unheralded guest who is honored by mere +indifference may think himself blest with singular good-fortune. + +If the despot of the Patent Annunciator is only mildly contemptuous in +his manner, let the victim look upon it as a personal favor. The coldest +welcome that a threadbare curate ever got at the door of a bishop's +palace, the most icy reception that a country-cousin ever received +at the city-mansion of a mushroom millionnaire, is agreeably tepid, +compared to that which the Rhadamanthus who dooms you to the more or +less elevated circle of his inverted Inferno vouchsafes, as you step up +to enter your name on his dog's-eared register. I have less hesitation +in unburdening myself of this uncomfortable statement, as on this +particular trip I met with more than one exception to the rule. +Officials become brutalized, I suppose, as a matter of course. One +cannot expect an office-clerk to embrace tenderly every stranger who +comes in with a carpet-bag, or a telegraph-operator to burst into tears +over every unpleasant message he receives for transmission. Still, +humanity is not always totally extinguished in these persons. I +discovered a youth in the telegraph-office of the Continental Hotel, in +Philadelphia, who was as pleasant in conversation, and as graciously +responsive to inoffensive questions, as if I had been his childless +opulent uncle, and my will not made. + +On the road again the next morning, over the ferry, into the cars with +sliding panels and fixed windows, so that in summer the whole side of +the car may be made transparent. New Jersey is, to the apprehension of a +traveller, a double-headed suburb rather than a State. Its dull red dust +looks like the dried and powdered mud of a battle-field. Peach-trees are +common, and champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, drawn by mules, swim by, +feeling their way along like blind men led by dogs. I had a mighty +passion come over me to be the captain of one,--to glide back and +forward upon a sea never roughened by storms,--to float where I could +not sink,--to navigate where there is no shipwreck,--to lie languidly +on the deck and govern the huge craft by a word or the movement of a +finger: there was something of railroad intoxication in the fancy, but +who has not often envied a cobbler in his stall? + +The boys cry the "N'-York _Heddle_," instead of "Herald"; I remember +that years ago in Philadelphia; we must be getting near the farther end +of the dumb-bell suburb. A bridge has been swept away by a rise of the +waters, so we must approach Philadelphia by the river. Her physiognomy +is not distinguished; _nez camus_, as a Frenchman would say; no +illustrious steeple, no imposing tower; the water-edge of the town +looking bedraggled, like the flounce of a vulgar rich woman's dress that +trails on the sidewalk. The New Ironsides lies at one of the wharves, +elephantine in bulk and color, her sides narrowing as they rise, like +the walls of a hock-glass. + +I went straight to the house in Walnut Street where the Captain would be +heard of, if anywhere in this region. His lieutenant-colonel was there, +gravely wounded; his college-friend and comrade in arms, a son of the +house, was there, injured in a similar way; another soldier, brother +of the last, was there, prostrate with fever. A fourth bed was waiting +ready for the Captain, but not one word had been heard of him, though +inquiries had been made in the towns from and through which the father +had brought his two sons and the lieutenant-colonel. And so my search +is, like a "Ledger" story, to be continued. + +I rejoined my companions in time to take the noon-train for Baltimore. +Our company was gaining in number as it moved onwards. We had found upon +the train from New York a lovely, lonely lady, the wife of one of our +most spirited Massachusetts officers, the brave Colonel of the ----th +Regiment, going to seek her wounded husband at Middletown, a place lying +directly in our track. She was the light of our party while we were +together on our pilgrimage, a fair, gracious woman, gentle, but +courageous, + + --"ful plesant and amiable of port, + --estatelich of manere, + And to ben holden digne of reverence." + +On the road from Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party +Dr. William Hunt, of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully +attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at +Ball's Bluff, which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an +errand of mercy to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book +the name of our lady-companion's husband, who had been commended to his +particular attention. + +Not long after leaving Philadelphia, we passed a solitary sentry keeping +guard over a short railroad-bridge. It was the first evidence that we +were approaching the perilous borders, the marches where the North and +the South mingle their angry hosts, where the extremes of our so-called +civilization meet in conflict, and the fierce slave-driver of the Lower +Mississippi stares into the stern eyes of the forest-feller from the +banks of the Aroostook. All the way along, the bridges were guarded more +or less strongly. In a vast country like ours, communications play a far +more complex part than in Europe, where the whole territory available +for strategic purposes is so comparatively limited. Belgium, for +instance, has long been the bowling-alley where kings roll cannon-balls +at each other's armies; but here we are playing the game of live +ninepins _without any alley_. + +We were obliged to stay in Baltimore over-night, as we were too late for +the train to Frederick. At the Eutaw House, where we found both comfort +and courtesy, we met a number of friends, who beguiled the evening hours +for us in the most agreeable manner. We devoted some time to procuring +surgical and other articles, such as might be useful to our friends, or +to others, if our friends should not need them. In the morning, I found +myself seated at the breakfast-table next to General Wool. It did not +surprise me to find the General very far from expansive. With Fort +McHenry on his shoulders and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, and the +weight of a military department loading down his social safety-valves, I +thought it a great deal for an officer in his trying position to select +so very obliging and affable an aid as the gentleman who relieved him of +the burden of attending to strangers. + +We left the Eutaw House, to take the cars for Frederick. As we stood +waiting on the platform, a telegraphic message was handed in silence to +my companion. Sad news: the lifeless body of the son he was hastening +to see was even now on its way to him in Baltimore. It was no time for +empty words of consolation: I knew what he had lost, and that now was +not the time to intrude upon a grief borne as men bear it, felt as women +feel it. + +Colonel Wilder Dwight was first made known to me as the friend of a +beloved relative of my own, who was with him during a severe illness in +Switzerland, and for whom while living, and for whose memory when dead, +he retained the warmest affection. Since that, the story of his noble +deeds of daring, of his capture and escape, and a brief visit home +before he was able to rejoin his regiment, had made his name familiar to +many among us, myself among the number. His memory has been honored by +those who had the largest opportunity of knowing his rare promise, as a +man of talents and energy of nature. His abounding vitality must have +produced its impression on all who met him; there was a still fire about +him which any one could see would blaze up to melt all difficulties and +recast obstacles into implements in the mould of an heroic will. These +elements of his character many had the chance of knowing; but I shall +always associate him with the memory of that pure and noble friendship +which made me feel that I knew him before I looked upon his face, and +added a personal tenderness to the sense of loss which I share with the +whole community. + +Here, then, I parted, sorrowfully, from the companions with whom I set +out on my journey. + +In one of the cars, at the same station, we met General Shriver, of +Frederick, a most loyal Unionist, whose name is synonymous with a hearty +welcome to all whom he can aid by his counsel and his hospitality. He +took great pains to give us all the information we needed, and expressed +the hope, which was afterwards fulfilled, to the great gratification +of some of us, that we should meet again, when he should return to his +home. + +There was nothing worthy of special note in the trip to Frederick, +except our passing a squad of Rebel prisoners, whom I missed seeing, as +they flashed by, but who were said to be a most forlorn-looking crowd of +scarecrows. Arrived at the Monocacy River, about three miles this side +of Frederick, we came to a halt, for the railroad-bridge had been blown +up by the Rebels, and its iron pillars and arches were lying in the bed +of the river. The unfortunate wretch who fired the train was killed by +the explosion, and lay buried hard by, his hands sticking out of the +shallow grave into which he had been huddled. This was the story they +told us, but whether true or no I must leave to the correspondents of +"Notes and Queries" to settle. + +There was a great confusion of carriages and wagons at the +stopping-place of the train, so that it was a long time before I could +get anything that would carry us. At last I was lucky enough to light on +a sturdy wagon, drawn by a pair of serviceable bays, and driven by +James Grayden, with whom I was destined to have a somewhat continued +acquaintance. We took up a little girl who had been in Baltimore during +the late Rebel inroad. It made me think of the time when my own mother, +at that time six years old, was hurried off from Boston, then occupied +by the British soldiers, to Newburyport, and heard the people saying +that "the red-coats were coming, killing and murdering everybody as they +went along." Frederick looked cheerful for a place that had so recently +been in an enemy's hands. Here and there a house or shop was shut up, +but the national colors were waving in all directions, and the general +aspect was peaceful and contented. I saw no bullet-marks or other sign +of the fighting which had gone on in the streets. My lady-companion was +taken in charge by a daughter of that hospitable family to which we +had been commended by its head, and I proceeded to inquire for wounded +officers at the various temporary hospitals. + +At the United States Hotel, where many were lying, I heard mention of an +officer in an upper chamber, and, going there, found Lieutenant Abbott, +of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers, lying ill with what looked +like typhoid fever. While there, who should come in but the ubiquitous +Lieutenant Wilkins, of the same Twentieth, often confounded with his +namesake who visited the Flying Island, and with some reason, for he +must have a pair of wings under his military upper garment, or he could +never be in so many places at once. He was going to Boston in charge of +the lamented Dr. Revere's body. From his lips I learned something of the +mishaps of the regiment. My Captain's wound he spoke of as less grave +than at first thought; but he mentioned incidentally having heard +a story recently that he was _killed_,--a fiction, doubtless,--a +mistake,--a palpable absurdity,--not to be remembered or made any +account of. Oh, no! but what dull ache is this in that obscurely +sensitive region, somewhere below the heart, where the nervous centre +called the _semilunar ganglion_ lies unconscious of itself until a great +grief or a mastering anxiety reaches it through all the non-conductors +which isolate it from ordinary impressions? I talked awhile with +Lieutenant Abbott, who lay prostrate, feeble, but soldier-like and +uncomplaining, carefully waited upon by a most excellent lady, a +captain's wife, New-England-born, loyal as the Liberty on a golden +ten-dollar piece, and of lofty bearing enough to have sat for that +goddess's portrait. She had stayed in Frederick through the Rebel +inroad, and kept the star-spangled banner where it would be safe, to +unroll it as the last Rebel hoofs clattered off from the pavement of the +town. + +Near by Lieutenant Abbott was an unhappy gentleman, occupying a small +chamber, and filling it with his troubles. When he gets well and plump, +I know he will forgive me, if I confess that I could not help smiling +in the midst of my sympathy for him. He had been a well-favored man, +he said, sweeping his hand in a semicircle, which implied that his +acute-angled countenance had once filled the goodly curve he described. +He was now a perfect Don Quixote to look upon. Weakness had made him +querulous, as it does all of us, and he piped his grievances to me in a +thin voice with that finish of detail which chronic invalidism alone can +command. He was starving,--he could not get what he wanted to eat. He +was in need of stimulants, and he held up a pitiful two-ounce phial +containing three thimblefuls of brandy,--his whole stock of that +encouraging article. Him I consoled to the best of my ability, and +afterwards, in some slight measure, supplied his wants. Feed this poor +gentleman up, as these good people soon will, and I should not know him, +nor he himself. We are all egotists in sickness and debility. An animal +has been defined as "a stomach ministered to by organs"; and the +greatest man comes very near this simple formula after a month or two of +fever and starvation. + +James Grayden and his team pleased me well enough, and so I made a +bargain with him to take us, the lady and myself, on our further journey +as far as Middletown. As we were about starting from the front of the +United States Hotel, two gentlemen presented themselves and expressed +a wish to be allowed to share our conveyance. I looked at them and +convinced myself that they were neither Rebels in disguise, nor +deserters, nor camp-followers, nor miscreants, but plain, honest men on +a proper errand. The first of them I will pass over briefly. He was +a young man, of mild and modest demeanor, chaplain to a Pennsylvania +regiment, which he was going to rejoin. He belonged to the Moravian +Church, of which I had the misfortune to know little more than what I +had learned from Southey's "Life of Wesley," and from the exquisite +hymns we have borrowed from its rhapsodists. The other stranger was a +New-Englander of respectable appearance, with a grave, hard, honest, +hay-bearded face, who had come to serve the sick and wounded on the +battle-field and in its immediate neighborhood. There is no reason why I +should not mention his name, but I shall content myself with calling him +the Philanthropist. + +So we set forth, the sturdy wagon, the serviceable bays, with James +Grayden their driver, the gentle lady, whose serene patience bore up +through all delays and discomforts, the Chaplain, the Philanthropist, +and myself, the teller of this story. + +And now, as we emerged from Frederick, we struck at once upon the trail +from the great battle-field. The road was filled with straggling and +wounded soldiers. All who could travel on foot--multitudes with slight +wounds of the upper limbs, the head or face--were told to take up their +beds--a light burden, or none at all--and walk. Just as the battle-field +sucks everything into its red vortex for the conflict, so does it drive +everything off in long, diverging rays after the fierce centripetal +forces have met and neutralized each other. For more than a week there +had been sharp fighting all along this road. Through the streets of +Frederick, through Crampton's Gap, over South Mountain, sweeping at last +the hills and the woods that skirt the windings of the Antietam, the +long battle had travelled, like one of those tornadoes which tear their +path through our fields and villages. The slain of higher condition, +"embalmed" and iron-cased, were sliding off on the railways to their +far homes; the dead of the rank-and-file were being gathered up and +committed hastily to the earth; the gravely wounded were cared for +hard by the scene of conflict, or pushed a little way along to the +neighboring villages; while those who could walk were meeting us, as I +have said, at every step in the road. It was a pitiable sight, truly +pitiable, yet so vast, so far beyond the possibility of relief, that +many single sorrows of small dimensions have wrought upon my feelings +more than the sight of this great caravan of maimed pilgrims. The +companionship of so many seemed to make a joint-stock of their +suffering; it was next to impossible to individualize it, and so bring +it home as one can do with a single broken limb or aching wound. Then +they were all of the male sex, and in the freshness or the prime of +their strength. Though they tramped so wearily along, yet there was rest +and kind nursing in store for them. These wounds they bore would be the +medals they would show their children and grandchildren by-and-by. Who +would not rather wear his decorations beneath his uniform than on it? + +Yet among them were figures which arrested our attention and sympathy. +Delicate boys, with more spirit than strength, flushed with fever or +pale with exhaustion or haggard with suffering, dragged their weary +limbs along as if each step would exhaust their slender store of +strength. At the road-side sat or lay others, quite spent with their +journey. Here and there was a house at which the wayfarers would stop, +in the hope, I fear often vain, of getting refreshment; and in one place +was a clear, cool spring, where the little bands of the long procession +halted for a few moments, as the trains that traverse the desert rest by +its fountains. My companions had brought a few peaches along with them, +which the Philanthropist bestowed upon the tired and thirsty soldiers +with a satisfaction which we all shared. I had with me a small flask of +strong waters, to be used as a medicine in case of inward grief. From +this, also, he dispensed relief, without hesitation, to a poor fellow +who looked as if he needed it. I rather admired the simplicity with +which he applied my limited means of solace to the first-comer who +wanted it more than I; a genuine benevolent impulse does not stand on +ceremony, and had I perished of colic for want of a stimulus that night, +I should not have reproached my friend the Philanthropist any more than +I grudged my other ardent friend the two dollars and more which it cost +me to send the charitable message he left in my hands. + +It was a lovely country through which we were riding. The hill-sides +rolled away into the distance, slanting up fair and broad to the sun, +as one sees them in the open parts of the Berkshire valley, at +Lanesborough, for instance, or in the many-hued mountain-chalice at the +bottom of which the Shaker houses of Lebanon have shaped themselves like +a sediment of cubical crystals. The wheat was all garnered, and the land +ploughed for a new crop. There was Indian-corn standing, but I saw no +pumpkins warming their yellow carapaces in the sunshine like so many +turtles; only in a single instance did I notice some wretched little +miniature specimens in form and hue not unlike those colossal oranges of +our cornfields. The rail-fences were somewhat disturbed, and the cinders +of extinguished fires showed the use to which they had been applied. +The houses along the road were not for the most part neatly kept; the +garden-fences were poorly built of laths or long slats, and very rarely +of trim aspect. The men of this region seemed to ride in the saddle very +generally, rather than drive. They looked sober and stern, less curious +and lively than Yankees, and I fancied that a type of features familiar +to us in the countenance of the late John Tyler, our accidental +President, was frequently met with. The women were still more +distinguishable from our New-England pattern. Soft, sallow, succulent, +delicately finished about the mouth and firmly shaped about the chin, +dark-eyed, full-throated, they looked as if they had been grown in a +land of olives. There was a little toss in their movement, full of +muliebrity. I fancied there was something more of the duck and less of +the chicken about them, as compared with the daughters of our leaner +soil; but these are mere impressions caught from stray glances, and if +there is any offence in them, my fair readers may consider them all +retracted. + +At intervals, a dead horse lay by the road-side, or in the fields, +unburied, not grateful to gods or men, I saw no bird of prey, no +ill-omened fowl, on my way to the carnival of death, or at the place +where it was held. The vulture of story, the crow of Talavera, the "twa +corbies" of the ghastly ballad, are all from Nature, doubtless; but +no black wing was spread over these animal ruins, and no call to the +banquet pierced through the heavy-laden and sickening air. + +Full in the middle of the road, caring little for whom or what they met, +came long strings of army-wagons, returning empty from the front after +supplies. James Grayden stated it as his conviction that they had a +little rather run into a fellow than not. I liked the looks of these +equipages and their drivers; they meant business. Drawn by mules mostly, +six, I think, to a wagon, powdered well with dust, wagon, beast, and +driver, they came jogging along the road, turning neither to right nor +left,--some driven by bearded, solemn white men, some by careless, +saucy-looking negroes, of a blackness like that of anthracite or +obsidian. There seemed to be nothing about them, dead or alive, that was +not serviceable. Sometimes a mule would give out on the road; then he +was left where he lay, until by-and-by he would think better of it, and +get up, when the first public wagon that came along would hitch him on, +and restore him to the sphere of duty. + +It was evening when we got to Middletown. The gentle lady--who had +graced our homely conveyance with her company here left us. She found +her husband, the gallant Colonel, in very comfortable quarters, well +cared for, very weak from the effects of the fearful operation he had +been compelled to undergo, but showing the same calm courage to endure +as he had shown manly energy to act. It was a meeting full of heroism +and tenderness, of which I heard more than there is need to tell. Health +to the brave soldier, and peace to the household over which go fair a +spirit presides! + +Dr. Thompson, the very active and intelligent surgical director of the +hospitals of the place, took me in charge. He carried me to the house of +a worthy and benevolent clergyman of the German Reformed Church, where I +was to take tea and pass the night. What became of the Moravian chaplain +I did not know; but my friend the Philanthropist had evidently made up +his mind to adhere to my fortunes. He followed me, therefore, to the +house of the "Dominic," as a newspaper-correspondent calls my kind host, +and partook of the fare there furnished me. He withdrew with me to the +apartment assigned for my slumbers, and slept sweetly on the same pillow +where I waked and tossed. Nay, I do affirm that he did, unconsciously, +I believe, encroach on that moiety of the couch which I had flattered +myself was to be my own through the watches of the night, and that I +was in serious doubt at one time whether I should not be gradually, but +irresistibly, expelled from the bed which I had supposed destined for +my sole possession. As Ruth clave unto Naomi, so my friend the +Philanthropist clave unto me. "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where +thou lodgest, I will lodge." A really kind, good man, full of zeal, +determined to help somebody, and absorbed in his one thought, he doubted +nobody's willingness to serve him, going, as he was, on a purely +benevolent errand. When he reads this, as I hope he will, let him be +assured of my esteem and respect; and if he gained any accommodation +from being in my company, let me tell him that I learned a lesson from +his active benevolence. I could, however, have wished to hear him laugh +once before we parted, perhaps forever. He did not, to the best of +my recollection, even smile during the whole period that we were in +company. I am afraid that a lightsome disposition and a relish for humor +are not so common in those whose benevolence takes an active turn as in +people of sentiment who are always ready with their tears and abounding +in passionate expressions of sympathy. Working philanthropy is a +practical specialty, requiring not a mere impulse, but a talent, with +its peculiar sagacity for finding its objects, a tact for selecting its +agencies, an organizing and arranging faculty, a steady set of nerves, +and a constitution such as Sallust describes in Catiline, patient of +cold, of hunger, and of watching. Philanthropists are commonly grave, +occasionally grim, and not very rarely morose. Their expansive social +force is imprisoned as a working power, to show itself only through +its legitimate pistons and cranks. The tighter the boiler, the less it +whistles and sings at its work. When Dr. Waterhouse, in 1780, travelled +with Howard, on his tour among the Dutch prisons and hospitals, he +found his temper and manners very different from what would have been +expected. My benevolent companion having already made a preliminary +exploration of the hospitals of the place, before sharing my bed with +him, as above mentioned, I joined him in a second tour through them. The +authorities of Middletown are evidently leagued with the surgeons of +that place, for such a break-neck succession of pitfalls and chasms I +have never seen in the streets of a civilized town. It was getting late +in the evening when we began our rounds. The principal collections of +the wounded were in the churches. Boards were laid over the tops of the +pews, on these some straw was spread, and on this the wounded lay, with +little or no covering other than such scanty clothes as they had on. +There were wounds of all degrees of severity, but I heard no groans +or murmurs. Most of the sufferers were hurt in the limbs, some had +undergone amputation, and all had, I presume, received such attention as +was required. Still, it was but a rough and dreary kind of comfort that +the extemporized hospitals suggested. I could not help thinking the +patients must be cold; but they were used to camp-life, and did not +complain. The men who watched were not of the soft-handed variety of the +race. One of them was smoking his pipe as he went from bed to bed. I saw +one poor fellow who had been shot through the breast; his breathing was +labored, and he was tossing, anxious and restless. The men were debating +about the opiate he was to take, and I was thankful that I happened +there at the right moment to see that he was well narcotized for the +night. Was it possible that my Captain could be lying on the straw in +one of these places? Certainly _possible_, but not probable; but as the +lantern was held over each bed, it was with a kind of thrill that I +looked upon the features it illuminated. Many times, as I went from +hospital to hospital in my wanderings, I started as some faint +resemblance--the shade of a young man's hair, the outline of his +half-turned face-recalled the presence I was in search of. The face +would turn towards me and the momentary illusion would pass away, but +still the fancy clung to me. There was no figure huddled up on its rude +couch, none stretched at the road-side, none toiling languidly along +the dusty pike, none passing in car or in ambulance, that I did not +scrutinize, as if it might be that for which I was making my pilgrimage +to the battle-field. + +"There are two wounded Secesh," said my companion. I walked to the +bedside of the first, who was an officer, a lieutenant, if I remember +right, from North Carolina. He was of good family, son of a judge in +one of the higher courts of his State, educated, pleasant, gentle, +intelligent. One moment's intercourse with such an enemy, lying helpless +and wounded among strangers, takes away all personal bitterness towards +those with whom we or our children have been but a few hours before in +deadly strife. The basest lie which the murderous contrivers of this +Rebellion have told is that which tries to make out a difference of race +in the men of the North and South, It would be worth a year of battles +to abolish this delusion, though the great sponge of war that wiped it +out were moistened with the best blood of the land. My Rebel was of +slight, scholastic habit, and spoke as one accustomed to tread carefully +among the parts of speech. It made my heart ache to see him, a man +finished in the humanities and Christian culture, whom the sin of his +forefathers and the crime of his rulers had set in barbarous conflict +against others of like training with his own,--a man who, but for the +curse that it is laid on our generation to expiate, would have been +a fellow-worker with them in the beneficent task of shaping the +intelligence and lifting the moral standard of a peaceful and united +people. + +On Sunday morning, the twenty-first, having engaged James Grayden +and his team, I set out with the Chaplain and the Philanthropist for +Keedysville. Our track lay through the South Mountain Gap and led us +first to the town of Boonsborough, where, it will be remembered, Colonel +Dwight had been brought after the battle. We saw the positions occupied +in the Battle of South Mountain, and many traces of the conflict. In one +situation a group of young trees was marked with shot, hardly one having +escaped. As we walked by the side of the wagon, the Philanthropist left +us for a while and climbed a hill, where along the line of a fence he +found traces of the most desperate fighting. A ride of some three hours +brought us to Boonsborough, where I roused the unfortunate army-surgeon +who had charge of the hospitals, and who was trying to get a little +sleep after his fatigues and watchings. He bore this cross very +creditably, and helped me to explore all places where my soldier might +be lying among the crowds of wounded. After the useless search, I +resumed my journey, fortified with a note of introduction to Dr. +Letterman, also with a bale of oakum which I was to carry to that +gentleman, this substance being employed as a substitute for lint. +We were obliged also to procure a pass to Keedysville from the +Provost-Marshal of Boonsborough. As we came near the place, we learned +that General McClellan's headquarters had been removed from this village +some miles farther to the front. + +On entering the small settlement of Keedysville, a familiar face and +figure blocked the way, like one of Bunyan's giants. The tall form and +benevolent countenance, set off by long, flowing hair, belonged to the +excellent Mayor Frank B. Fay, of Chelsea, who, like my Philanthropist, +only still more promptly, had come to succor the wounded of the great +battle. It was wonderful to see how his single personality pervaded this +torpid little village; he seemed to be the centre of all its activities. +All my questions he answered clearly and decisively, as one who knew +everything that was going on in the place. But the one question I had +come five hundred miles to ask,--_Where is Captain H.?_--he could not +answer. There were some thousands of wounded in the place, he told +me, scattered about everywhere. It would be a long job to hunt up my +Captain; the only way would be to go to every house and ask for him. +Just then, a medical officer came up. + +"Do you know anything of Captain H., of the Massachusetts Twentieth?" + +"Oh, yes; he is staying in that house. I saw him there, doing very +well." + +A chorus of hallelujahs arose in my soul, but I kept them to myself. +Now, then, for our twice-wounded volunteer, our young centurion whose +double-barred shoulder-straps we have never yet looked upon. Let us +observe the proprieties, however; no swelling upward of the mother,--no +_hysterica passio,_--we do not like scenes. A calm salutation,--then +swallow and bold hard. That is about the programme. + +A cottage of squared logs, filled in with plaster, and white-washed. A +little yard before it, with a gate swinging. The door of the cottage +ajar,--no one visible as yet. I push open the door and enter. An old +woman, _Margaret Kitzmuller_ her name proves to be, is the first person +I see. + +"Captain H. here?" + +"Oh, no, Sir,--left yesterday morning for Hagerstown--in a milk-cart." + +The Kitzmuller is a beady-eyed, cheery-looking ancient woman, answers +questions with a rising inflection, and gives a good account of the +Captain, who got into the vehicle without assistance, and was in +excellent spirits.--Of course he had struck for Hagerstown as the +terminus of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and was on his way to +Philadelphia _viâ_ Chambersburg and Harrisburg, if he were not already +in the hospitable home of Walnut Street, where his friends were +expecting him. + +I might follow on his track or return upon my own; the distance was die +same to Philadelphia through Harrisburg as through Baltimore. But it was +very difficult, Mr. Fay told me, to procure any kind of conveyance to +Hagerstown, and on the other hand I had James Grayden and his wagon to +carry me back to Frederick. It was not likely that I should overtake the +object of my pursuit with nearly thirty-six hours start, even if I +could procure a conveyance that day, In the mean time James was getting +impatient to be on his return, according to the direction of his +employers. So I decided to go back with him. + +But there was the great battle-field only about three miles from +Keedysville, and it was impossible to go without seeing that. James +Grayden's directions were peremptory, but it was a case for the higher +law. I must make a good offer for an extra couple of hours, such as +would satisfy the owners of the wagon, and enforce it by a personal +motive. I did this handsomely, and succeeded without difficulty. To +add brilliancy to my enterprise, I invited the Chaplain and the +Philanthropist to take a free passage with me. + +We followed the road through the village for a space, then turned off +to the right, and wandered somewhat vaguely, for want of precise +directions, over the hills. Inquiring as we went, we forded a wide creek +in which soldiers were washing their clothes, the name of which we did +not then know, but which must have been the Antietam. At one point we +met a party, women among them, bringing off various trophies they had +picked up on the battle-field. Still wandering along, we were at last +pointed to a hill in the distance, a part of the summit of which was +covered with Indian-corn. There, we were told, some of the fiercest +fighting of the day had been done. The fences were taken down so as to +make a passage across the fields, and the tracks worn within the last +few days looked like old roads. We passed a fresh grave under a tree +near the road. A board was nailed to the tree, bearing the name, as well +as I could make it out, of Gardiner, of a New-Hampshire regiment. + +On coming near the brow of the hill, we met a party carrying picks and +spades. "How many?" "Only one." The dead were nearly all buried, then, +in this region of the field of strife. We stopped the wagon, and, +getting out, began to look around us. Hard by was a large pile of +muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which had been picked up and were +guarded for the Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose before us. +A board stuck up in front of it bore this inscription, the first part of +which was, I believe, not correct:--"The Rebel General Anderson and 80 +Rebels are buried in this hole." Other smaller ridges were marked with +the number of dead lying under them. The whole ground was strewed +with fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, cap-boxes, bullets, +cartridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and +meat. I saw two soldiers' caps that looked as though their owners had +been shot through the head. In several places I noticed dark red patches +where a pool of blood had curdled and caked, as some poor fellow poured +his life out on the sod. I then wandered about in the cornfield. It +surprised me to notice, that, though there was every mark of hard +fighting having taken place here, the Indian-corn was not generally +trodden down. One of our cornfields is a kind of forest, and even when +fighting, men avoid the tall stalks as if they were trees. At the edge +of this cornfield lay a gray horse, said to have belonged to a Rebel +colonel, who was killed near the same place. Not far off were two dead +artillery-horses in their harness. Another had been attended to by +a burying-party, who had thrown some earth over him; but his last +bed-clothes were too short, and his legs stuck out stark and stiff +from beneath the gravel coverlet. It was a great pity that we had no +intelligent guide to explain to us the position of that portion of the +two armies which fought over this ground. There was a shallow trench +before we came to the cornfield, too narrow for a road, as I should +think, too elevated for a water-course, and which seemed to have been +used as a rifle-pit; at any rate, there had been hard fighting in and +about it. This and the cornfield may serve to identify the part of the +ground we visited, if any who fought there should ever look over this +paper. The opposing tides of battle must have blended their waves at +this point, for portions of gray uniform were mingled with the "garments +rolled in blood" torn from our own dead and wounded soldiers. I picked +up a Rebel canteen, and one of our own,--but there was something +repulsive about the trodden and stained relics of the stale +battle-field. It was like the table of some hideous orgy left uncleared, +and one turned away disgusted from its broken fragments and muddy +heel-taps. A bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a soldier's +belt, served well enough for mementos of my visit, with a letter which +I picked up, directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal unbroken. "N.C. +Cleaveland County. E. Wright to J. Wright." On the other side, "A few +lines from W.L. Vaughn," who has just been writing for the wife to her +husband, and continues on his own account. The postscript, "tell John +that nancy's folks are all well and has a verry good Little Crop of corn +a growing." I wonder, if, by one of those strange chances of which I +have seen so many, this number or leaf of the "Atlantic" will not sooner +or later find its way to Cleveland County, North Carolina, and E. +Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy's folks get from these +sentences the last glimpse of husband and friend as he threw up his arms +and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam? I will keep this stained +letter for them until peace comes back, if it comes in my time, and my +pleasant North-Carolina Rebel of the Middletown Hospital will, perhaps, +look these poor people up, and tell them where to send for it. + +On the battle-field I parted with my two companions, the Chaplain and +the Philanthropist. They were going to the front, the one to find his +regiment, the other to look for those who needed his assistance. We +exchanged cards and farewells, I mounted the wagon, the horses' heads +were turned homewards, my two companions went their way, and I saw them +no more. On my way back, I fell into talk with James Grayden. Born in +England, Lancashire; in this country since he was four years old. Had +nothing to care for but an old mother; didn't know what he should do, if +he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity +and childlike light-heartedness which belong to the Old World's people. +He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white +English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he +had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small +store of information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me. +His quiet animal nature acted as a pleasing anodyne to my recurring fits +of anxiety, and I liked his frequent "'Deed I don' know, Sir," better +than I have sometimes relished the large discourse of professors and +other very wise men. + +I have not much to say of the road which we were travelling for the +second time. Reaching Middletown, my first call was on the wounded +Colonel and his lady. She gave me a most touching account of all +the suffering he had gone through with his shattered limb before he +succeeded in finding a shelter, showing the terrible want of proper +means of transportation of the wounded after the battle. It occurred to +me, while at this house, that I was more or less famished, and for the +first time in my life I begged for a meal, which the kind family with +whom the Colonel was staying most graciously furnished me. + +After tea, there came in a stout army-surgeon, a Highlander by birth, +educated in Edinburgh, with whom I had pleasant, not unstimulating +talk. He had been brought very close to that immane and nefandous +Burke-and-Hare business which made the blood of civilization run cold in +the year 1828, and told me, in a very calm way, with an occasional pinch +from the mull, to refresh his memory, some of the details of those +frightful murders, never rivalled in horror until the wretch Dumollard, +who kept a private cemetery for his victims, was dragged into the light +of day. He had a good deal to say, too, about the Royal College of +Surgeons in Edinburgh, and the famous preparations, mercurial and +the rest, which I remember well having seen there,--the "_sudabit +muitura_,--" and others,--also of our New-York Professor Carnochan's +handiwork, a specimen of which I once admired at the New York College. +But the Doctor was not in a happy frame of mind, and seemed willing to +forget the present in the past: things went wrong, somehow, and the time +was out of joint with him. + +Dr. Thompson, kind, cheerful, companionable, offered me half his own +wide bed, in the house of Dr. Baer, for my second night in Middletown. +Here I lay awake again another night. Close to the house stood an +ambulance in which was a wounded Rebel officer, attended by one of their +own surgeons. He was calling out in a loud voice, all night long, as +it seemed to me, "Doctor! Doctor! Driver! Water!" in loud, complaining +tones, I have no doubt of real suffering, but in strange contrast with +the silent patience which was the almost universal rule. + +The courteous Dr. Thompson will let me tell here an odd coincidence, +trivial, but having its interest as one of a series. The Doctor and +myself lay in the bed, and a lieutenant, a friend of his, slept on +the sofa. At night, I placed my match-box, a Scotch one, of the +Macpherson-plaid pattern, which I bought years ago, on the bureau, just +where I could put my hand upon it. I was the last of the three to rise +in the morning, and on looking for my pretty match-box, I found it was +gone. This was rather awkward,--not on account of the loss, but of the +unavoidable fact that one of my fellow-lodgers must have taken it. I +must try to find out what it meant. + +"By the way, Doctor, have you seen anything of a little plaid-pattern +matchbox?" + +The Doctor put his hand to his pocket, and, to his own huge surprise and +my great gratification, pulled out _two_ matchboxes exactly alike, both +printed with the Macpherson plaid. One was his, the other mine, which he +had seen lying round, and naturally took for his own, thrusting it into +his pocket, where it found its twin-brother from the same workshop. In +memory of which event we exchanged boxes, like two Homeric heroes. + +This curious coincidence illustrates well enough some supposed cases of +_plagiarism_, of which I will mention one where my name figured. When a +little poem called "The Two Streams" was first printed, a writer in the +New York "Evening Post" virtually accused the author of it of borrowing +the thought from a baccalaureate sermon of President Hopkins, of +Williamstown, and printed a quotation from that discourse, which, as I +thought, a thief or catchpoll might well consider as establishing a +fair presumption that it was so borrowed. I was at the same time wholly +unconscious of ever having met with the discourse or the sentence which +the verses were most like, nor do I believe I ever had seen or heard +either. Some time after this, happening to meet my eloquent cousin, +Wendell Phillips, I mentioned the fact to him, and he told me that _he_ +had once used the special image said to be borrowed, in a discourse +delivered at Williamstown. On relating this to my friend Mr. Buchanan +Read, he informed me that _he_, too, had used the image, perhaps +referring to his poem called "The Twins." He thought Tennyson had used +it also. The parting of the streams on the Alps is poetically elaborated +in a passage attributed to "M. Loisne," printed in the Boston "Evening +Transcript" for October 23d, 1859. Captain, afterwards Sir Francis Head, +speaks of the showers parting on the Cordilleras, one portion going to +the Atlantic, one to the Pacific. I found the image running loose in my +mind, without a halter. It suggested itself as an illustration of +the will, and I worked the poem out by the aid of Mitchell's School +Atlas.--The spores of a great many ideas are floating about in the +atmosphere. We no more know where all the growths of our mind came from +than where the lichens which eat the names off from the gravestones +borrowed the germs that gave them birth. The two match-boxes were just +alike, but neither was a plagiarism. + +In the morning I took to the same wagon once more, but, instead of James +Grayden, I was to have for my driver a young man who spelt his name +"Phillip Ottenheimer," and whose features at once showed him to be an +Israelite. I found him agreeable enough, and disposed to talk. So I +asked him many questions about his religion, and got some answers that +sound strangely in Christian ears. He was from Wittenberg, and had +been educated in strict Jewish fashion. From his childhood he had read +Hebrew, but was not much of a scholar otherwise. A young person of his +race lost caste utterly by marrying a Christian. The Founder of our +religion was considered by the Israelites to have been "a right smart +man, and a great doctor," But the horror with which the reading of the +New Testament by any young person of their faith would be regarded was +as great, I judged by his language, as that of one of our straitest +sectaries would be, if he found his son or daughter perusing the "Age of +Reason." + +In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty of its clustered spires +struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find "Fair-View" +laid down about this point on a railroad-map. I wish some wandering +photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if +possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples +nestles among the Maryland hills. The town had a poetical look from a +distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there. The first sign +I read, on entering its long street, might perhaps be considered as +confirming my remote impression. It bore these words: "Miss Ogle, Past, +Present, and Future." On arriving, I visited Lieutenant Abbott, and the +attenuated unhappy gentleman, his neighbor, sharing between them as my +parting gift what I had left of the balsam known to the Pharmacopoeia as +_Spiritus Vini Gallici_. I took advantage of General Shriver's always +open door to write a letter home, but had not time to partake of his +offered hospitality. The railroad-bridge over the Monocacy had been +rebuilt since I passed through Frederick, and we trundled along over the +track toward Baltimore. + +It was a disappointment, on reaching the Eutaw House, where I had +ordered all communications to be addressed, to find no telegraphic +message from Philadelphia or Boston, stating that Captain H. had arrived +at the former place, "wound doing well in good spirits expects to leave +soon for Boston," After all, it was no great matter; the Captain was, no +doubt, snugly lodged before this in the house called Beautiful, at ---- +Walnut Street, where that "grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion" +had already welcomed him, smiling, though "the water stood in her eyes," +and had "called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little +more discourse with him, had him into the family." + +The friends I had met at the Eutaw House had all gone but one, the lady +of an officer from Boston, who was most amiable and agreeable, and whose +benevolence, as I afterwards learned, soon reached the invalids I had +left suffering at Frederick. General Wool still walked the corridors, +inexpansive, with Fort McHenry on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his +breeches-pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed upon me his kind +offices. About the doors of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers in +plaintive, wailing tones, as different from the sharp accents of their +Boston counterparts as a sigh from the southwest is from a northeastern +breeze. To understand what they said was, of course, impossible to any +but an educated ear, and if I made out "Stoarr" and "Clipper," it was +because I knew beforehand what must be the burden of their advertising +coranach. + +I set out for Philadelphia on the morrow, Tuesday the twenty-third, +there beyond question to meet my Captain, once more united to his brave +wounded companions under that roof which covers a household of as noble +hearts as ever throbbed with human sympathies. Back River, Bush River, +Gunpowder Creek,--lives there the man with soul so dead that his memory +has cerements to wrap up these senseless names in the same envelopes +with their meaningless localities? But the Susquehanna,--the broad, +the beautiful, the historical, the poetical Susquehanna,--the river of +Wyoming and of Gertrude, dividing the shores where + + "aye these sunny mountains half-way down + Would echo flageolet from some romantic town,"-- + +did not my heart renew its allegiance to the poet who has made it lovely +to the imagination as well as to the eye, and so identified his fame +with the noble stream that it "rolls mingling with his fame forever"? +The prosaic traveller perhaps remembers it better from the fact that a +great sea-monster, in the shape of a steamboat, takes him, sitting +in the car, on its back, and swims across with him like Arion's +dolphin,--also that mercenary men on board offer him canvas-backs in the +season, and ducks of lower degree at other periods. + +At Philadelphia again at last! Drive fast, O colored man and brother, to +the house called Beautiful, where my Captain lies sore wounded, waiting +for the sound of the chariot-wheels which bring to his bedside the face +and the voice nearer than any save one to his heart in this his hour of +pain and weakness! Up a long street with white shutters and white steps +to all the houses. Off at right angles into another long street with +white shutters and white steps to all the houses. Off again at another +right angle into still another long street with white shutters and white +steps to all the houses. The natives of this city pretend to know one +street from another by some individual differences of aspect; but the +best way for a stranger to distinguish the streets he has been in from +others is to make a cross or other mark on the white shutters. + +This corner-house is the one. Ring softly,--for the Lieutenant-Colonel +lies there with a dreadfully wounded arm, and two sons of the family, +one wounded like the Colonel, one fighting with death in the fog of a +typhoid fever, will start with fresh pangs at the least sound you can +make. I entered the house, but no cheerful smile met me. The sufferers +were each of them thought to be in a critical condition. The fourth bed, +waiting its tenant day after day, was still empty. _Not a word from my +Captain._ + +Then, foolish, fond body that I was, my heart sank within me. Had he +been taken ill on the road, perhaps been attacked with those formidable +symptoms which sometimes come on suddenly after wounds that seemed to be +doing well enough, and was his life ebbing away in some lonely cottage, +nay, in some cold barn or shed, or at the way-side, unknown, uncared +for? Somewhere between Philadelphia and Hagerstown, if not at the latter +town, he must be, at any rate. I must sweep the hundred and eighty miles +between these places as one would sweep a chamber where a precious pearl +had been dropped. I must have a companion in my search, partly to help +me look about, and partly because I was getting nervous and felt lonely. +_Charley_ said he would go with me,--Charley, my Captain's beloved +friend, gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, cultivated, social, +affectionate, a good talker, a most agreeable letter-writer, observing, +with large relish of life, and keen sense of humor. + +He was not well enough to go, some of the timid ones said; but he +answered by packing his carpet-bag, and in an hour or two we were on the +Pennsylvania Central Railroad in full blast for Harrisburg. + +I should have been a forlorn creature but for the presence of my +companion. In his delightful company I half forgot my anxieties, which, +exaggerated as they may seem now, ware not unnatural after what I had +seen of the confusion and distress that had followed the great battle, +nay, which seem almost justified by the recent statement that "high +officers" were buried after that battle whose names were never +ascertained. I noticed little matters, as usual. The road was filled in +between the rails with cracked stones, such as are used for Macadamizing +streets. They keep the dust down, I suppose, for I could not think of +any other use for them. By-and-by the glorious valley which stretches +along through Chester and Lancaster Counties opened upon us. Much as I +had heard of the fertile regions of Pennsylvania, the vast scale and the +uniform luxuriance of this region astonished me. The grazing pastures +were so green, the fields were under such perfect culture, the cattle +looked so sleek, the houses were so comfortable, the barns so ample, the +fences so well kept, that I did not wonder, when I was told that this +region was called the England of Pennsylvania. The people whom we saw +were, like the cattle, well-nourished; the young women looked round and +wholesome. + +"_Grass makes girls_," I said to my companion, and left him to work out +my Orphic saying, thinking to myself, that, as guano makes grass, it +was a legitimate conclusion that Jehaboe must be a nursery of female +loveliness. + +As the train stopped at the different stations, I inquired at each +if they had any wounded officers. None as yet; the red rays of the +battle-field had not streamed off so far as this. Evening found us in +the cars; they lighted candles in spring-candlesticks; odd enough I +thought it in the land of oil-wells and unmeasured floods of kerosene. +Some fellows turned up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, +and began gambling or pretending to gamble; it looked as if they were +trying to pluck a young countryman; but appearances are deceptive, +and no deeper stake than "drinks for the crowd" seemed at last to +be involved. But remembering that murder has tried of late years to +establish itself as an institution in the cars, I was less tolerant of +the doings of these "sportsmen" who tried to turn our public conveyance +into a travelling Frascali. They acted as if they were used to it, and +nobody seemed to pay much attention to their manoeuvres. + +We arrived at Harrisburg in the course of the evening, and attempted to +find our way to the Jones House, to which we had been commended. By some +mistake, intentional on the part of somebody, as it may have been, or +purely accidental, we went to the Herr House instead. I entered my name +in the book, with that of my companion. A plain, middle-aged man stepped +up, read it to himself in low tones, and coupled to it a literary title +by which I have been sometimes known. He proved to be a graduate of +Brown University, and had heard a certain Phi Beta Kappa poem delivered +there a good many years ago. I remembered it, too; Professor Goddard, +whose sudden and singular death left such lasting regret, was the +Orator. I recollect that while I was speaking a drum went by the church, +and how I was disgusted to see all the heads near the windows thrust out +of them, as if the building were on fire. _Cedat armis toga._ The clerk +in the office, a mild, pensive, unassuming young man, was very polite in +his manners, and did all he could to make us comfortable. He was of a +literary turn, and knew one of his guests in his character of author. At +tea, a mild old gentleman, with white hair and beard, sat next us. He, +too, had come hunting after his son, a lieutenant in a Pennsylvania +regiment. Of these, father and son, more presently. + +After tea we went to look up Dr. Wilson, chief medical officer of +the hospitals in the place, who was staying at the Brady House. A +magnificent old toddy-mixer, Bardolphian in hue and stern of aspect, as +all grog-dispensers must be, accustomed as they are to dive through the +features of men to the bottom of their souls and pockets to see whether +they are solvent to the amount of sixpence, answered my question by a +wave of one hand, the other being engaged in carrying a dram to his +lips. His superb indifference gratified my artistic feeling more than it +wounded my personal sensibilities. Anything really superior in its line +claims my homage, and this man was the ideal bar-tender, above all +vulgar passions, untouched by commonplace sympathies, himself a lover of +the liquid happiness he dispenses, and filled with a fine scorn of all +those lesser felicities conferred by love or fame or wealth or any +of the roundabout agencies for which his fiery elixir is the cheap, +all-powerful substitute. + +Dr. Wilson was in bed, though it was early in the evening, not having +slept for I don't know how many nights. + +"Take my card up to him, if you please." + +"This way, Sir." + +A man who has not slept for a fortnight or so is not expected to be as +affable, when attacked in his bed, as a French princess of old time +at her morning-receptions. Dr. Wilson turned toward me, as I entered, +without effusion, but without rudeness. His thick, dark moustache was +chopped off square at the lower edge of the upper lip, which implied a +decisive, if not a peremptory, style of character. + +I am Doctor So-and-So. of Hub-town, looking after my wounded son. (I +gave my name and said _Boston_, of course, in reality.) + +Dr. Wilson leaned on his elbow and looked up in my face, his features +growing cordial. Then he put out his hand, and good-humoredly excused +his reception of me. The day before, as he told me, he had dismissed +from the service a medical man hailing from ----, Pennsylvania, bearing +my last name, preceded by the same two initials; and he supposed, when +my card came up, it was this individual who was disturbing his slumbers. +The coincidence was so unlikely _a priori_, unless some forlorn parent +without antecedents had named a child after me, that I could not help +cross-questioning the Doctor, who assured me deliberately that the fact +was just as he had said, even to the somewhat unusual initials. Dr. +Wilson very kindly furnished me all the information in his power, +gave me directions for telegraphing to Chambersburg, and showed every +disposition to serve me. + +On returning to the Herr House, we found the mild, white-haired old +gentleman in a very happy state. He had just discovered his son, in a +comfortable condition, at the United States Hotel. He thought that he +could probably give us some information which would prove interesting. +To the United States Hotel we repaired, then, in company with our +kind-hearted old friend, who evidently wanted to see me as happy as +himself. He went up-stairs to his son's chamber, and presently came down +to conduct us there. + +Lieutenant P----, of the Pennsylvania ----th, was a very fresh, +bright-looking young man, lying in bed from the effects of a recent +injury received in action. A grape-shot, after passing through a post +and a board, had struck him in the hip, bruising, but not penetrating or +breaking. He had good news for me. + +That very afternoon, a party of wounded officers had passed through +Harrisburg, going East. He had conversed in the bar-room of this hotel +with one of them, who was wounded about the shoulder, (it might be the +lower part of the neck,) and had his arm in a sling. He belonged to the +Twentieth Massachusetts; the Lieutenant saw that he was a Captain, by +the two bars on his shoulder-strap. His name was my family-name; he was +tall and youthful, like my Captain. At four o'clock he left in the train +for Philadelphia. Closely questioned, the Lieutenant's evidence was as +round, complete, and lucid as a Japanese sphere of rock-crystal. + +TE DEUM LAUDAMUS! The Lord's name be praised! The dead pain in the +semilunar ganglion (which I must remind my reader is a kind of stupid, +unreasoning brain, beneath the pit of the stomach, common to man and +beast, which aches in the supreme moments of life, as when the dam loses +her young ones, or the wild horse is lassoed) stopped short. There was +a feeling as if I had slipped off a tight boot, or cut a strangling +garter,--only it was all over my system. What more could I ask to assure +me of the Captain's safety? As soon as the telegraph-office opens +to-morrow morning, we will send a message to our friends in Philadelphia, +and get a reply, doubtless, which will settle the whole matter. + +The hopeful morrow dawned at last, and the message was sent accordingly. +In due time, the following reply was received:-- + +"Phil Sept 24 I think the report you have heard that W [the Captain] has +gone East must be an error we have not seen or heard of him here M L H" + +DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI! He _could_ not have passed through Philadelphia +without visiting the house called Beautiful, where he had been so +tenderly cared for after his wound at Ball's Bluff, and where those whom +he loved were lying in grave peril of life or limb. Yet he _did_ pass +through Harrisburg, going East, going to Philadelphia, on his way +home. Ah, this is it! He must have taken the late night-train from +Philadelphia for New York, in his impatience to reach home. There is +such a train, not down in the guide-book, but we were assured of the +fact at the Harrisburg depot. By-and-by came the reply from Dr. +Wilson's telegraphic message: nothing had been heard of the Captain at +Chambersburg. Still later, another message came from our Philadelphia +friend, saying that he was seen on Friday last at the house of Mrs. K--, +a well-known Union lady, in Hagerstown. Now this could not be true, for +he did not leave Keedysville until Saturday; but the name of the lady +furnished a clue by which we could probably track him. A telegram was +at once sent to Mrs. K--, asking information. It was transmitted +immediately, but when the answer would be received was uncertain, as the +Government almost monopolized the line. I was, on the whole, so well +satisfied that the Captain had gone East, that, unless something were +heard to the contrary, I proposed following him in the late train, +leaving a little after midnight for Philadelphia. + +This same morning we visited several of the temporary hospitals, +churches and school-houses, where the wounded were lying. In one of +these, after looking round as usual, I asked aloud, "Any Massachusetts +men here?" Two bright faces lifted themselves from their pillows and +welcomed me by name. The one nearest me was private John B. Noyes, of +Company B, Massachusetts Thirteenth, son of my old college class-tutor, +now the reverend and learned Professor of Hebrew, etc., in Harvard +University. His neighbor was Corporal Armstrong, of the same Company. +Both were slightly wounded, doing well. I learned then and since from +Mr. Noyes that they and their comrades were completely overwhelmed +by the attentions of the good people of Harrisburg,--that the ladies +brought them fruits and flowers, and smiles, better than either,--and +that the little boys of the place were almost fighting for the privilege +of doing their errands. I am afraid there will be a good many hearts +pierced in this war that will have no bullet-mark to show. + +There were some heavy hours to get rid of, and we thought a visit to +Camp Curtin might lighten some of them. A rickety wagon carried us to +the camp, in company with a young woman from Troy, who had a basket of +good things with her for a sick brother, "Poor boy! he will be sure to +die," she said. The rustic sentries uncrossed their muskets and let +us in. The camp was on a fair plain, girdled with hills, spacious, +well-kept apparently, but did not present any peculiar attraction for +us. The visit would have been a dull one, had we not happened to get +sight of a singular-looking set of human beings in the distance. They +were clad in stuff of different hues, gray and brown being the leading +shades, but both subdued by a neutral tint, such as is wont to harmonize +the variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, +listless, torpid,--an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of +such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a +broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given +our generals so much trouble,--"Secesh prisoners," as a by-stander told +us. A talk with them might be profitable and entertaining. But they were +tabooed to the common visitor, and it was necessary to get inside of the +line which separated us from them. + +A solid, square captain was standing near by, to whom we were referred. +Look a man calmly through the very centre of his pupils and ask him for +anything with a tone implying entire conviction that he will grant it, +and he will very commonly consent to the thing asked, were it to commit +_hari-kari_. The Captain acceded to my postulate, and accepted my friend +as a corollary. As one string of my own ancestors was of Batavian +origin, I may be permitted to say that my new friend was of the Dutch +type, like the Amsterdam galiots, broad in the beam, capacious in the +hold, and calculated to carry a heavy cargo rather than to make fast +time. He must have been in politics at some time or other, for he made +orations to all the "Secesh," in which he explained to them that the +United States considered and treated them like children, and enforced +upon them the ridiculous impossibility of the Rebels' attempting to do +anything against such a power as that of the National Government. + +Much as his discourse edified them and enlightened me, it interfered +somewhat with my little plans of entering into frank and friendly talk +with some of these poor fellows, for whom I could not help feeling a +kind of human sympathy, though I am as venomous a hater of the Rebellion +as one is like to find under the stars and stripes. It is fair to take +a man prisoner. It is fair to make speeches to a man. But to take a man +prisoner and then make speeches to him while in durance is _not_ fair. + +I began a few pleasant conversations, which would have come to something +but for the reason assigned. + +One old fellow had a long beard, a drooping eyelid, and a black clay +pipe in his mouth. He was a Scotchman from Ayr, _dour_ enough, and +little disposed to be communicative, though I tried him with the "Twa +Briggs," and, like all Scotchmen, he was a reader of "Burrns." He +professed to feel no interest in the cause for which he was fighting, +and was in the army, I judged, only from compulsion. There was a +wild-haired, unsoaped boy, with pretty, foolish features enough, who +looked as if he might be about seventeen, as he said he was. I give my +questions and his answers literally. + +"What State do you come from?" + +"Georgy." + +"What part of Georgia?" + +"_Midway_." + +--[How odd that is! My father was settled for seven years as pastor +over the church at Midway, Georgia, and this youth is very probably a +grandson or great-grandson of one of his parishioners.]-- + +"Where did you go to church, when you were at home?" + +"Never went inside 'f a church b't once in m' life." + +"What did you do before you became a soldier?" + +"Nothin'." + +"What do you mean to do when you get back?" + +"Nothin'." + +Who could have any other feeling than pity for this poor human weed, +this dwarfed and etiolated soul, doomed by neglect to an existence but +one degree above that of the idiot? + +With the group was a lieutenant, buttoned close in his gray coat,--one +button gone, perhaps to make a breastpin for some fair traitorous bosom. +A short, stocky man, undistinguishable from one of the "subject race" by +any obvious meanderings of the _sangre azul_ on his exposed surfaces. He +did not say much, possibly because he was convinced by the statements +and arguments of the Dutch captain. He had on strong, iron-heeled shoes, +of English make, which he said cost him seventeen dollars in Richmond. + +I put the question, in a quiet, friendly way, to several of the +prisoners, what they were fighting for. One answered, "For our homes." +Two or three others said they did not know, and manifested great +indifference to the whole matter, at which another of their number, a +sturdy fellow, took offence, and muttered opinions strongly derogatory +to those who would not stand up for the cause they had been fighting +for. A feeble, attenuated old man, who wore the Rebel uniform, if such +it could be called, stood by without showing any sign of intelligence. +It was cutting very close to the bone to carve such a shred of humanity +from the body-politic to make a soldier of. + +We were just leaving, when a face attracted me, and I stopped the party. +"That is the true Southern type," I said to my companion. A young +fellow, a little over twenty, rather tall, slight, with a perfectly +smooth, boyish cheek, delicate, somewhat high features, and a fine, +almost feminine mouth, stood at the opening of his tent, and as we +turned towards him fidgeted a little nervously with one hand at the +loose canvas, while he seemed at the same time not unwilling to talk. He +was from Mississippi, he said, had been, at Georgetown College, and was +so far imbued with letters that even the name of the literary humility +before him was not new to his ears. Of course I found it easy to come +into magnetic relation with him, and to ask him without incivility +what _he_ was fighting for. "Because I like the excitement of it," he +answered.--I know those fighters with women's mouths and boys' cheeks; +one such from the circle of my own friends, sixteen years old, slipped +away from his nursery and dashed in under an assumed name among the +red-legged Zouaves, in whose company he got an ornamental bullet-mark in +one of the earliest conflicts of the war. + +"Did you ever see a genuine Yankee?" said my Philadelphia friend to the +young Mississippian. + +"I have shot at a good many of them," he replied, modestly, his woman's +mouth stirring a little, with a pleasant, dangerous smile. + +The Dutch captain here put his foot into the conversation, as his +ancestors used to put theirs into the scale, when they were buying furs +of the Indians by weight,--so much for the weight of a hand, so much for +the weight of a foot. It deranged the balance of our intercourse; there +was no use in throwing a fly where a paving-stone had just splashed into +the water, and I nodded a good-bye to the boy-fighter, thinking how +much pleasanter it was for my friend the Captain to address him with +unanswerable arguments and crushing statements in his own tent than +it would be to meet him on some remote picket and offer his fair +proportions to the quick eye of a youngster who would draw a bead on him +before he had time to say _dunder and blixum_. + +We drove back to the town. No message. After dinner still no message. +Dr. Cuyler, Chief Army-Hospital Inspector, is in town, they say. Let us +hunt him up,--perhaps he can help us. + +We found him at the Jones House. A gentleman of large proportions, but +of lively temperament, his frame knit in the North, I think, but +ripened in Georgia, incisive, prompt, but good-humored, wearing his +broad-brimmed, steeple-crowned felt hat with the least possible tilt on +one side,--a sure sign of exuberant vitality in a mature and dignified +person like him,--business-like in his ways, and not to be interrupted +while occupied with another, but giving himself up heartily to the +claimant who held him for the time. He was so genial, so cordial, so +encouraging, that it seemed as if the clouds, which had been thick all +the morning, broke away as we came into his presence, and the sunshine +of his large nature filled the air all around us. He took the matter in +hand at once, as if it were his own private affair. In ten minutes he +had a second telegraphic message on its way to Mrs. K--at Hagerstown, +sent through the Government channel from the State Capitol,--one so +direct and urgent that I should be sure of an answer to it, whatever +became of the one I had sent in the morning. + +While this was going on, we hired a dilapidated barouche, driven by an +odd young native, neither boy nor man, "as a codling when 'tis almost an +apple," who said _wery_ for very, simple and sincere, who smiled faintly +at our pleasantries, always with a certain reserve of suspicion, and a +gleam of the shrewdness that all men get who live in the atmosphere of +horses. He drove us round by the Capitol grounds, white with tents, +which were disgraced in my eyes by unsoldierly scrawls in huge letters, +thus: THE SEVEN BLOOMSBURY BROTHERS, DEVIL'S HOLE, and similar +inscriptions. Then to the Beacon Street of Harrisburg, which looks +upon the Susquehanna instead of the Common, and shows a long front of +handsome houses with fair gardens. The river is pretty nearly a mile +across here, but very shallow now. The codling told us that a Rebel spy +had been caught trying its fords a little while ago, and was now at Camp +Curtin with a heavy ball chained to his leg,--a popular story, but a +lie, Dr. Wilson said. A little farther along we came to the barkless +stump of the tree to which Mr. Harris, the Cecrops of the city named +after him, was tied by the Indians for some unpleasant operation of +scalping or roasting, when he was rescued by friendly savages, who +paddled across the stream to save him. Our youngling pointed out a very +respectable-looking stone house as having been "built by the Indians" +about those times. Guides have queer notions occasionally. + +I was at Niagara just when Dr. Rae arrived there with his companions and +dogs and things from his Arctic search after the lost navigator. + +"Who are those?" I said to my conductor. + +"Them?" he answered. "Them's the men that's been out West, out to +Michig'n, aft' _Sir Ben Franklin_." + +Of the other sights of Harrisburg the Brant House or Hotel, or whatever +it is called, seems most worth notice. Its _façade_ is imposing, with a +row of stately columns, high above which a broad sign impends, like a +crag over the brow of a lofty precipice. The lower floor only appeared +to be open to the public. Its tessellated pavement and ample courts +suggested the idea of a temple where great multitudes might kneel +uncrowded at their devotions; but, from appearances about the place +where the altar should be, I judged, that, if one asked the officiating +priest for the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, his prayer +would not be unanswered. The edifice recalled to me a similar phenomenon +I had once looked upon,--the famous Caffè Pedrocchi at Padua. It was the +same thing in Italy and America: a rich man builds himself a mausoleum, +and calls it a place of entertainment. The fragrance of innumerable +libations and the smoke of incense-breathing cigars and pipes shall +ascend day and night through the arches of his funeral monument. What +are the poor dips which flare and flicker on the crowns of spikes that +stand at the corners of St. Genevieve's filigree-cased sarcophagus to +this perpetual offering of sacrifice? + +Ten o'clock in the evening was approaching. The telegraph-office would +presently close, and as yet there were no tidings from Hagerstown. Let +us step over and see for ourselves. A message! A message! + +"_Captain H still here leaves seven to-morrow for Harrisburg Penna Is +doing well + +Mrs H K_ ----." + +A note from Dr. Cuyler to the same effect came soon afterwards to the +hotel. + +We shall sleep well to-night; but let us sit awhile with nubiferous, or, +if we may coin a word, nepheligenous accompaniment, such as shall gently +narcotize the over-wearied brain and fold its convolutions for slumber +like the leaves of a lily at nightfall. For now the over-tense nerves +are all unstraining themselves, and a buzz, like that which comes over +one who stops after being long jolted upon an uneasy pavement, makes +the whole frame alive with a luxurious languid sense of all its inmost +fibres. Our cheerfulness ran over, and the mild, pensive clerk was +so magnetized by it that he came and sat down with us. He presently +confided to me, with infinite _naïveté_ and ingenuousness, that, judging +from my personal appearance, he should not have thought me the writer +that he in his generosity reckoned me to be. His conception, so far as +I could reach it, involved a huge, uplifted forehead, embossed with +protuberant organs of the intellectual faculties, such as all writers +are supposed to possess in abounding measure. While I fell short of his +ideal in this respect, he was pleased to say that he found me by no +means the remote and inaccessible personage he had imagined, and that I +had nothing of the dandy about me, which last compliment I had a modest +consciousness of most abundantly deserving. + +Sweet slumbers brought us to the morning of Thursday. The train from +Hagerstown was due at 11.15 A.M. We took another ride behind the +codling, who showed us the sights of yesterday over again. Being in +a gracious mood of mind, I enlarged on the varying aspects of the +town-pumps and other striking objects which we had once inspected, as +seen by the different lights of evening and morning. After this, we +visited the school-house hospital. A fine young fellow, whose arm had +been shattered, was just falling into the spasms of lockjaw. The beads +of sweat stood large and round on his flushed and contracted features. +He was under the effect of opiates,--why not (if his case was desperate, +as it seemed to be considered) stop his sufferings with chloroform? It +was suggested that it might _shorten life_. "What then?" I said. "Are a +dozen additional spasms worth living for?" + +The time approached for the train to arrive from Hagerstown, and we went +to the station. I was struck, while waiting there, with what seemed to +me a great want of care for the safety of the people standing round. +Just after my companion and myself had stepped off the track, I noticed +a car coming quietly along at a walk, as one may say, without engine, +without visible conductor, without any person heralding its approach, so +silently, so insidiously, that I could not help thinking how very near +it came to flattening out me and my match-box worse than the Ravel +pantomimist and his snuff-box were flattened out in the play. The train +was late,--fifteen minutes, half an hour late,--and I began to get +nervous, lest something had happened. While I was looking for it, +out started a freight-train, as if on purpose to meet the cars I was +expecting, for a grand smash-up. I shivered at the thought, and asked +an _employé_ of the road, with whom I had formed an acquaintance a few +minutes old, why there should not be a collision of the expected train +with this which was just going out. He smiled an official smile, and +answered that they arranged to prevent that, or words to that effect. + +Twenty-four hours had not passed from that moment when a collision did +occur, just out of the city, where I feared it, by which at least eleven +persons were killed, and from forty to sixty more were maimed and +crippled! + +To-day there was the delay spoken of, but nothing worse. The expected +train came in so quietly that I was almost startled to see it on the +track. Let us walk calmly through the cars, and look around us. + +In the first car, on the fourth seat to the right, I saw my Captain; +there saw I him, even my first-born, whom I had sought through many +cities. + +"How are you, Boy?" + +"How are you, Dad?" + + * * * * * + +Such are the proprieties of life, as they are observed among us +Anglo-Saxons of the nineteenth century, decently disguising those +natural impulses that made Joseph, the Prime-Minister of Egypt, weep +aloud so that the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard,--nay, which +had once overcome his shaggy old uncle Esau so entirely that he fell +on his brother's neck and cried like a baby in the presence of all the +women. But the hidden cisterns of the soul may be filling fast with +sweet tears, while the windows through which it looks are undimmed by a +drop or a film of moisture. + +These are times in which we cannot live solely for selfish joys or +griefs. I had not let fall the hand I held, when a sad, calm voice +addressed me by name. I fear that at the moment I was too much absorbed +in my own feelings; for certainly at any other time I should have +yielded myself without stint to the sympathy which this meeting might +well call forth. + +"You remember my son, Cortland Saunders, whom I brought to see you once +in Boston?" + +"I do remember him well." + +"He was killed on Monday, at Shepherdstown. I am carrying his body back +with me on this train. He was my only child. If you could come to my +house,--I can hardly call it my home now,--it would be a pleasure to +me." + +This young man, belonging in Philadelphia, was the author of a "New +System of Latin Paradigms," a work showing extraordinary scholarship and +capacity. It was this book which first made me acquainted with him, and +I kept him in my memory, for there was genius in the youth. Some time +afterwards he came to me with a modest request to be introduced to +President Felton, and one or two others, who would aid him in a course +of independent study he was proposing to himself. I was most happy to +smooth the way for him, and he came repeatedly after this to see me and +express his satisfaction in the opportunities for study he enjoyed +at Cambridge. He was a dark, still, slender person, always with a +trance-like remoteness, a mystic dreaminess of manner, such as I never +saw in any other youth. Whether he heard with difficulty, or whether his +mind reacted slowly on an alien thought, I could not say; but his answer +would often be behind time, and then a vague, sweet smile, or a few +words spoken under his breath, as if he had been trained in sick men's +chambers. For such a youth, seemingly destined for the inner life of +contemplation, to be a soldier seemed almost unnatural. Yet he spoke to +me of his intention to offer himself to his country, and his blood must +now be reckoned among the precious sacrifices which will make her soil +sacred forever. Had he lived, I doubt not that he would have redeemed +the rare promise of his earlier years. He has done better, for he has +died that unborn generations may attain the hopes held out to our nation +and to mankind. + +So, then, I had been within ten miles of the place where my wounded +soldier was lying, and then calmly turned my back upon him to come once +more round by a journey of three or four hundred miles to the same +region I had left! No mysterious attraction warned me that the heart +warm with the same blood as mine was throbbing so near my own. I thought +of that lovely, tender passage where Gabriel glides unconsciously by +Evangeline upon the great river. Ah, me! if that railroad-crash had been +a few hours earlier, we two should never have met again, after coming so +close to each other! + +The source of my repeated disappointments was soon made clear enough. +The Captain had gone to Hagerstown, intending to take the cars at once +for Philadelphia, as his three friends actually did do, and as I took it +for granted he certainly would. But as he walked languidly along, some +ladies saw him across the street, and seeing, were moved with pity, +and pitying, spoke such soft words that he was tempted to accept their +invitation and rest awhile beneath their hospitable roof. The mansion +was old, as the dwellings of gentlefolks should be; the ladies were some +of them young, and all were full of kindness; there were gentle cares, +and unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music-sprinklings from the +piano, with a sweet voice to keep them company,--and all this after the +swamps of the Chickahominy, the mud and flies of Harrison's Landing, the +dragging marches, the desperate battles, the fretting wound, the jolting +ambulance, the log-house, and the rickety milk--cart! Thanks, uncounted +thanks to the angelic ladies whose charming attentions detained him +from Saturday to Thursday, to his great advantage and my infinite +bewilderment! As for his wound, how could it do otherwise than well +under such hands? The bullet had gone smoothly through, dodging +everything but a few nervous branches, which would come right in time +and leave him as well as ever. + +At ten that evening we were in Philadelphia, the Captain at the house of +the friends so often referred to, and I the guest of Charley, my kind +companion. The Quaker element gives an irresistible attraction to these +benignant Philadelphia households. Many things reminded me that I was no +longer in the land of the Pilgrims. On the table were _Kool Slaa_ and +_Schmeer Kase_, but the good grandmother who dispensed with such quiet, +simple grace these and more familiar delicacies was literally ignorant +of _Baked Beans_, and asked if it was the Lima bean which was employed +in that marvellous dish of animalized leguminous farina! + +Charley was pleased with my comparing the face of the small Ethiop known +to his household as "Tines" to a huckleberry with features. He also +approved my parallel between a certain German blonde young maiden whom, +we passed in the street and the "Morris White" peach. But he was so +good-humored at times, that, if one scratched a lucifer, he accepted it +as an illumination. + +A day in Philadelphia left a very agreeable impression of the outside of +that great city, which has endeared itself so much of late to all the +country by its most noble and generous care of our soldiers. Measured by +its sovereign hotel, the Continental, it would stand at the head of our +economic civilization. It provides for the comforts and conveniences, +and many of the elegances of life, more satisfactorily than any American +city, perhaps than any other city anywhere. It is not a breeding-place +of ideas, which makes it a more agreeable residence for average people. +It is the great neutral centre of the Continent, where the fiery +enthusiasms of the South and the keen fanaticisms of the North meet at +their outer limits, and result in a compound that turns neither litmus +red nor turmeric brown. It lives largely on its traditions, of which, +leaving out Franklin and Independence Hall, the most imposing must +be considered its famous water-works. In my younger days I visited +Fairmount, and it was with a pious reverence that I renewed my +pilgrimage to that perennial fountain. Its watery ventricles were +throbbing with the same systole and diastole as when, the blood of +twenty years bounding in my own heart, I looked upon their giant +mechanism. But in the place of "Pratt's Garden" was an open park, and +the old house where Robert Morris held his court in a former generation +was changing to a public restaurant. A suspension-bridge cobwebbed +itself across the Schuylkill where that audacious arch used to leap the +river at a single bound,--an arch of greater span, as they loved to tell +us, than was ever before constructed. The Upper Ferry Bridge was to the +Schuylkill what the Colossus was to the harbor of Rhodes. It had an air +of dash about it which went far towards redeeming the dead level of +respectable average which flattens the physiognomy of the rectangular +city. Philadelphia will never be herself again until another Robert +Mills and another Lewis Wernwag have shaped her a new palladium. She +must leap the Schuylkill again, or old men will sadly shake their heads, +like the Jews at the sight of the second temple, remembering the glories +of that which it replaced. + +There are times when Ethiopian minstrelsy can amuse, if it does not +charm, a weary soul,--and such a vacant hour there was on this same +Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. +As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to +cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window +a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange +intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. +I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was +irresistibly droll, and Areturus, or Aldebaran, or whatever the +blazing luminary may have been, with all his revolving worlds, sailed +uncared-for down the firmament. + +On Saturday morning we took up our line of march for New York. Mr. +Felton, President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore +Railroad, had already called upon me, with a benevolent and sagacious +look on his face which implied that he knew how to do me a service and +meant to do it. Sure enough, when we got to the depot, we found a couch +spread for the Captain, and both of us were passed on to New York with +no visits, but those of civility, from the conductor. The best thing I +saw on the route was a rustic fence, near Elizabethtown, I think, but I +am not quite sure. There was more genius in it than in any structure of +the kind I have ever seen,--each length being of a special pattern, +ramified, reticulated, contorted, as the limbs of the trees had grown. I +trust some friend will photograph or stereograph this fence for me, to +go with the view of the spires of Frederick already referred to, as +mementos of my journey. + +I had come to feeling that I know most of the respectably dressed people +whom I met in the cars, and had been in contact with them at some time +or other. Three or four ladies and gentlemen were near us, forming +a group by themselves. Presently one addressed me by name, and, on +inquiry, I found him to be the gentleman who was with me in the pulpit +as Orator on the occasion of another Phi Beta Kappa poem, one delivered +at New Haven. The party were very courteous and friendly, and +contributed in various ways to our comfort. + +It sometimes seems to me as if there were only about a thousand people +in the world, who keep going round and round behind the scenes and then +before them, like the "army" in a beggarly stage-show. Suppose I should +really wish, some time or other, to get away from this everlasting +circle of revolving supernumeraries, where should I buy a ticket the +like of which was not in some of their pockets, or find a seat to which +some one of them was not a neighbor? + +A little less than a year before, after the Ball's-Bluff accident, the +Captain, then the Lieutenant, and myself had reposed for a night on our +homeward journey at the Fifth-Avenue Hotel, where we were lodged on the +ground-floor, and fared sumptuously. We were not so peculiarly fortunate +this time, the house being really very full. Farther from the flowers +and nearer to the stars,--to reach the neighborhood of which last the +_per ardua_ of three or four flights of stairs was formidable for any +mortal, wounded or well. The "vertical railway" settled that for us, +however. It is a giant corkscrew forever pulling a mammoth cork, which, +by some divine judgment, is no sooner drawn than it is replaced in its +position. This ascending and descending stopper is hollow, carpeted, +with cushioned seats, and is watched over by two condemned souls, +called conductors, one of whom is said to be named Ixion, and the other +Sisyphus. + +I love New York, because, as in Paris, everybody that lives in it feels +that it is his property,--at least, as much as it is anybody's. My +Broadway, in particular, I love almost as I used to love my Boulevards. + +I went, therefore, with peculiar interest, on the day that we rested at +our grand hotel, to visit some new pleasure-grounds the citizens had +been arranging for us, and which I had not yet seen. The Central Park +is an expanse of wild country, well crumpled so as to form ridges which +will give views and hollows that will hold water. The hips and elbows +and other bones of Nature stick out here and there in the shape of rocks +which give character to the scenery, and an unchangeable, unpurchasable +look to a landscape that without them would have been in danger of being +fattened by art and money out of all its native features. The roads were +fine, the sheets of water beautiful, the bridges handsome, the swans +elegant in their deportment, the grass green and as short as a fast +horse's winter coat. I could not learn whether it was kept so by +clipping or singeing. I was delighted with my new property,--but it +cost me four dollars to get there, so far was it beyond the Pillars of +Hercules of the fashionable quarter. What it will be by-and-by depends +on circumstances; but at present it is as much central to New York +as Brookline is central to Boston. The question is not between Mr. +Olmsted's admirably arranged, but remote pleasure-ground and our Common, +with its batrachian pool, but between his Eccentric Park and our finest +suburban scenery, between its artificial reservoirs and the broad +natural sheet of Jamaica Pond, I say this not invidiously, but in +justice to the beauties which surround our own metropolis. To compare +the situations of any dwellings in either of the great cities with those +which look upon the Common, the Public Garden, the waters of the Back +Bay, would be to take an unfair advantage of Fifth Avenue and Walnut +Street. St. Botolph's daughter dresses in plainer clothes than her +more stately sisters, but she wears an emerald on her right hand and a +diamond on her left that Cybele herself need not be ashamed of. + +On Monday morning, the twenty-ninth of September, we took the cars for +_Home_. Vacant lots, with Irish and pigs; vegetable-gardens; straggling +houses; the high bridge; villages, not enchanting; then Stamford; then +NORWALK. Here, on the 6th of May, 1853, I passed close on the heels of +the great disaster. But that my lids were heavy on that morning, my +readers would probably have had no further trouble with me. Two of my +friends saw the car in which they rode break in the middle and leave +them hanging over the abyss. From Norwalk to Boston, that day's journey +of two hundred miles was a long funeral-procession. + +Bridgeport, waiting for Iranistan to rise from its ashes with all its +phoenix-egg domes,--bubbles of wealth that broke, ready to be blown +again, iridescent as ever, which is pleasant, for the world likes +cheerful Mr. Barnum's success; New Haven, girt with flat marshes that +look like monstrous billiard-tables, with haycocks lying about for +balls,--romantic with West Rock and its legends,--cursed with a +detestable depot, whose niggardly arrangements crowd the track so +murderously close to the wall that the _peine forte et dure_ must be the +frequent penalty of an innocent walk on its platform,--with its neat +carriages, metropolitan hotels, precious old college-dormitories, +its vistas of elms and its dishevelled weeping-willows; Hartford, +substantial, well-bridged, many-steepled city,--every conical spire an +extinguisher of some nineteenth-century heresy; so onward, by and across +the broad, shallow Connecticut,--dull red road and dark river woven +in like warp and woof by the shuttle of the darting engine; then +Springfield, the wide-meadowed, well-feeding, horse-loving, +hot-summered, giant-treed town,--city among villages, village +among cities; Worcester, with its Diedalian labyrinth of crossing +railroad-bars, where the snorting Minotaurs, breathing fire and smoke +and hot vapors, are stabled in their dens; Framingham, fair cup-bearer, +leaf-cinctured Hebe of the deep-bosomed Queen sitting by the sea-side on +the throne of the Six Nations. And now I begin to know the road, not by +towns, but by single dwellings, not by miles, but by rods. The poles of +the great magnet that draws in all the iron tracks through the grooves +of all the mountains must be near at hand, for here are crossings, and +sudden stops, and screams of alarmed engines heard all around. The tall +granite obelisk comes into view far away on the left, its bevelled +capstone sharp against the sky; the lofty chimneys of Charlestown and +East Cambridge flaunt their smoky banners up in the thin air; and now +one fair bosom of the three-hilled city, with its dome-crowned summit, +reveals itself, as when many-breasted Ephesian Artemis appeared with +half-open _chlamys_ before her worshippers. + +Fling open the window-blinds of the chamber that looks out on the waters +and towards the western sun! Let the joyous light shine in upon the +pictures that hang upon its walls and the shelves thick-set with the +names of poets and philosophers and sacred teachers, in whose pages our +boys learn that life is noble only when it is held cheap by the side of +honor and of duty. Lay him in his own bed, and let him sleep off his +aches and weariness. So comes down another night over this household, +unbroken by any messenger of evil tidings,--a night of peaceful rest and +grateful thoughts; for this our son and brother was dead and is alive +again, and was lost and is found. + + + + +WAITING. + + + Drop, falling fruits and crispèd leaves! + Ye tone a note of joy to me; + Through the rough wind my soul sails free, + nigh over waves that Autumn heaves. + + Such quickening is in Nature's death, + Such life in every dying day,-- + The glowing year hath lost her sway, + Since Freedom waits her parting breath. + + I watch the crimson maple-boughs, + I know by heart each burning leaf, + Yet would that like a barren reef + Stripped to the breeze those arms uprose! + + Under the flowers my soldier lies! + But come, thou chilling pall of snow, + Lest he should hear who sleeps below + The yet unended captive cries! + + Fade swiftly, then, thou lingering year! + Test with the storms our eager powers; + For chains are broken with the hours, + And Freedom walks upon thy bier. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Eyes and Ears_. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, pp. +419. + +There is perhaps no man in America more widely known, more deeply loved, +and more heartily hated than the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. This +little book, fragmentary and desultory as it is, gives us a key +wherewith to unlock the mystery both of the extent of his influence and +the depth of the feelings which he excites. It is but a shower of petals +flung down by a frolicsome May breeze; but the beauty and brilliancy +of their careless profusion furnish a hint of the real strength and +substance and fruitfulness of the tree from which they sprang. + +Within the compass of some four hundred pages we have about one hundred +articles, most of which had previously appeared in weekly newspapers. +They embrace, of course, every variety of subject,--grave and gay, +practical and poetical. They are not such themes as come to a man +in silence and solitude, to be wrought out with deep and deliberate +conscientiousness; they are rather such as He around one in his outgoing +and his incoming, in the field and by the way-side, overlooked by the +preoccupied multitude, but abundantly patent to the few who will not +permit the memories or the hopes of life to thrust away its actualities, +and, once pointed out, full of interest and amusement even to the +absorbed and hitherto unconscious throngs. We have here no pale-browed, +far-sighted philosopher, but a ruddy-faced, high-spirited man, +cheerful-tempered, yet not _equilibrious_, susceptible to annoyance, +capable of wrathful outbursts, with eyes to see all sweet sights, ears +to hear all sweet sounds, and lips to sing their loveliness to others, +and also with eyes and ears and lips just as keen to distinguish and +just as hold to denounce the sights and sounds that are unlovely;--and +this man, with his ringing laugh and his springing step, walks cheerily +to and fro in his daily work, striking the rocks here and there by the +way-side with his bright steel hammer, eliciting a shower of sparks from +each, and then on to the next. It is not the serious business of his +life, but its casual and almost careless experiments. He does not wait +to watch effects. You may gather up the brushwood and build yourself +a fire, if you like. His part of the affair is but a touch and go,-- +partly for love and partly for fun. + +There are places where a severer taste, or perhaps only a more careful +revision, would have changed somewhat. At times an exuberance of spirits +carries him to the very verge of coarseness, but this is rare and +exceptional. The fabric may be slightly ravelled at the ends and +slightly rough at the selvedge, but in the main it is fine and smooth +and lustrous as well as strong. A coarse nature carefully clipped and +sheared and fashioned down to the commonplace of conventionality will +often exhibit a negative refinement, while a mind of real and subtile +delicacy, but of rugged and irrepressible individuality, will +occasionally shoot out irregular and uncouth branches. Yet between the +symmetry of the one and the spontaneity of the other the choice cannot +be doubtful. We are not defending coarseness in any guise. It is always +to be assailed, and never to be defended. It is always a detriment, +and never an ornament. No excellence can justify it. No occasion can +palliate it. But coarseness is of two kinds,--one of the surface, and +one in the grain. The latter is pervading and irremediable. It touches +nothing which it does not deface. It makes all things common and +unclean. It grows more repulsive as the roundness of youth falls away +and leaves its harsh features more sharply outlined. But the other +coarseness is only the overgrowth of excellence,--the rankness of lusty +life. It is vigor run wild. It is a fault, but it is local and temporal. +Culture corrects it. As the mind matures, as experience accumulates, +as the vision enlarges, the coarseness disappears, and the rich and +healthful juices nourish instead a playful and cheerful serenity that +illumines strength with a softened light, that disarms opposition and +delights sympathy, that shines without dazzling and attracts without +offending. + +Here arises a fear lest the apologetic nature of our remarks may seem to +indicate a much greater need of apology than actually exists. We have +been led into this line of remark, not so much by a perusal of the +book under consideration, in which, indeed, there is very little, if +anything, to offend, as by the nature of the objections which we have +most frequently heard against this author's productions, both written +and spoken. We do not even confine ourselves to defence, but go farther, +and question whether the allegations of coarseness may not oftener +be the fault of the plaintiff than of the defendant. Is there not a +conventional standard of refinement which measures things by its own +arbitrary self, and finds material for displeasure in what is really +but a sincere and almost unconscious rendering of things as they exist? +There are facts which modern fastidiousness justly enough commands to he +wrapped around with graceful drapery before they shall have audience. +But do we not commit a trespass against virtue, when we demand the same +soft disguises to drape facts whose disguise is the worst immorality, +whose naked hideousness is the only decency, which must be seen +disgusting to warrant their being seen at all? So Mr. Beecher has been +censured for irreverence, when what was called his irreverence has +seemed to us but the tenderness engendered of close connection. Cannot +one live so near to God as that His greatness shall he merged in His +goodness? What would be irreverence, if it came from the head, may be +but love springing up warm from the heart. + +One of the strongest characteristics of Mr. Beecher's mind, the one that +has, perhaps, the strongest influence in producing his power over men, +is his quick insight into common things, his quick sympathy with common +minds. He knows common dangers. He understands common interests. He +is sensitive to common sorrows. He appreciates common joys. Without +necessarily being practical himself, he is full of practical +suggestions. He is a leveller; but he levels up, not down. He +continually seeks to lift men from the plane of mere toil and thrift to +the loftier levels of aspiration. He would disinthrall them from what is +low, and introduce them to the freedom of the heights. He would bring +them out of the dungeons of the senses into the domains of taste and +principles. He believes in man, and he battles for men. With him, +humanity is chief: science, art, wealth are its handmaidens. Yet, +writing for ordinary people, he never falls into the sin of declaiming +against extraordinary ones. No part of his power over the poor is +obtained by inveighing against the rich, as no part of his power over +the rich is obtained by pandering to their prejudices or their passions. +He builds up no influence for himself on the ruins of another man's +influence. The elevation which he aims to produce is real, not +factitious,--absolute, not relative. It is the elevation to be obtained +by ascending the mountain, not by digging it away so that the valley +seems no longer low by contrast. + +For the manner of his teaching, he is not always gentle, but he is +always sincere. He speaks soft words to persuade; but if that is not +enough, he does not scruple to knock the muck-rake out of sordid hands +with a fine, sudden stroke, if so he may make men look up from the +rubbish under their feet to the flowers that bloom around them and the +stars that glow above and the God that reigns over all. + +Thinking of the multitudes of hard-working, weary-hearted people whom he +weekly met with these words of cheer: sometimes homely advice on homely +things; sometimes wise counsels in art; sometimes tender lessons from +Nature; sometimes noble words from his own earnest soul; sometimes +sympathy in sorrow; sometimes strength in weakness; sometimes only the +indirect, but real help that comes from the mere distraction wrought +by his sportiveness, and wild, winsome mirth; but all kindly, hearty, +honest, sympathetic,--indignation softening, even while it surges, +into pity and love, and itself finding or framing excuses for the very +outrage which it lashes: thinking of this, we do not marvel that he has +furrowed for himself so deep a groove in so many hearts. Nor, on the +other hand, is it difficult to see, even from so genial a book as this, +whence polemics are not so much banished as where there is no niche for +them, should they apply, why it is that he is so fiercely opposed. +When a man like Mr. Beecher encounters that which excites his moral +disapprobation, there is no possibility of mistaking him. He flings +himself against it with all the strength and might of his manly, +uncompromising nature. There is no coquetting with the proprieties, no +toning down of objurgation to meet the requirements of personal dignity, +but an audacious and aggressive repugnance of the whole man to the +meanness or malignity. And the very clearness of his vision gives +terrible power to his vituperation. With his keen, bright eye he sees +just where the vulnerable spot is, and with his firm, strong hand he +sends the arrow in. The victim writhes and reels and--does not love the +marksman. And as the victim has a large circle of relatives by birth and +marriage, he inoculates them with his own animosity; and so, at a safe +distance, Mr. Beecher is sometimes considerably torn in pieces. Yet we +have no doubt that by far the greater number of these opponents would, +if once fairly brought within the circle of his influence, acknowledge +the truth as well as the force of his principles; and certainly it is a +matter of surprise that a man with such a magnificent mastery of all the +weapons of attack and defence should be so sparing and discreet in their +use as is Mr. Beecher. In this book, compiled of articles thrown off +upon the spur of the moment, with so much to amuse, to awaken, to +suggest, and to inspire, there is hardly a sentence which can arouse +antagonism or inflict pain. You may not agree with his conclusions, but +you cannot resist his good nature. + +Long may he live to do yeoman's service in the cause of the beautiful +and the true! + + +_History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France from +A.D. 1807 to A.D. 1814._ By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W.F.P. NAPIER, K.C.B., +etc. In Five Volumes, with Portraits and Plans. New York: W.J. +Widdleton. + +A new edition of the great military history of Sir William Napier, +printed in the approved luxurious style which the good examples of the +Cambridge University Press have made a necessity with all intelligent +book-purchasers, calls at the present time for a special word of +recognition. Of the merits and character of the work itself it is +scarcely required that we should speak. An observer of, and participant +in, the deeds which he describes, cautious, deliberate, keen-sighted, +candid, and unsparing, General Napier's book has qualities seldom united +in a single production. Southey wrote an eloquent history of the War in +the Peninsula, perhaps as good a history as an author well-trained in +compositions of the kind could be expected to produce at a distance. +But that was its defect. It lacked that knowledge and judgment of a +complicated series of events which could be acquired only on the field +and by one possessed of consummate military training. On the other hand, +we can seldom look for any laborious work of authorship from a general +in active service. Men of action exhaust their energies in doing, and +are usually impatient of the slow process of unwinding the tangled skein +of events which at the moment they had been compelled to cut with the +sword. It is by no means every campaign which furnishes the Commentaries +of its Caesar. To Sir William Napier, however, we are indebted for a +work which has taken its place as a model history of modern campaigning. +The protracted struggle of the Peninsular War through six full years +of skilful operations, conducted by the greatest masters of military +science, in a country whose topographical features called out the rarest +resources of the art of war, at a time when the military system of +Napoleon was at its height, summing up the experience of a quarter of +a century in France of active military pursuits,--the story of sieges, +marches, countermarches, lines of retreat and defence, followed by the +most energetic assaults, blended with the disturbing political elements +of the day at home and the contrarieties of the battle-field amidst a +population foreign to both armies,--certainly presented a subject or +series of subjects calculated to tax the powers of a conscientious +writer to the uttermost. To furnish such a narrative was the work +undertaken by General Napier. Sixteen years of unintermitted toil were +given by him to the task. He spared no labor of research. Materials were +placed at his disposal by the generals of both armies, by Soult and +Wellington. The correspondence left behind in Spain by Joseph Bonaparte, +written in three languages and partly in cipher of which the key had +to be discovered, was patiently arranged, translated, and at length +deciphered by Lady Napier, who also greatly assisted her husband in +copying his manuscript, which, from the frequent changes made, was in +effect transcribed three times. By such labors was the immense mass +of contemporary evidence brought into order, clearly narrated, and +submitted to exact scientific criticism. For it is the distinguishing +characteristic of the book, that it is a critical history, constantly +illuminating facts by principles and deducing the most important maxims +of political and military science from the abundant material lavishly +contributed by the virtues, follies, and superabundant exertions of +three great nations in the heart of Europe, in the midst of the complex +civilization of the nineteenth century. The ever earnest, animated style +in which all this is written grows out of the subject and is supported +by it, always rising naturally with the requirements of the occasion. If +our officers in the field would learn how despatches should be written +and a record of their exploits be prepared to catch the ear of +posterity, let them give their leisure hours of the camp to the study +of Napier. The public also may learn many lessons of patience and +philosophy from these pages, when they turn from the book to the actual +warfare writing its ineffaceable characters on so many fair fields of +our own land. + + +_The Patience of Hope_. By the Author of "A Present Heaven." With an +Introduction by JOHN G. WHITTIER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. + +As the method by which an individual soul reaches conclusions with +regard to the Saviour and the conditions of salvation, "The Patience of +Hope" is worthy of particular attention. It does not, however, stand +alone, but belongs to a class. Its peculiarity is that it proceeds +by apposite text and inference, more than by the illumination of +feeling,--aiming to convince rather than to reveal, as is the manner of +those whose convictions have not quite become as a star in a firmament +where neither eclipse nor cloud ever comes. Evidently there was a most +searching examination of the Scriptures preparatory to the work; and yet +the ample quotation, often fresh and felicitous, appears to be made to +sustain a preconceived opinion, or, more strictly, an emotion. This +emotion is so single and absorbing that there is some gleam of it in +each varying view, and every sentiment is warm with it, however the +flame may lurk as beneath a crust of lava. Only from a richly gifted +mind, and a heart whose longings no fullness of mortal affection has +power to permanently appease, could these aspirations issue. It is the +tender complaint and patient hope of one whom the earth, and all that +is therein, cannot satisfy. Moreover, so pure and irrepressible is the +natural desire of the heart, so does it color and constitute all +the dream of Paradise, that the divinest Hope not only thrills and +palpitates with Love's ripest imaginings, but puts on nuptial robes. +Touchingly she pictures herself as "The Mystic Spouse,--her that cometh +up from the wilderness, leaning upon the arm of her Beloved,--and we +shall see that she, like her Lord, is wounded in her heart, her hands, +and her feet." Though sowing in such still remembered pain, she yet +reaps with unspeakable joy. She has now the full assurance that the +mystic and immortal embrace is for her, and in the fulness of her heart +cries, "When were Love's arms stretched so wide as upon the Cross?" + +It is in keeping with such an aspiration that this and kindred natures +should perceive in Christianity the sacred mystery from which is to be +drawn, in the world to come, the full fruition of the tenderest and +most vital impulse of the human heart, and therefore to be most fitly +meditated and vividly anticipated in cloistered seclusion. Throughout +their revelations there is a yearning for Infinite Love; and ardent +receptivity is regarded as the true condition for the conception and +enjoyment of religion. It is clear that they have a passion, sublimated +and glorified indeed, but still a passion, for Christ. This is the +mightiest impulse to that exaltation of His person against which the +calm and consummate reasoner contends in vain. Truly we are fearfully +and wonderfully made! The soul is touched with the strong necessity of +loving; and its power becomes intense and inappeasable in proportion to +the capacity of the heart; and yet some of the greatest of those have +reposed so supremely in the innate and ineffable Ideal that to the +uninitiated they have seemed in their serenity as pulseless as pearls. +Through this sublime influence lovely women have become nuns, and +have lived and died saints, that they might continually indulge and +constantly cherish the blissful hope of being, in some spiritual form, +the brides of Jesus. A long line of these, coeval with the Crucifixion, +have passed on in maiden meditation, and so were fancy-free from all of +mortal mould. This ecstatic dreaming is so charming, and so insatiable +withal, that it seems to those who entertain it a divine vision. It is +an enchantment so complete that Reason cannot penetrate its circle, and +Logic has never approached it. Doubtless this fond aspiration finds +freest and fairest expression in the Roman Church,--a communion that not +only encourages, but enjoins, the adoration of the Virgin, in order that +certain enthusiasts among men may also aspire to the skies on the wings +of pure, yet passionate love. + +The ready objection to this course of life is that it leads to solitude. +It wins the devotee apart, and away from the influences to that +universal brotherhood whereto Philanthropy fondly turns as the finest +manifestation of the spirit of the Redeemer. And yet they are equally +the fruits of His coming. Without the perfect Man the sublimest +endurance and most marvellous aspiration of Hope would never have found +development below. Now it has become a power that so pervades the bosoms +of sects that they accept its soaring wing as one to which the heaven +of heavens is open. This, certainly, is the greatest triumph that human +nature has achieved over those who have systematically depreciated it; +inasmuch as it is a heightening, not a change of heart. Verily, Love is +stronger than Death; and in its complete presence or utter absence, +here or hereafter, there is and will be the extreme of bliss or bale. +Therefore it is in the affections to lead those sweetly and swiftly +heavenward who singly seek the immortal way. So guided and inspired, it +cannot but be a charming path; for those who perpetually walk therein +come to look as though they were entranced with the perfume that +floats from fields of asphodel. Characters so developed are beautiful +exceedingly, and seem of a far higher strain than those who most +generously and effectively labor for the amelioration and moral +advancement of the race. They, more than any others who have riches +there, illumine the grand, yet gloomy arches of the Christian Church +with their ineffable whiteness. No preacher therein is so eloquent as +their marble silence; for they reveal in their countenances the mystery +of Redemption. Even while among the living, men looked upon them with +awe,--feeling, that, though coeval in time, infinite space rolled +between. They teach as no other order of teachers can, that the days and +duties of life may be so cast under foot as to exalt one to be only a +little lower than the angels. In fine, through them is made visible the +value of the individual soul; and thus we see, as in the central idea of +our author, that "that which moulds itself from within is free." + + +_Jenkins's Vest-Pocket Lexicon_. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. + +Compared with "Webster's Unabridged" or "Worcester's Quarto," this +little pinch of words would make "small show." It is, however, a very +valuable pocket-companion; for, to use the author's own phrase, it +"omits what everybody knows, contains what everybody wants to know and +cannot readily find." It is really a _vade-mecum_, small, cheap, and +useful to a degree no one can fully appreciate until it has been +thoroughly tried. Mr. Jabex Jenkins may claim younger-brotherhood with +the men who have done service in the important department of education +he has chosen to enter. + + +_A Practical Guide to the Study of the Diseases of the Eye; their +Medical and Surgical Treatment_. By HENRY W. WILLIAMS, M.D. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 317. + +If we readily accord our gratitude to those whose skilful hands and +well-instructed judgment render us physical service in our frequent +need, ought we not to offer additional thanks to such as by the +high tribute of their mental efforts confirm and elucidate the more +mechanical processes required in doing their beneficent work? + +Do those who enjoy unimpaired vision, and who have not yet experienced +the sufferings arising from any of the varied forms of ocular disease, +appreciate the magnitude of the blessing vouchsafed to them? We venture +to answer in the negative. + +Occasionally, the traveller by railway has a more or less severe hint +as to what an inflamed and painful eye may bring him to endure: those +countless flying cinders which blacken his garments and draw unsightly +lines upon his face with their slender charcoal-pencils do not always +leave him thus comparatively unharmed. Suppose one unluckily reaches the +eyeball just as the redness has faded from its sharp angles,--do we not +all know how the rest of that journey is one intolerable agony, unless +some fellow-traveller knows how to remove the offending substance? And +even then how the blistered, delicate surface yearns for a soothing +_douche_ of warm water,--perhaps not to be enjoyed for hours! + +From slighter troubles, through all the more serious and dangerous +states arising from injury or produced by spontaneous or specifically +aroused inflammation, to the wonderful operations devised to give sight, +when the clear and beautiful lens has become clouded, or the delicate +muscular meshes of the iris are bound down or drawn together so as to +close the pupil and shut out the visible world, the learned and skilful +operator comes to our aid, a veritable messenger of mercy. To be +deprived of sight,--who can fully appreciate this melancholy condition, +save those who have been in danger of such a fate, or have had actual +experience of it, though only temporarily? Such a misfortune is +universally allowed to be worse, by far, than congenital blindness. And +this is not difficult to understand. The eyes that have been permitted +to drink in the varied hues of the landscape, and to gaze with such +delight upon the celestial revelations spread out nightly above and +around them, are indeed in double darkness when all this power and +privilege are swept away, it may be forever. The astronomer can truly +estimate the value of healthy eyes. + +In looking over again, after a thorough perusal some time since, the +admirable work which forms the theme of this notice, we could not +resist the impulse to call attention to the infinite uses, unbounded +importance, and inestimable value of the organs of vision; and we have +no fear but our postulate in regard to the manner in which we should all +prize their conservators will be heartily acceded to. + +This is hardly the place in which to enter into a minute professional +examination of this new volume. If we advert generally to its purpose, +and point out the undoubted benefits its recommendations and teaching +are destined to confer, both upon those who are sufferers,--or who will +be, unless they heed its warnings,--and upon the practitioners who +devote either an exclusive or a general attention to the diseases of the +eye, the end we have in view will be partially attained,--and fully so, +if the author's convincing instructions are brought into that universal +adoption which they not only eminently deserve, but must command. Let us +hope that the clear style, sensible advice, and valuable information, +derived from so varied an experience as that which has been enjoyed by +our author, will have a wide and growing influence in the extensive +field of professional ministrations demanded by this class of +cases,--for, let it be remembered, and reverently be it written, "THE +LIGHT OF THE BODY IS THE EYE." + +The distinctive aim of the author--and which is kept constantly in +view--is the simplifying both of the classification and the treatment +of the diseases of the eye. We know of no volume which could more +appropriately and beneficially be put into the hands of the medical +student, nor any which could meet a more appreciative welcome from +the busy practitioner. The former cannot, at the tender age of his +professional life, digest the ponderous masses of ocular lore which +adorn the shelves of the maturer student's library; and the latter, +while he is glad to have these elaborate works at his command for +reference, is refreshed by a perusal of a few pages of the more +unpretending, but not less valuable _vade-mecum_. + +While the professional reader will peruse this book with pleasure as +well as profit, there are many points and paragraphs of great value to +everybody. We advise every one to look over these pages, and we promise +that many valuable hints will be gained in reference to the various +ailments and casualties which are constantly befalling the eye. It is +well in this world to become members of a Mutual-Assistance Society, and +help one another out of trouble as often as we can. In order to do this, +we must know how; and, in many cases, a little aid in mishaps such as +are likely to occur to the eye may prevent a vast deal of subsequent +injury and pain. + +We cannot but refer to the singular good sense of the author in +pressing upon his reader's attention the mischief so often wrought, +hitherto,--and we fear still frequently brought about,--by +_over-activity_ of treatment. Especially does this find its +exemplification in the care of traumatic injuries of the eye. Rashness +and heroic measures in these cases are as unfortunate for the patient as +are the well-meant efforts of friends, when a foreign substance has been +inserted into the ear or nose, or a needle broken off in the flesh: what +was at first an easily remedied matter becomes exceedingly difficult, +tedious, and painful, after various pokings, pushings, and squeezings. + +The author's experience in cases of cataract makes his observations upon +that affection as valuable as they are clear and to the purpose. The +same is true with regard to the use and abuse of spectacles. + +A short account of that interesting and most important instrument, the +Opthalmoscope, will command the attention of the general reader. + +Finally, we notice with peculiar satisfaction the elegant dress in which +the volume appears. A very marked feature of this is the agreeable tint +given to the paper, so much to be preferred to the glaring snowy white +which has been so long the rule with publishers everywhere. This is +especially befitting a volume whose object is the alleviation of ocular +distress, and we venture to say will meet with the commendation of every +reader. A similar shade was adopted, some time since, by the publishers +of "The Ophthalmic Hospital Reports," London, at the suggestion, we +think, of its accomplished editor, Mr. Streatfeild. + + +_Country Living and Country Thinking_. By GAIL HAMILTON. Boston: Ticknor +& Fields. 12mo. + +Our impression of this volume is that it contains some of the most +charming essays in American literature. The authoress, who chooses to +conceal her real name under the _alias_ of "Gail Hamilton," is not +only womanly, but a palpable individual among women. Both sex and +individuality are impressed on every page. + +That the hook is written by a woman is apparent by a thousand signs. +That it proceeds from a distinct and peculiar personality, as well as +from a fertile and vigorous intellect, is no less apparent. The writer +has evidently looked at life through her own eyes, and interpreted it +through her own experience. Her independence becomes at times a kind of +humorous tartness, and she finds fault most delightfully. So cant +and pretence, however cunningly disguised by accredited maxims and +accredited sentimentality, can for a moment deceive her sharp insight +or her fresh sensibility. This primitive power and originality are not +purchased by any sacrifice of the knowledge derived at second-hand +through books, for she is evidently a thoughtful and appreciative +student of the best literature; but they proceed from a nature so strong +that it cannot be overcome and submerged by the mental forces and food +it assimilates. + +Individuality implies will, and will always tends to wilfulness. The two +are harmonized in humor. Gail Hamilton is a humorist in her wilfulness, +and flashes suggestive thought and wisdom even in her most daring +caprices and eccentricities of individual whim. She is wild in +sentences, heretical in paragraphs, thoroughly orthodox in essays. +Her mind is really inclosed by the most rigid maxims of Calvinistic +theology, while, within that circle, it frisks and plays in the oddest +and wittiest freaks. A grave and religious earnestness is at the +foundation of her individuality, and she is so assured of this fact that +she can safely indulge in wilful gibes at pretension in all its most +conventionally sacred forms. This bright audacity is the perfection of +moral and intellectual health. No morbid nature, however elevated in +its sentiments, would dare to hazard such keen and free remarks as Gail +Hamilton scatters in careless profusion. + +When this intellectual caprice approaches certain definite limits, it is +edifying to witness the forty-person power of ethics and eloquence she +brings readily up to the rescue of the sentiments she at first seemed +bent on destroying. As her style throughout is that of brilliant, +animated, and cordial conversation, flexible to all the moods of the +quick mind it so easily and aptly expresses, the reader is somewhat +puzzled at times to detect the natural logic which regulates her +transitions from gay to grave, from individual perceptions to general +laws; but the geniality and heartiness which flood the whole book with +life and meaning soon reconcile him to the peculiar processes of the +intellect whose startling originality and freshness give him so much +pleasure. + +It would be unjust not to say that beneath all the fantastic play of her +wit and humor there is constantly discernible an earnest purpose. Sense +and sagacity are everywhere visible. The shrewdest judgments on ordinary +life and character are as abundant as the quaint fancies with which they +are often connected. But in addition to all that charms and informs, the +thoughtful reader will find much that elevates and invigorates. A noble +soul, contemptuous of everything mean and base, loving everything grand +and magnanimous, is the real life and inspiration of the book. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Union Speeches. Second Series. Delivered in England during the Present +American War. By George Francis Train. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & +Brothers. 8vo. paper, pp. 90. 25 cts. + +Out of his Head. A Romance. Edited by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. New York. +G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 226. $1.00. + +A Narrative of the Campaign of the First Rhode Island Regiment, in the +Spring and Summer of 1861. Illustrated with a Portrait and Map. By +Augustus Woodbury, Chaplain of the Regiment. Providence. S.S. Rider. +12mo. pp. 260. $1.00. + +The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. New York. Blakeman & Mason. 12mo. pp. 382. +$1.00. + +An English Grammar. By G.P. Quackenbos, A.M., Author of "Advanced Course +of Composition and Rhetoric," "A Natural Philosophy," etc. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 288. 63 cts. + +Like and Unlike. A Novel. By A.S. Roe, Author of "I've been Thinking," +etc. New York. G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 501. $1.25. + +Les Misérables. Saint Denis. A Novel. By Victor Hugo. Translated from +the Original French, by Charles E. Wilbour. New York. G.W. Carleton. +8vo. paper, pp. 184. 50 cts. + +Les Misérables. Jean Valjean. A Novel. By Victor Hugo. Translated from +the Original French, by Charles E. Wilbour. New York. G.W. Carleton. +8vo. pp. 165. $1.00. + +The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, By his Nephew, Pierre M. +Irving. Vol. II. New York. G.P. Putnam. 12mo. pp. 492. $1.50. + +The Lady's Almanac, for the Year 1863. Boston. George Coolidge. 18mo. +pp. 128. 25 cts. + +The Parish Will Case, in the Court of Appeals. The Statement of Facts, +and the Opinion of the Court. New York. D. 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Carleton. 8vo. pp. 171. $1.00. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, +December, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 62 *** + +***** This file should be named 11159-8.txt or 11159-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/5/11159/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/11159-8.zip b/old/11159-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ca9a4b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11159-8.zip diff --git a/old/11159.txt b/old/11159.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14bcf69 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11159.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8806 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, +December, 1862, 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, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11159] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 62 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. X.--DECEMBER, 1862.--NO. LXII. + + + + +THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. + + +In Cuba there is a blossoming shrub whose multitudinous crimson flowers +are so seductive to the humming-birds that they hover all day around it, +buried in its blossoms until petal and wing seem one. At first upright, +the gorgeous bells droop downward, and fall unwithered to the ground, +and are thence called by the Creoles "Cupid's Tears." Frederika Bremer +relates that daily she brought home handfuls of these blossoms to her +chamber, and nightly they all disappeared. One morning she looked toward +the wall of the apartment, and there, in a long crimson line, the +delicate flowers went ascending one by one to the ceiling, and passed +from sight. She found that each was borne laboriously onward by a little +colorless ant much smaller than itself: the bearer was invisible, but +the lovely burdens festooned the wall with beauty. + +To a watcher from the sky, the march of the flowers of any zone across +the year would seem as beautiful as that West-Indian pageant. These +frail creatures, rooted where they stand, a part of the "still life" of +Nature, yet share her ceaseless motion. In the most sultry silence of +summer noons, the vital current is coursing with desperate speed through +the innumerable veins of every leaflet; and the apparent stillness, like +the sleeping of a child's top, is in truth the very ecstasy of perfected +motion. + +Not in the tropics only, but even in England, whence most of our floral +associations and traditions come, the march of the flowers is in an +endless circle, and, unlike our experience, something is always in +bloom. In the Northern United States, it is said, the active growth of +most plants is condensed into ten weeks, while in the mother-country the +full activity is maintained through sixteen. But even the English winter +does not seem to be a winter, in the same sense as ours, appearing more +like a chilly and comfortless autumn. There is no month in the year +when some special plant does not bloom: the Coltsfoot there opens +its fragrant flowers from December to February; the yellow-flowered +Hellebore, and its cousin, the sacred Christmas Rose of Glastonbury, +extend from January to March; and the Snowdrop and Primrose often come +before the first of February. Something may be gained, much lost, by +that perennial succession; those links, however slight, must make the +floral period continuous to the imagination; while our year gives a +pause and an interval to its children, and after exhausted October has +effloresced into Witch-Hazel, there is an absolute reserve of blossom, +until the Alders wave again. + +No symbol could so well represent Nature's first yielding in spring-time +as this blossoming of the Alder, this drooping of the tresses of these +tender things. Before the frost is gone, and while the newborn season is +yet too weak to assert itself by actually uplifting anything, it can at +least let fall these blossoms, one by one, till they wave defiance to +the winter on a thousand boughs. How patiently they have waited! Men are +perplexed with anxieties about their own immortality; but these catkins, +which hang, almost full-formed, above the ice all winter, show no such +solicitude, but when March wooes them they are ready. Once relaxing, +their pollen is so prompt to fall that it sprinkles your hand as you +gather them; then, for one day, they are the perfection of grace upon +your table, and next day they are weary and emaciated, and their little +contribution to the spring is done. + +Then many eyes watch for the opening of the May-flower, day by day, +and a few for the Hepatica. So marked and fantastic are the local +preferences of all our plants, that, with miles of woods and meadows +open to their choice, each selects only some few spots for its +accustomed abodes, and some one among them all for its very earliest +blossoming. There is always some single chosen nook, which you might +almost cover with your handkerchief, where each flower seems to bloom +earliest, without variation, year by year. I know one such place for +Hepatica a mile northeast,--another for May-flower two miles southwest; +and each year the whimsical creature is in bloom on that little spot, +when not another flower can be found open through the whole country +round. Accidental as the choice may appear, it is undoubtedly based +on laws more eternal than the stars; yet why all subtile influences +conspire to bless that undistinguishable knoll no man can say. Another +and similar puzzle offers itself in the distribution of the tints +of flowers,--in these two species among the rest. There are certain +localities, near by, where the Hepatica is all but white, and others +where the May-flower is sumptuous in pink; yet it is not traceable to +wet or dry, sun or shadow, and no agricultural chemistry can disclose +the secret. Is it by some Darwinian law of selection that the white +Hepatica has utterly overpowered the blue, in our Cascade Woods, for +instance, while yet in the very midst of this pale plantation a single +clump will sometimes bloom with all heaven on its petals? Why can one +recognize the Plymouth May-flower, as soon as seen, by its wondrous +depth of color? Does it blush with triumph to see how Nature has +outwitted the Pilgrims, and even succeeded in preserving her deer like +an English duke, still maintaining the deepest woods in Massachusetts +precisely where those sturdy immigrants first began their clearings? + +The Hepatica (called also Liverwort, Squirrel-Cup, or Blue Anemone) has +been found in Worcester as early as March seventeenth, and in Danvers on +March twelfth,--dates which appear almost the extreme of credibility. + +Our next wild-flower in this region is the Claytonia, or Spring-Beauty, +which is common in the Middle States, but here found in only a few +localities. It is the Indian _Miskodeed_, and was said to have been +left behind when mighty Peboan, the Winter, was melted by the breath +of Spring. It is an exquisitely delicate little creature, bears its +blossoms in clusters, unlike most of the early species, and opens in +gradual succession each white and pink-veined bell. It grows in moist +places on the sunny edges of woods, and prolongs its shy career from +about the tenth of April until almost the end of May. + +A week farther into April, and the Bloodroot opens,--a name of guilt, +and a type of innocence. This fresh and lovely thing appears to +concentrate all its stains within its ensanguined root, that it may +condense all purity in the peculiar whiteness of its petals. It emerges +from the ground with each shy blossom wrapt in its own pale-green leaf, +then doffs the cloak and spreads its long petals round a group of yellow +stamens. The flower falls apart so easily that when in full bloom it +will hardly bear transportation, but with a touch the stem stands naked, +a bare gold-tipped sceptre amid drifts of snow. And the contradiction +of its hues seems carried into its habits. One of the most shy of wild +plants, easily banished from its locality by any invasion, it yet takes +to the garden with unpardonable readiness, doubles its size, blossoms +earlier, repudiates its love of water, and flaunts its great leaves in +the unnatural confinement until it elbows out the exotics. Its charm is +gone, unless one find it in its native haunts, beside some cascade which +streams over rocks that are dark with moisture, green with moss, and +snowy with white bubbles. Each spray of dripping feather-moss exudes a +tiny torrent of its own, or braided with some tiny neighbor, above the +little water-fonts which sleep sunless in ever-verdant caves. Sometimes +along these emerald canals there comes a sudden rush and hurry, as if +some anxious housekeeper upon the hill above were afraid that things +were not stirring fast enough,--and then again the waving and sinuous +lines of water are quieted to a serener flow. The delicious red-thrush +and the busy little yellow-throat are not yet come to this their summer +haunt; but all day long the answering field-sparrows trill out their +sweet, shy, accelerating lay. + +In the same localities with the Bloodroot, though some days later, grows +the Dog-Tooth Violet,--a name hopelessly inappropriate, but likely +never to be changed. These hardy and prolific creatures have also +many localities of their own; for, though they do not acquiesce in +cultivation, like the sycophantic Bloodroot, yet they are hard to banish +from their native haunts, but linger after the woods are cleared and the +meadow drained. The bright flowers blaze back all the yellow light of +noonday as the gay petals curl and spread themselves above their beds of +mottled leaves; but it is always a disappointment to gather them, for +indoors they miss the full ardor of the sunbeams, and are apt to go to +sleep and nod expressionless from the stalk. + +And almost on the same day with this bright apparition one may greet a +multitude of concurrent visitors, arriving so accurately together that +it is almost a matter of accident which of the party shall first report +himself. Perhaps the Dandelion should have the earliest place; indeed, +I once found it in Brookline on the seventh of April. But it cannot +ordinarily be expected before the twentieth, in Eastern Massachusetts, +and rather later in the interior; while by the same date I have also +found near Boston the Cowslip or Marsh-Marigold, the Spring-Saxifrage, +the Anemones, the Violets, the Bellwort, the Houstonia, the Cinquefoil, +and the Strawberry-blossom. Varying, of course, in different spots and +years, the arrival of this coterie is yet nearly simultaneous, and they +may all be expected hereabouts before May-day at the very latest. After +all, in spite of the croakers, this festival could not have been much +better-timed, the delicate blossoms which mark the period are usually in +perfection on this day, and it is not long before they are past their +prime. + +Some early plants which have now almost disappeared from Eastern +Massachusetts are still found near Worcester in the greatest +abundance,--as the larger Yellow Violet, the Red Trillium, the Dwarf +Ginseng, the Clintonia or Wild Lily-of-the-Valley, and the pretty +fringed Polygala, which Miss Cooper christened "Gay-Wings." Others again +are now rare in this vicinity, and growing rarer, though still abundant +a hundred miles farther inland. In several bits of old swampy wood one +may still find, usually close together, the Hobble-Bush and the Painted +Trillium, the Mitella, or Bishop's-Cap, and the snowy Tiarella. Others +again have entirely vanished within ten years, and that in some cases +without any adequate explanation. The dainty white Corydalis, profanely +called "Dutchman's-Breeches," and the quaint woolly Ledum, or Labrador +Tea, have disappeared within that time. The beautiful Linnaea is still +found annually, but flowers no more; as is also the case, in all but one +distant locality, with the once abundant Rhododendron. Nothing in Nature +has for me a more fascinating interest than these secret movements of +vegetation,--the sweet blind instinct with which flowers cling to old +domains until absolutely compelled to forsake them. How touching is the +fact, now well known, that salt-water plants still flower beside the +Great Lakes, yet dreaming of the time when those waters were briny as +the sea! Nothing in the demonstrations of Geology seems grander than the +light lately thrown by Professor Gray, from the analogies between the +flora of Japan and of North America, upon the successive epochs of heat +which led the wandering flowers along the Arctic lands, and of cold +which isolated them once more. Yet doubtless these humble movements +of our local plants may be laying up results as important, and may +hereafter supply evidence of earth's changes upon some smaller scale. + +May expands to its prime of beauty; the summer birds come with the +fruit-blossoms, the gardens are deluged with bloom and the air with +melody, while in the woods the timid spring-flowers fold themselves away +in silence and give place to a brighter splendor. On the margin of some +quiet swamp a myriad of bare twigs seem suddenly overspread with purple +butterflies, and we know that the Rhodora is in bloom. Wordsworth never +immortalized a flower more surely than Emerson this, and it needs no +weaker words; there is nothing else in which the change from nakedness +to beauty is so sudden, and when you bring home the great mass of +blossoms they appear all ready to flutter away again from your hands and +leave you disenchanted. + +At the same time the beautiful Cornel-tree is in perfection; startling +as a tree of the tropics, it flaunts its great flowers high up among the +forest-branches, intermingling its long slender twigs with theirs, and +garnishing them with alien blooms. It is very available for household +decoration, with its four great creamy petals,--flowers they are not, +but floral involucres,--each with a fantastic curl and stain at its tip, +as if the fireflies had alighted on them and scorched them; and yet I +like it best as it peers out in barbaric splendor from the delicate +green of young Maples. And beneath it grows often its more abundant +kinsman, the Dwarf Cornel, with the same four great petals enveloping +its floral cluster, but lingering low upon the ground,--an herb whose +blossoms mimic the statelier tree. + +The same rich creamy hue and texture show themselves in the Wild Calla, +which grows at this season in dark, sequestered water-courses, and +sometimes well rivals, in all but size, that superb whiteness out of +a land of darkness, the Ethiopic Calla of the conservatory. At this +season, too, we seek another semi-aquatic rarity, whose homely name +cannot deprive it of a certain garden-like elegance, the Buckbean. This +is one of the shy plants which yet grow in profusion within their own +domain. I have found it of old in Cambridge, and then upon the pleasant +shallows of the Artichoke, that loveliest tributary of the Merrimack, +and I have never seen it where it occupied a patch more than a few yards +square, while yet within that space the multitudinous spikes grow always +tall and close, reminding one of hyacinths, when in perfection, but more +delicate and beautiful. The only locality I know for it in this vicinity +lies seven miles away, where a little inlet from the lower winding bays +of Lake Quinsigamond goes stealing up among a farmer's hay-fields, and +there, close beside the public road and in full of the farm-house, this +rare creature fills the water. But to reach it we commonly row down +the lake to a sheltered lagoon, separated from the main lake by a long +island which is gradually forming itself like the coral isles, growing +each year denser with alder thickets where the king-birds build;--there +leave the boat among the lily-leaves, and take a lane which winds among +the meadows and gives a fitting avenue for the pretty thing we seek. +But it is not safe to vary many days from the twentieth of May, for the +plant is not long in perfection, and is past its prime when the lower +blossoms begin to wither on the stem. + +But should we miss this delicate adjustment of time, it is easy to +console ourselves with bright armfuls of Lupine, which bounteously +flowers for six weeks along our lake-side, ranging from the twenty-third +of May to the sixth of July. The Lupine is one of our most travelled +plants; for, though never seen off the American continent, it stretches +to the Pacific, and is found upon the Arctic coast. On these banks of +Lake Quinsigamond it grows in great families, and should be gathered in +masses and placed in a vase by itself; for it needs no relief from other +flowers, its own soft leaves afford background enough, and though the +white variety rarely occurs, yet the varying tints of blue upon the same +stalk are a perpetual gratification to the eye. I know not why shaded +blues should be so beautiful in flowers, and yet avoided as distasteful +in ladies' fancy-work; but it is a mystery like that which repudiates +blue-and-green from all well-regulated costumes, while Nature yet +evidently prefers it to any other combination in her wardrobe. + +Another constant ornament of the end of May is the large pink +Lady's-Slipper, or Moccason-Flower, the "Cypripedium not due +till to-morrow" which Emerson attributes to the note-book of +Thoreau,--to-morrow, in these parts, meaning about the twentieth of May. +It belongs to the family of Orchids, a high-bred race, fastidious in +habits, sensitive as to abodes. Of the ten species named as rarest among +American endogenous plants by Dr. Gray, in his valuable essay on the +statistics of our Northern Flora, all but one are Orchids. And even an +abundant species, like the present, retains the family traits in its +person, and never loses its high-born air and its delicate veining. +I know a grove where it can be gathered by the hundreds within a +half-acre, and yet I never can divest myself of the feeling that each +specimen is a choice novelty. But the actual rarity occurs, at least +in this region, when one finds the smaller and more beautiful Yellow +Moccason-Flower,--_parviflorum_,--which accepts only our very choicest +botanical locality, the "Rattlesnake Ledge" on Tatessit Hill,--and may, +for aught I know, have been the very plant which Elsie Venner laid upon +her school-mistress's desk. + +June is an intermediate month between the spring and summer flowers. Of +the more delicate early blossoms, the Dwarf Cornel, the Solomon's-Seal, +and the Yellow Violet still linger in the woods, but rapidly make way +for larger masses and more conspicuous hues. The meadows are gorgeous +with Clover, Buttercups, and Wild Geranium; but Nature is a little chary +for a week or two, maturing a more abundant show. Meanwhile one +may afford to take some pains to search for another rarity, almost +disappearing from this region,--the lovely Pink Azalea. It still grows +plentifully in a few sequestered places, selecting woody swamps to hide +itself; and certainly no shrub suggests, when found, more tropical +associations. Those great, nodding, airy, fragrant clusters, tossing far +above one's head their slender cups of honey, seem scarcely to belong to +our sober zone, any more than the scarlet tanager which sometimes builds +its nest beside them. They appear bright exotics, which have wandered +into our woods, and seem too happy to feel any wish for exit. And just +as they fade, their humbler sister in white begins to bloom, and carries +on through the summer the same intoxicating fragrance. + +But when June is at its height, the sculptured chalices of the Mountain +Laurel begin to unfold, and thenceforward, for more than a month, +extends the reign of this our woodland queen. I know not why one should +sigh after the blossoming gorges of the Himalaya, when our forests are +all so crowded with this glowing magnificence,--rounding the tangled +swamps into smoothness, lighting up the underwoods, overtopping the +pastures, lining the rural lanes, and rearing its great pinkish masses +till they meet overhead. The color ranges from the purest white to a +perfect rose-pink, and there is an inexhaustible vegetable vigor about +the whole thing, which puts to shame those tenderer shrubs that shrink +before the progress of cultivation. There is the Rhododendron, for +instance, a plant of the same natural family with the Laurel and the +Azalea, and looking more robust and woody than either: it once grew in +many localities in this region, and still lingers in a few, without +consenting either to die or to blossom, and there is only one remote +place from which any one now brings into our streets those large +luxuriant flowers, waving white above the dark green leaves, and bearing +"just a dream of sunset on their edges, and just a breath from the green +sea in their hearts." But the Laurel, on the other hand, maintains its +ground, imperturbable and almost impassable, on every hill-side, takes +no hints, suspects no danger, and nothing but the most unmistakable +onset from spade or axe can diminish its profusion. Gathering it on the +most lavish scale seems only to serve as wholesome pruning; nor can I +conceive that the Indians, who once ruled over this whole county from +Wigwam Hill, could ever have found it more inconveniently abundant than +now. We have perhaps no single spot where it grows in such perfect +picturesqueness as at "The Laurels," on the Merrimack, just above +Newburyport,--a whole hill-side scooped out and the hollow piled +solidly with flowers, the pines curving around it above, and the river +encircling it below, on which your boat glides along, and you look up +through glimmering arcades of bloom. But for the last half of June it +monopolizes everything in the Worcester woods,--no one picks anything +else; and it fades so slowly that I have found a perfect blossom on the +last day of July. + +At the same time with this royalty of the woods, the queen of the water +ascends her throne, for a reign as undisputed and far more prolonged. +The extremes of the Water-Lily in this vicinity, so far as I have known, +are the eighteenth of June and the thirteenth of October,--a longer +range than belongs to any other conspicuous wild-flower, unless we +except the Dandelion and Houstonia. It is not only the most fascinating +of all flowers to gather, but more available for decorative purposes +than almost any other, if it can only be kept fresh. The best method for +this purpose, I believe, is to cut the stalk very short before placing +in the vase; then, at night, the lily will close and the stalk curl +upward;--refresh them by changing the water, and in the morning the +stalk will be straight and the flower open. + +From this time forth Summer has it all her own way. After the first of +July the yellow flowers begin to watch the yellow fireflies; Hawkweeds, +Loosestrifes, Primroses bloom, and the bushy Wild Indigo. The variety of +hues increases; delicate purple Orchises bloom in their chosen +haunts, and Wild Roses blush over hill and dale. On peat meadows the +Adder's-Tongue Arethusa (now called _Pogonia_) flowers profusely, with a +faint, delicious perfume,--and its more elegant cousin, the Calopogon, +by its side. In this vicinity we miss the blue Harebell, the identical +harebell of Ellen Douglas, which I remember waving its exquisite flowers +along the banks of the Merrimack, and again at Brattleboro', below the +cascade in the village, where it has climbed the precipitous sides +of old buildings, and nods inaccessibly from their crevices, in that +picturesque spot, looking down on the hurrying river. But with this +exception, there is nothing wanting here of the flowers of early summer. + +The more closely one studies Nature, the finer her adaptations grow. For +instance, the change of seasons is analogous to a change of zones, and +summer assimilates our vegetation to that of the tropics. + +In those lands, Humboldt has remarked, one misses the beauty of +wild-flowers in the grass, because the luxuriance of vegetation develops +everything into shrubs. The form and color are beautiful, "but, being +too high above the soil, they disturb that harmonious proportion which +characterizes the plants of our European meadows. Nature has, in every +zone, stamped on the landscape the peculiar type of beauty proper to +the locality." But every midsummer reveals the same tendency. In early +spring, when all is bare, and small objects are easily made prominent, +the wild-flowers are generally delicate. Later, when all verdure is +profusely expanded, these miniature strokes would be lost, and Nature +then practises landscape-gardening in large, lights up the copses with +great masses of White Alder, makes the roadsides gay with Aster and +Golden-Rod, and tops the tall coarse Meadow-Grass with nodding Lilies +and tufted Spiraea. One instinctively follows these plain hints, and +gathers bouquets sparingly in spring and exuberantly in summer. + +The use of wild-flowers for decorative purposes merits a word in +passing, for it is unquestionably a branch of high art in favored hands. +It is true that we are bidden, on high authority, to love the wood-rose +and leave it on its stalk; but against this may be set the saying of +Bettine, that "all flowers which are broken become immortal in the +sacrifice"; and certainly the secret harmonies of these fair creatures +are so marked and delicate that we do not understand them till we try to +group floral decorations for ourselves. The most successful artists +will not, for instance, consent to put those together which do not grow +together; Nature understands her business, and distributes her masses +and backgrounds unerringly. Yonder soft and feathery Meadow-Sweet longs +to be combined with Wild Roses: it yearns towards them in the field, +and, after withering in the hand most readily, it revives in water as if +to be with them in the vase. In the same way the White Spiraea serves as +natural background for the Field-Lilies. These lilies, by the way, are +the brightest adornment of our meadows during the short period of their +perfection. We have two species: one slender, erect, solitary, scarlet, +looking up to heaven with all its blushes on; the other clustered, +drooping, pale-yellow. I never saw the former in such profusion as last +week, on the bare summit of Wachusett. The granite ribs have there a +thin covering of crispest moss, spangled with the white starry blossoms +of the Mountain Cinquefoil; and as I lay and watched the red lilies that +waved their innumerable urns around me, it needed but little imagination +to see a thousand altars, sending visible flames forever upward to the +answering sun. + +August comes: the Thistles are out, beloved of butterflies; deeper and +deeper tints, more passionate intensities of color, prepare the way for +the year's decline. A wealth of gorgeous Golden-Rod waves over all the +hills, and enriches every bouquet one gathers; its bright colors command +the eye, and it is graceful as an elm. Fitly arranged, it gives a bright +relief to the superb beauty of the Cardinal-Flowers, the brilliant +blue-purple of the Vervain, the pearl-white of the Life-Everlasting, +the delicate lilac of the Monkey-Flower, the soft pink and white of +the Spiraeas,--for the white yet lingers,--all surrounded by trailing +wreaths of blossoming Clematis. + +But the Cardinal-Flower is best seen by itself, and, indeed, needs the +surroundings of its native haunts to display its fullest beauty. Its +favorite abode is along the dank mossy stones of some black and winding +brook, shaded with overarching bushes, and running one long stream of +scarlet with these superb occupants. It seems amazing how anything so +brilliant can mature in such a darkness. When a ray of sunlight strays +in upon it, the wondrous creature seems to hover on the stalk, ready to +take flight, like some lost tropic bird. There is a spot whence I have +in ten minutes brought away as many as I could hold in both arms, some +bearing fifty blossoms on a single stalk; and I could not believe that +there was such another mass of color in the world. Nothing cultivated +is comparable to them; and, with all the talent lately lavished on +wild-flower painting, I have never seen the peculiar sheen of these +petals in the least degree delineated. It seems some new and separate +tint, equally distinct from scarlet and from crimson, a splendor for +which there is as yet no name, but only the reality. + +It seems the signal of autumn, when September exhibits the first +Barrel-Gentian by the roadside; and there is a pretty insect in the +meadows--the Mourning-Cloak Moth it might be called--which gives +coincident warning. The innumerable Asters mark this period with their +varied and wide-spread beauty; the meadows are full of rose-colored +Polygala, of the white spiral spikes of the Ladies'-Tresses, and of +the fringed loveliness of the Gentian. This flower, always unique and +beautiful, opening its delicate eyelashes every morning to the sunlight, +closing them again each night, has also a thoughtful charm about it +as the last of the year's especial darlings. It lingers long, each +remaining blossom growing larger and more deep in color, as with many +other flowers; and after it there is nothing for which to look forward, +save the fantastic Witch-Hazel. + +On the water, meanwhile, the last White Lilies are sinking beneath the +surface, the last gay Pickerel-Weed is gone, though the rootless plants +of the delicate Bladder-Wort, spreading over acres of shallows, still +impurple the wide, smooth surface. Harriet Prescott says that some souls +are like the Water-Lilies, fixed, yet floating. But others are like this +graceful purple blossom, floating unfixed, kept in place only by its +fellows around it, until perhaps a breeze comes, and, breaking the +accidental cohesion, sweeps them all away. + +The season reluctantly yields its reign, and over the quiet autumnal +landscape everywhere, even after the glory of the trees is past, there +are tints and fascinations of minor beauty. Last October, for instance, +in walking, I found myself on a little knoll, looking northward. +Overhead was a bower of climbing Waxwork, with its yellowish pods scarce +disclosing their scarlet berries,--a wild Grape-vine, with its +fruit withered by the frost into still purple raisins,--and yellow +Beech-leaves, detaching themselves with an effort audible to the ear. +In the foreground were blue Raspberry-stems, yet bearing greenish +leaves,--pale-yellow Witch-Hazel, almost leafless,--purple +Viburnum-berries,--the silky cocoons of the Milkweed,--and, amid the +underbrush, a few lingering Asters and Golden-Rods, Ferns still green, +and Maidenhair bleached white. In the background were hazy hills, +white Birches bare and snow-like, and a Maple half-way up a sheltered +hill-side, one mass of canary-color, its fallen leaves making an +apparent reflection on the earth at its foot,--and then a real +reflection, fused into a glassy light intenser than itself, upon the +smooth, dark stream below. + +The beautiful disrobing suggested the persistent and unconquerable +delicacy of Nature, who shrinks from nakedness and is always seeking +to veil her graceful boughs,--if not with leaves, then with feathery +hoar-frost, ermined snow, or transparent icy armor. + +But, after all, the fascination of summer lies not in any details, +however perfect, but in the sense of total wealth which summer gives. +Wholly to enjoy this, one must give one's self passively to it, and not +expect to reproduce it in words. We strive to picture heaven, when +we are barely at the threshold of the inconceivable beauty of earth. +Perhaps the truant boy who simply bathes himself in the lake and then +basks in the sunshine, dimly conscious of the exquisite loveliness +around him, is wiser, because humbler, than is he who with presumptuous +phrases tries to utter it. There are multitudes of moments when the +atmosphere is so surcharged with luxury that every pore of the body +becomes an ample gate for sensation to flow in, and one has simply to +sit still and be filled. In after-years the memory of books seems barren +or vanishing, compared with the immortal bequest of hours like these. +Other sources of illumination seem cisterns only; these are fountains. +They may not increase the mere quantity of available thought, but they +impart to it a quality which is priceless. No man can measure what a +single hour with Nature may have contributed to the moulding of his +mind. The influence is self-renewing, and if for a long time it baffles +expression by reason of its fineness, so much the better in the end. + +The soul is like a musical instrument: it is not enough that it be +framed for the very most delicate vibration, but it must vibrate long +and often before the fibres grow mellow to the finest waves of sympathy. +I perceive that in the veery's carolling, the clover's scent, the +glistening of the water, the waving wings of butterflies, the sunset +tints, the floating clouds, there are attainable infinitely more +subtile modulations of delight than I can yet reach the sensibility to +discriminate, much less describe. If, in the simple process of writing, +one could physically impart to this page the fragrance of this spray of +azalea beside me, what a wonder would it seem!--and yet one ought to be +able, by the mere use of language, to supply to every reader the total +of that white, honeyed, trailing sweetness, which summer insects haunt +and the Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is not in language, +but in men. There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as +words,--none so graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to dream of +combinations of syllables so delicious that all the dawning and decay of +summer cannot rival their perfections, nor winter's stainless white +and azure match their purity and their charm. To write them, were it +possible, would be to take rank with Nature; nor is there any other +method, even by music, for human art to reach so high. + + * * * * * + + +ONE OF MY CLIENTS. + + +After a practice in the legal profession of more than twenty years, I am +persuaded that a more interesting volume could not be written than the +revelations of a lawyer's office. The plots there discovered before they +were matured,--the conspiracies there detected + + "Ere they hail reached their last fatal periods,"-- + +the various devices of the Prince of Darkness,--the weapons with which +he fought, and those by which he was overcome,--the curious phenomena of +intense activity and love of gain,--the arts of the detective, and those +by which he was eluded,--and the never-ending and ever-varying surprises +and startling incidents,--would present such a panorama of human affairs +as would outfly our fancy, and modify our unbelief in that much-abused +doctrine of the depravity of our nature. + +To illustrate, let me introduce to you "one of my clients," whom I will +call Mr. Sidney, and with whom, perhaps, you may hereafter become better +acquainted. His counterpart in personal appearance you may find in the +thoroughfare at, any hour of the day. There is nothing about him to +attract attention. He is nearly forty-five years of age, and weighs, +perhaps, two hundred pounds. His face is florid and his hair sandy. His +eyes are small, piercing, and gray. His motions are slow, and none are +made without a purpose. Intellectually he is above the average, and his +perceptive faculties are well developed. The wrinkles in his lips are at +right angles with his mouth, and a close observer might detect in his +countenance self-reliance and tenacity of will and purpose. But with +ordinary faculties much may be accomplished: in this sketch, let us see +how much in two particulars. + +His first entrance into my office was in the spring of 1853. He +handed me a package of papers, saying, if I would name an hour for a +professional consultation, he would be punctual. The time was agreed +upon and he withdrew. On examination of his papers, I found that his +letters of introduction were from several United States Senators, Judges +of Supreme Courts, Cabinet Officers, and Governors, and one was from a +Presidential candidate in the last election. Those directed specially +to me were from a Senator and a Member of Congress, both of whom were +lawyers and my personal friends, men in whose judgment I placed great +confidence. They all spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Sidney's +integrity, ability, and energy, and concluded by saying I might +implicitly rely upon his judgment and be governed by his counsels. + +What man of the masses can this one be, thus heralded by the authorities +of the nation, and what his labor, so commended by the rulers? I glanced +at him mentally again. Perhaps he is laboring for the endowment of some +great literary or benevolent institution, for the building of a national +monument. No. Perhaps he has some theory that thousands of facts must +prove and illustrate; or it may be he is a voracious gatherer of +statistics. The last is the most probable; but the more I mused, the +more the fire burned within me to know more of his mission. + +I awaited impatiently his coming. It was on the stroke of the hour +appointed. The object of that interview may not with propriety be +stated, nor the results described; but it may be said that that hour was +the most intensely exciting of any of my professional life, causing the +blood to chill and boil alternately. The business was so peculiar, and +connected with men so exalted in position, and conducted with such +wonderful ability and tact, that now, years after, scarcely a day passes +that my mind does not revert to those hours and do homage to those +transcendent abilities by which it was conducted, till I sometimes think +the possessor of them was an overmatch for Lucifer himself. My eyes +were for the first time opened to the marvellous in his department +of knowledge and art; and the region of impossibility was materially +circumscribed, and the domain of the prince of the powers of the air +extended _ad infinitum_. Into those regions it is not my present purpose +to delve. + +After a business acquaintance of several years with Mr. Sidney, I have +learned that he was formerly a rich manufacturer, and that he was nearly +ruined in fortune by the burning of several warehouses in which he had +stored a large amount of merchandise that was uninsured. The owners of +these store-houses were men of wealth, influence, and respectability. +Alone of all the citizens, Mr. Sidney suspected that the block was +intentionally set on fire to defraud the insurance-offices. Without +any aid or knowledge of other parties, he began an investigation, and +ascertained that the buildings were insured far beyond their value. +He also ascertained that insurance had been obtained on a far greater +amount of merchandise than the stores could contain; and still further, +that the goods insured, as being deposited there, were not so deposited +at the time of the fire. He likewise procured a long array of facts +tending to fix the burning upon the "merchant princes" who held the +policies. To his mind, they were convincing. He therefore confronted +these men, accused them of the arson, and demanded payment for his own +loss. This was, of course, declined. Whereupon he gave them formal +notice, that, if his demand were not liquidated within thirty days, +never thereafter would an opportunity be afforded for a settlement. That +the notice produced peculiar excitement was evident. _Yet the thirty +days elapsed and his claim was not adjusted_. + +From that hour, with a just appreciation of the enormity of the offence +which he believed to have been committed, he consecrated his vast +energies to the detection of crime. His whole soul was fired almost to +frenzy with the greatness of his work, and he pursued it with a firmness +of principle and fixedness of purpose that seemed almost madness, till +he exposed to the world the most stupendous league of robbers ever +dreamed of, extending into every State and Territory of the Union, +and numbering, to his personal knowledge, over seven hundred men of +influence and power, whose business as a copartnership was forgery, +counterfeiting, burglary, arson, and any other crimes that might afford +rich pecuniary remuneration. + +I will not now stop to describe the organization of this band, which is +as perfect as that of any corporation; nor the enormous resources at its +command, being computed by millions; nor the great respectability of +its directors and State agents; nor the bloody oaths and forfeitures by +which the members are bound together; nor the places of their annual +meetings; nor a thousand other particulars, more startling than anything +in fiction or history. Nor will I enumerate the great number of +convictions of members of this gang for various offences through Mr. +Sidney's efforts. Prosecuting no other parties than these,--thwarting +them in those defences that had never before failed,--testifying in +open court against the character of their witnesses, who appeared to be +polished gentlemen, and enumerating the offences of which they had +been guilty,--and harassing them by all legal and legitimate means, he +gathered around him a storm that not one man in a thousand could have +withstood for an hour. Eleven times was food analyzed that had been +suspiciously set before him, and in each instance poison was detected in +it; while in hundreds of instances he declined to receive from unknown +hands presents about which hung similar suspicions. Numerous were the +infernal-machines sent him, the explosion of some of which he escaped as +if by miracle, and several exploded in his own dwelling. Without number +were the anonymous letters he received, threatening his life, if he did +not desist from prosecuting this band of robbers. Yet not for one moment +swerved from his purpose, he moved unharmed through ten thousand perils, +till at last he fell a victim to the enemy that had so long been hunting +his life. On no one has his mantle fallen. + +His sole object in life seemed to be the breaking-up of this villanous +gang of plunderers, and he pursued it with a genius and strength, a +devotion, self-sacrifice, and true heroism, that are deserving of +immortality. + +Not long before his death, while one of the directors of this band was +confined in prison at Mr. Sidney's instigation, awaiting a preliminary +examination, he sent for Mr. Sidney and offered him one hundred thousand +dollars, if he would desist from pursuing him alone. Mr. Sidney replied, +that he had many times before been offered the like sum, if he would +cease prosecuting the directors, and that the same reason which had +inclined him to reject that proposition would compel him to refuse this. +Whereupon the director offered, as an additional inducement, one-half of +the money taken from the messenger of the Newport banks, while on his +way to Providence to redeem their bills at the Merchants Bank, and also +the mint where they had coined the composition that had passed current +for years through all the banks and banking-houses of the country, and +which stood every test that could be applied, without the destruction of +the coin itself, which mint had cost its owners upwards of two hundred +thousand dollars. All of which Mr. Sidney indignantly rejected. And it +was not till the year after his death that the coin became known, when +it was also reported and believed that a million and a quarter of the +same was locked up in the vaults of the--Government. + +The United States Government sought Mr. Sidney's services, as appears of +record. Those high in authority had decided on his employment, a fact +which in less than six hours thereafter was known to the directors, and +within that space of time five of them had arrived in Washington and +paid over to their attorney the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars for +some purpose,--the attorney being no less a personage than an honorable +member of a supreme court. The service desired of Mr. Sidney he was +willing to perform, on the condition that he should not be called upon +to prosecute any other parties than those to whose conviction he had +sworn to devote his life. + +As a detective, Mr. Sidney was unequalled in this country. Vidocq may +have been his superior in dissimulation, but in that alone. He certainly +had not a tithe of Mr. Sidney's genius and strength of mind and moral +power to discern the truth, though never so deeply hidden, and to expose +it to the clear light of day. + + "His blood and judgment were so well commingled," + +that his conclusions seemed akin to prophecy. + +But it is not as a detective that Mr. Sidney is here presented. This +slight sketch of this remarkable man is given, that the reader may more +willingly believe that he possessed, among other wonderful powers, one +that is not known ever to have been attained to such a degree by any +other individual, namely:-- + +_The power of discerning, in a single specimen of handwriting, the +character, the occupation, the habits, the temperament, the health, +the age, the sex, the size, the nationality, the benevolence or the +penuriousness, the boldness or the timidity, the morality or the +immorality, the affectation or the hypocrisy, and often the intention of +the writer_. + +At the age of thirty-five, the genius of Mr. Sidney as a physiognomist, +expert, and detective, remained wholly undeveloped. He was not +aware, nor were his friends, of his wonderful powers of observation, +dissection, and deduction. Nor had he taken his first lesson by being +brought in contact with the rogues. How, then, did he acquire this +almost miraculous power? + +After he had ascertained the names of the directors and State agents +of the band, he collected many hundred specimens of their handwriting. +These he studied with that energy which was equalled only by his +patience. In a surprisingly short time he first of all began to perceive +the differences between a moral and an immoral signature. Afterwards he +proceeded to study the occupation, age, habits, temperament, and all +the other characteristics of the writers, and in this he was equally +successful. If this be doubted by any, let him collect a number of +signatures of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, and Americans, or, what +is still better, of Jews of all nations, and at least in the latter +instance, with ordinary perceptive faculties, there will be no +difficulty in determining the question of nationality; a person with +half an eye need never mistake the handwriting of a Jew. Many can detect +pride and affectation, and most persons the sex, in handwriting, how +much soever it may be disguised. + + "The bridegroom's letters stand in row above, + Tapering, yet straight, like pine-trees in his grove; + While free and fine the bride's appear below, + As light and slender as her jasmines grow." + +Why, then, should it be strange, if remarkable powers of observation, +analysis, and patient and energetic study should accomplish much +more? In this department the Government had afforded Mr. Sidney great +facilities, till at last he would take the letters dropped during the +night in the post-office of a great city, and as rapidly as a skilful +cashier could detect a counterfeit in counting bank-bills, and with +unerring certainty, he would throw out those suspiciously superscribed. +"In each of these nine," he would say, "there is no letter, but money +only. This parcel is from the W--Street office. These are directed to +men that are not called by these names: they are fictitious, and assumed +for iniquitous purposes. Those are from thieves to thieves, and hint at +opportunities," and so on. + +Travelling over the principal railways of the country without charge, +entertained at hotels where compensation was declined, Mr. Sidney was in +some instances induced to impart to his friends some of that knowledge +which he took much pains to conceal, believing that by so doing he +should best serve the great purposes of his life. Whether he desired +this remarkable power to be kept from the rogues, or whether he thought +he should be too much annoyed by being called upon as an expert in +handwriting in civil cases, or what his purpose was, is not known, and +probably a large number of his intimate friends are not aware of his +genius in this. + +On one occasion he was in a Canadian city for the first time, and +stopped at a principal hotel. When about to depart, he was surprised +that his host declined compensation. The landlord then requested Mr. +Sidney to give him the character of a man whose handwriting he produced. +Mr. Sidney consented, and, having retired to the private office, gave +the writer's age within a year, his nationality, being a native-born +Frenchman, his height and size, being very short and fleshy, his +temperament and occupation; and described him as a generous, high-toned, +public-spirited man, of strong religious convictions and remarkable +modesty: all of which the landlord pronounced to be entirely correct. + +The hotel-register was then brought, and to nearly every name Mr. Sidney +gave the marked character or peculiarity of the man. One was very +nervous, another very tall and lean; this one was penurious, that one +stubborn; this was a farmer, and that a clergyman; this name was written +in a frolic; this was a genuine name, though not written by the man +himself,--and that written by the man himself, but it was not his true +name. Of the person last specified the clerk desired a full description, +and obtained it in nearly these words:-- + +"He, Sir, was not christened by that name. He could never have written +it before he was thirty. He has assumed it within a year. The character +is bad,--very bad. I judge he is a gambler by profession, and--something +worse. He evidently is not confined to one department of rascality. He +was born and educated in New England, is aged about thirty-nine, is +about five feet ten in height, and is broad-shouldered and stout. His +nerves are strong, and he is bold, hypocritical, and mean. He is just +the kind of man to talk like a saint and act like a devil." + +The little company raised their hands in holy horror. + +"As to age, size, nerve, etc.," said the landlord, "you are entirely +correct, but in his moral character you are much mistaken"; and the +clerk laughed outright. + +"Not mistaken at all," replied Mr. Sidney; "the immorality of the +signature is the most perspicuous, and it is more than an even chance +that he has graduated from a State's prison. At any rate, he will show +his true character wherever he remains a year." + +"But, my dear Sir, you are doing the greatest possible damage to your +reputation; he is a boarder of mine, and"---- + +"You had better be rid of him," chimed in Mr. Sidney. + +"Why, Mr. Sidney, he is the _clergyman_ who has been preaching very +acceptably at the ---- Church these two months!" + +"Just as I told you," said Mr. Sidney; "he is a hypocrite and a rascal +by profession. Will you allow me to demonstrate this?" + +The landlord assented. A servant was called, and Mr. Sidney, having +written on a card, sent it to the clergyman's room, with the request +that he would come immediately to the office. It was delivered, and the +landlord waited patiently for his Reverence. + +"You think he will come?" asked Mr. Sidney. + +The landlord replied affirmatively. + +Mr. Sidney shook his head, and said,--"You will see." + +A short time after, the servant was again ordered to make a +reconnoissance, and reported that there was no response to his knocking, +and that the door was locked on the inside. Whereupon Mr. Sidney +expressed the hope that the religious society were responsible for the +board, for he would never again lead that flock like a shepherd. It was +subsequently ascertained that the parson had in a very irreverent manner +slipped down the spout to the kitchen and jumped from there to the +ground, and, what is "very remarkable," like the load of voters upset by +Sam Weller into the canal, "was never heard of after."[A] + +[Footnote A: There is a curious story connected with this "clergyman," +which may yet appear in the biography of Mr. S.] + + * * * * * + +"Individual handwriting," says Lavater, "is inimitable. The more I +compare the different handwritings which fall in my way, the more am +I confirmed in the idea that they are so many expressions, so many +emanations, of the character of the writer. Every country, every nation, +every city has its peculiar handwriting." And the same might be said of +painting; for, if one hundred painters copy the same figure, an artist +will distinguish the copyist. + +Some years since, a certain bank placed in my hands two promissory notes +for large amounts, purporting to be signed by a Mr. Temple and indorsed +by a Mr. Conway, and which both maker and indorser pronounced forgeries. +Both notes were written on common white paper, and were purchased by the +bank of a certain broker at a time when it was difficult to make loans +by discount in the usual manner. Before the maturity of the notes, the +broker, who was a Jew, had left for parts unknown. He left behind him +no liabilities, unless he might be holden for the payment of the notes +above specified, and several others signed and indorsed in the same +manner in the hands of other parties. Several attempts had been made by +professional experts to trace resemblances between the forgeries and the +genuine handwriting of said Temple and Conway, as well as the broker, +but all had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the signatures were +as dissimilar as well could be. The cashier was exceedingly embarrassed +by the fact that Mr. Conway was one of the directors of the bank, and +he was presumed to have been so familiar with his signature as to be +incapable of being deceived. + +After a most diligent investigation and the expenditure of much time and +money, and after skilful experts and detectives had given up in despair +of ascertaining either the whereabouts of the Jew or anything further +till he could be produced, the holders of this paper had settled down +quietly in the belief that the broker was the guilty party and that all +further effort was useless. At this point of time, when all excitement +had subsided, these notes came into my possession. I immediately +telegraphed to Mr. Sidney, and it was with great joy that I received the +reply that he was on his way. At three o'clock in the morning I met him +at the railroad station. He complimented me by saying there was not +another man living for whom he would have left the city of ---- on a +similar message. I thanked him, and we walked to the office. Before +arriving there, I had merely informed him that I desired his services in +the investigation of a forgery that baffled our art. He demanded all the +papers. I produced the forged notes, several genuine checks and letters +of Mr. Temple and Mr. Conway, and several specimens of the handwriting +of the broker. + +Long as I live I can never forget the almost supernatural glow that came +over his features. I could almost see the halo. No language can describe +such a marked and rapid change of countenance. His whole soul seemed +wrapt in a delightful vision. I cannot say how long this continued, as +I was lost in admiration, as he was in contemplation. I spoke, but he +seemed not to hear. At last his muscles relaxed, and he began to breathe +as if greatly fatigued. He wiped the perspiration from his brow, and +said, as if to himself,-- + +"Sure!" + +I asked what was sure. A few minutes elapsed, and he said more loudly,-- + +"As sure as you are born,"--without seeming to have heard my inquiry. + +I proposed to state what could be proved, and the suspicions that were +entertained of the cashier. He objected, and said,-- + +"I take my departure from these papers. Mr. Temple is aged thirty-eight, +a large, well-built man, full six feet high, strongly nerved, bold, +proud, and fearless. His mind is active, and in his day he has been +professor in a college. He fares well and is fashionably dressed. I +think he is not in any legitimate business. He is a German by birth, +though he has been in this country several years. He is somewhat +affected and immensely hypocritical. I think he is a gambler and dealer +in counterfeit money. He certainly is not confined to one department of +rascality. This is not the name by which he was christened, if indeed he +was ever christened at all. He could not have written it in his youth, +and must have assumed it within a year and a half." (Exact in every +known particular.) + +"Mr. Conway I at first thought an attorney-at-law, but he is not. I +reckon he administers on estates, acts as guardian, and settles up the +affairs of the unfortunate in trade as their assignee, in connection +with his business of notary and note-shaver. He is aged fifty-six, was +born and educated in New England, and is probably a native of this city. +He is tall, lean, and bony. His nerves are not steady, and he is easily +excited. He probably has the dyspepsia, but he would not lose the +writing of a deed to be rid of it. The remarkable feature of his +character is stinginess. His natural abilities being good and his mind +strong, he must therefore be a man of means, and I think it matters +little to his conscience how he comes by his wealth. At the same time, +he has considerable pride and caution, which, with his interest, keep +him honest, as the world goes. If he were not an old bachelor, I should +think better of his heart, and he would be less miserly. + +"The Jew's signature is the most honest of the three. Timidity is the +marked character of the man. He could not succeed in any department of +roguery. It is physically, as well as mentally and morally, impossible +for him to have had any connection with the forgery. He would be +frightened out of his wits at the very suggestion of his complicity." + +"And so, Mr. Sidney," said I, "you know all about these parties and the +particulars of the forgery?" + +"Nothing whatever," he replied, "save by these specimens of their +handwriting. I never heard of the forgery, nor of these men, till this +hour." + +To which I replied,-- + +"I cannot believe that you can give such a perfectly accurate +description of them (saving their moral characters, of which I know +little) without other means of knowledge. It _must_ have been that you +knew Temple to be a German, Conway to be the most penurious old bachelor +in town, and the broker the most timid. And _how_, in the name of all +that is marvellous, _could_ you have known Conway to be afflicted with +dyspepsia? + +"Then," answered Mr. Sidney, "you are not prepared to believe one other +thing, more strange and paradoxical than all the rest. Listen! These +notes are forgeries both of the maker and the indorser. And who think +you are the criminals?" + +"The Jew?" + +"No." + +"The cashier?" + +"No. But, as sure as you are born, these notes are in the handwriting of +Temple and Conway, and the signatures are not only genuine, but they are +forgeries also: for both had formed a well-matured and deliberate design +of disputing them before placing them on the paper. And, Sir, from +my notion of Conway's character and temperament, as expressed in his +handwriting, I venture the assertion that I can make him own it, and pay +the notes. He shall even faint away at my pleasure. Temple is another +kind of man, and would never own it, were it ten times proved." + +A meeting of the directors of the bank was to be holden at nine o'clock +of the same morning. None of them knew Mr. Sidney, or were known by +him. It was arranged that he should meet them, Mr. Conway included, +and exhibit his skill, and if he should convince them of his power of +divination, he should discuss the genuineness of the signatures of the +supposed forgeries. + +For several hours he was on trial before the board with a very large +number of specimens of handwriting of men of mark, and he astonished +them all beyond measure by giving the occupation, age, height, size, +temperament, strength of nerve, nationality, morality, and other +peculiarities of every one of the writers. His success was not partial, +it was complete. There was not simply a preponderance of evidence, it +was beyond a doubt. The directors did not question the fact; but how was +it done? Some thought mesmerism could account for it, and others thought +it miraculous. + +The first experiment was this. Each director wrote on a piece of paper +the names of all the board. Eleven lists were handed him, and he +specified the writer of each by the manner in which he wrote his own +name. He then asked them to write their own or any other name, with as +much disguise as they pleased, and as many as pleased writing on the +same piece of paper; and in every instance he named the writer. + +As an example of the other experiments, take this one. The +superscription of a letter was shown him. He began immediately:-- + +"A clergyman, without doubt, who reads his sermons, and is a little +short-sighted. He is aged sixty-one, is six feet high, weighs about one +hundred and seventy, is lean, bony, obstinate, irritable, economical, +frank, and without a particle of hypocrisy or conceit. He is naturally +miserly, and bestows charity only from a sense of duty. His mind +is methodical and strong, and he is not a genius or an interesting +preacher. If he has decided upon any doctrine or construction of +Scripture, it would be as impossible to change him as to make him over +again." + +The company began to laugh, when one of them said,-- + +"Come, come, Mr. Sidney, you are disclosing altogether too much of my +father-in-law." + +And now the supposed forged notes were handed him. He gave the +characteristics of the signatures very nearly as he had before done +in the office, but more particularly and minutely. He analyzed the +handwriting,--showed the points of resemblance, where before none could +be discerned,--showed that the writing, interpreted by itself, was +intended to be disguised,--explained the difference between the +different parts of the notes,--pointed out where the writer was firm in +his purpose, and his nerves well braced, and where his fears overcame +his resolution,--where he had paused to recover his courage, and for a +considerable time,--where he had changed his pen, and how the forgery +was continued through several days,--what parts were done by Temple, and +what by Conway,-- + + "Till all the interim + Between the acting of the dreadful thing + And the first motion" + +was brought so vividly and truthfully to mind that Mr. Conway fell to +the floor as if dead. The cashier, relieved from a pressure that had for +weary months been grinding his very soul, burst into tears. A scene of +strange excitement ensued, during which Mr. Conway muttered incoherent +sentences in condemnation of Temple and then of himself,--now with +penitence, and then with rage. Recovering his composure, he suggested +the Jew as the guilty party. Mr. Sidney then dissected the handwriting +of the Jew, and demonstrated that there was as great a difference +between his chirography and a New-Englander's as between the English and +the Chinese characters,--showed how the Jew must have been exceedingly +timid, and stated the probability that he had left the city not because +he had taken any part in the forgery, but because he had been frightened +away. Then turning to Conway, he gave him a lecture such as no mortal +before ever gave or received. The agony of Conway's mind so distorted +his body as made it painful in the extreme to all beholders. "His inmost +soul seemed stung as by the bite of a serpent." When at last Mr. Sidney +turned and took from his valise a small steel safe, which Conway +recognized as his own, "the terrors of hell got hold of him," and his +anguish was indescribably horrible. The little safe had been by some +unknown and unaccountable process taken from a larger one in Conway's +office, and was unopened. Neither Mr. Sidney nor the directors have ever +seen its contents; but in consideration that it should not be opened, +Mr. Conway confessed his crime in the very form of Mr. Sidney's +description, paid the notes before leaving the bank, and _remains a +director to this day_. As is often the case, the greater criminal goes +unwhipped of justice. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sidney, besides the faculty I have described, had acquired another, +less wonderful perhaps, but still quite remarkable, and which was of +incalculable assistance to him in the prosecution of his Herculean +labor. He was a most rare physiognomist. And by physiognomy is here +intended, not simply the art of discerning the character of the mind by +the features of the face, but also the art of discovering the qualities +of the mind by the conformation of the body,--and still further, +(although it may not be a legitimate use of the word,) the power +of distinguishing the character, mental and moral, the capacity, +occupation, and all the distinctive qualities of a person by his figure, +action, dress, deportment, and the like: for Sterne said well, that "the +wise man takes his hat from the peg very differently from a fool." + +The ancient Egyptians acquired the greatest skill in this science; and +Tacitus affirms, not without reason, that their keen perception +and acute observation, essential in communicating their ideas in +hieroglyphics, contributed largely to their success. Certainly, few +better proofs of the existence of the science have been furnished than +that given by the Egyptian physiognomist at Athens in the days of Plato. +Zopyrus pronounced the face of Socrates to be that of a libertine. The +physiognomist being derided by the disciples of the great philosopher, +Socrates reproved them, saying that Zopyrus had spoken well, for in his +younger days such indeed had been the truth, and that he had overcome +the proclivities of his nature by philosophy and the severest +discipline. + +Pliny affirms that Apelles could trace the likeness of men so accurately +that a physiognomist could discover the ruling passion to which they +were subject. Dante's characters, in his view of Purgatory, are drawn +with accurate reference to the principles of physiognomy; and Shakspeare +and Sterne, particularly the latter, were clever in the art; while Kempf +and Zimmermann, in their profession, are said seldom to have erred as +physiognomists. Surely it is a higher authority and more practical, +which saith, "A wicked man walketh with a froward mouth; he speaketh +with his feet; he teacheth with his fingers.--A man is known by his +look, and a wise man by the air of his countenance." And yet again, "The +wickedness of a woman changeth her face." + +If it be true, as Sultzer declares, that there is not a living creature +that is not more or less skilled in physiognomy as a necessary condition +of its existence, surely _man_, with all his parts fitly joined +together, should be the most expert; and there are circumstances and +conditions, as well as qualities of mind and body, which will conduct +him more surely along the pathway of his research, and direct him onward +towards the goal of perfection. Consider, then, the characteristics of +Mr. Sidney, the circumstances by which he was surrounded, and the school +in which he was taught, in order to determine if there were in him the +elements of success. + +Chiefest among the essential qualities is to be named his astonishing +strength of nerve. No danger could agitate him, however imminent or +sudden. No power could deprive him of his imperturbable coolness +and courage. Perils seemed to render his mind more clear and his +self-reliance more firm. (And yet I have heard him say, that there +was among the band of criminals before mentioned one woman of greater +strength of mind and nervous power than any person he had ever seen, +whom alone of all created beings, whether man or devil, he dreaded +to encounter.) Had not Mr. Sidney been thus potently armed, he must, +without doubt or question, have become almost a monomaniac; for, +secondly, he was for years enraged almost to madness that his entire +estate had been swept from his grasp, as he believed, by the torch of +the incendiary; and he was to the last degree exasperated, and with +a just indignation, that the merchant-princes who he supposed had +occasioned his impoverishment yet walked abroad with the confidence of +the community, and were still trusted by many a good man as the very +salt of the city. Nevertheless, Mr. Sidney, solitary and alone, had +arraigned them before a criminal tribunal. He was therefore driven to +his own resources, and there was no place in his nature, or in the +nature of things, for the first retrograde step. All his vast energies +were thenceforth consecrated to, and concentrated in, the detection of +crime. And from the time that he was refused payment for his loss, so +far as my observation extended, he seemed to have been governed by no +other purpose in life than the extermination of that great gang of +robbers which he subsequently discovered. Add to these incentives +and capacities his extraordinary perceptive faculties and power of +analytical observation, together with his wonderful patience, and it +must be granted that he was qualified to discover in any incident +connected with his pursuits more of its component parts than all other +beholders, and had greater opportunities than almost any other man by +which to be informed _how_ it is that "the heart of a man changeth his +countenance." + +If I remember rightly, it was some two years after our acquaintance +commenced that I became aware of Mr. Sidney's proficiency as a +physiognomist, and it was then communicated, not so much by his choice +as by a necessity, for the accomplishment of one of his purposes. + +The object of Mr. Sidney's visit to the city of P----, at that time, +was nothing less difficult than the discovery and identification of an +individual of whom no other knowledge or description had been obtained +than what could be extracted from the inspection, in another city, of a +single specimen of his handwriting in the superscription of a letter. +So much from so little. Within three days thereafter, with no other +instrumentalities than what were suggested by Mr. Sidney's expertness +in deciphering character in handwriting and his proficiency as a +physiognomist, the result was reached and the object happily attained. +In the prosecution of the enterprise, it was important, if not +essential, that I should believe that the data were sufficient by which +to arrive at a correct conclusion, and that I should confide in Mr. +Sidney's skill in order that there might be hearty cooeperation. + +My office was so situated, that from its windows could most +advantageously be observed, and for a considerable distance, the vast +throng that ebbed and flowed, hour after hour, through the great +thoroughfares of the city. For the greater part of three consecutive +days I sat by Mr. Sidney's side, watching the changing crowd through +the half-opened shutters, listening incredulously, at first, to the +practical application of his science to the unsuspecting individuals +below, till my derision was changed to admiration, and I was thoroughly +convinced of his power. As my friends of both sexes passed under the +ordeal, it was intensely bewitching. Hour after hour would he give, with +rapidity and correctness, the occupation and peculiarity of character +and condition of almost every individual who passed. This was not +occasional, but continuous. The marked men were not singled out, but all +were included. He was a stranger, and yet better acquainted with +the people than any of our citizens. And this was the manner of his +speaking:-- + +"That physician has a better opinion of himself than the people have +of him: he is superficial, and makes up in effrontery what he lacks in +qualification. The gambler yonder, with a toothpick in his mouth, has of +late succeeded in his tricks. The affairs of this kind-hearted grocer +are troubling him. Were we within a yard of that round-shouldered man +from the country, we should smell leather; for he works on his bench, +and is unmarried. Here comes an atheist who is a joker and stubborn as +a mule. There goes a man of no business at all: very probably it is the +best occupation he is fitted for, as he has no concentrativeness. The +schoolmistress crossing the street is an accomplished teacher, is +very sympathetic, and has great love of approbation. That lawyer is a +bachelor, and distrusts his own strength. This merchant should give up +the use of tobacco, and pay his notes before dinner, else he will become +a dyspeptic. Here comes a man of wealth who despises the common people +and is miserly and hypocritical; and next to him is a scamp. I think it +is Burke who says, 'When the gnawing worm is within, the impression +of the ravage it makes is visible on the outside, which appears quite +disfigured by it': and in that young man the light that was within him +has become darkness, and 'how great is that darkness!'" + +Of some qualities of mind he would occasionally decline to speak until +he could see the features in play, as in conversation. Some occupations +he failed to discover, if the arms were folded, or the hands in the +pockets, or the body not in motion. It is not my purpose to specify any +of the rules by which he was governed, though they differed materially +from those of Lavater, Redfield, and others, nor the facts from which he +drew his conclusions, but simply to give results. + +I selected from the crowd acquaintances of marked character and +standing, and obtained accurate descriptions of them. Of one he said, +"He is a good merchant, and has done and is doing a large business. He +carries his business home with him at night, as he should not. He has +been wealthy, and is now reduced in circumstances. His disaster weighs +heavily upon him. He has a high sense of honor, a keen conscience, and +is a meek, religious man. He has great goodness of nature, is very +modest and retiring, has more ability than he supposes, and is a man of +family and very fond of his children." + +Another he accurately described thus: "He is a mechanic, of a good mind, +who has succeeded so well that I doubt if he is in active business. +Certainly he does not labor. He is very independent and radical,--can +be impudent, if occasion requires,--gives others all their rights, and +pertinaciously insists upon his own." Here the mechanic took his hands +from his pocket. "Hold! I said he was a mechanic. He is not,--he is a +house-painter." + +I desired to be informed by what indications he judged him to be a +painter. He replied, that he so judged from the general appearance +and motions, and that it was difficult to specify. I insisted, and he +remarked that "the easy roll of his wrists was indicative." + +After obtaining similar correct descriptions of men well known to me, +I spied one whom I did not know, and who was dressed peculiarly. I +inquired his occupation, and Mr. Sidney, without turning a glance +towards me, and still gazing through the half-opened shutters, replied, +"Yes! you never saw him before, yourself. He is a stranger in town, as +is evident from the fact of his being dressed in his best suit, and by +the manner of his taking observations. Besides, there is no opportunity +in these parts for him to follow his trade. He is a glass-blower. You +may perceive he is a little deaf, and the curvature of his motions also +indicates his occupation." + +Whether this description was correct or not I failed to ascertain. + +Mr. Sidney contended that any man of ordinary perceptive faculties need +never mistake a gambler, as the marks on the tribe were as distinct as +the complexion of the Ethiopian,--that, of honest callings, dealers in +cattle could be most easily discovered,--that immorality indicated its +kind invariably in the muscles of the face,--that sympathetic qualities, +love and the desire of being loved, taste and refinement,--were among +the most perspicuous in the outline of the face. + +A man of very gentlemanly appearance was approaching, whom Mr. Sidney +pronounced a gambler, and also engaged in some other branch of iniquity. +His appearance was so remarkably good that I doubted. He turned the +corner, and immediately Mr. Sidney hastened to the street and soon +returned, saying he had ascertained his history: that he was in the +counterfeiting department,--that his conscience affected his nerves, +and consequently his motions,--that he was a stranger in town, and was +restless and disquieted,--that he would not remain many hours here, as +he had an enterprise on hand, and was about it. I remarked, that, as the +contrary never could be proved, he was perfectly safe in his prophecy, +when Mr. Sidney rose from his chair, and, approaching me, slowly said, +with great energy,-- + +"I will follow that man till it _is_ proved." + +The next day but one, I received a note from Mr. Sidney, simply +saying, "I am on his track." He followed the supposed counterfeiter to +Philadelphia, where he ascertained that he had passed five-dollar bills +of the ---- bank of Connecticut. Mr. Sidney obtained the bills the +gambler had passed to compare with the genuine. Failing, however, +to find any of the same denomination, he presented the supposed +counterfeits to a broker skilled in detecting bad bills, and was +surprised to be informed that they were genuine. At Baltimore, he +repeated the inquiry at the counter of a well-known banker relative +to other similar bills, and received the same response. So again in +Washington, Pittsburg, Chicago, and several other cities whither he had +followed the suspected man, and invariably the reply of the cashier +would be, "We will exchange our bills for them, Sir." In some Western +cities he was offered a premium on the bills he had collected. At St. +Louis he obtained a known genuine bill of the bank in question, and in +company with a broker proceeded to examine the two with a microscope. +The broker pronounced the supposed counterfeits to be genuine. In the +mean time the gambler had left the city. Two days after, Mr. Sidney had +overtaken him. So great were his excitement and vexation that he could +scarcely eat or sleep. In a fit of desperation, without law and against +law, he pounced upon the suspected man and put him in irons. He beat a +parley. It was granted, and the two went to the gambler's apartments in +company. In a conversation of several hours, Mr. Sidney extracted +from him the most valuable information relating to the gang he was so +pertinaciously prosecuting, and received into his possession forty-seven +thousand dollars in counterfeits of the aforesaid bank, some of which I +now have in my possession, and which have been pronounced genuine by our +most skilful experts. + + * * * * * + +It would be gratifying to all lovers of science to be informed that the +practical knowledge acquired by Mr. Sidney had been preserved, and that +at least the elementary principles of the arts in which he became so +nearly perfect had been definitely explained and recorded. I am not +aware, however, that such is the fact, but am persuaded that his uniform +policy of concealment has deprived the world of much that would have +been exceedingly entertaining and instructive. That this knowledge has +not been preserved is owing mainly to the fact that he considered it +of little importance, except as a means for the accomplishment of his +purposes, and that those purposes would be most effectually achieved by +his withholding from the common gaze the instrumentality by which they +were to be attained. That he intended at some future period to make some +communication to the public I am well assured, and some materials were +collected by him with this view; but the hot pursuit of the great idea +that he never for an hour lost sight of would not allow sufficient rest +from his labors, and he deferred the publication to those riper years +of experience and acquirement from which he could survey his whole past +career. + +It may be comforting for all rogues to know that he left behind him no +note of that vast amount of statistical knowledge which he possessed, +whether appertaining to crimes or criminals in general or in particular, +or more especially to the band of robbers,--and that with him perished +all knowledge of this organization as such, and the names of all the +parties therewith connected. They also have the consolation, if there be +any, of knowing that he was sent prematurely to his grave by a subtle +poison, administered by unknown hands and in an unknown manner and +moment, and that he died in the firm faith of immortality. + + + + +THE CUMBERLAND. + + + At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, + On board of the Cumberland sloop-of-war; + And at times from the fortress across the bay + The alarum of drums swept past, + Or a bugle-blast + From the camp on the shore. + + Then far away to the South uprose + A little feather of snow-white smoke, + And we knew that the iron ship of our foes + Was steadily steering its course + To try the force + Of our ribs of oak. + + Down upon us heavily runs, + Silent and sullen, the floating fort; + Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, + And leaps the terrible death, + With fiery breath, + From each open port. + + We are not idle, but send her straight + Defiance back in a full broadside! + As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, + Rebounds our heavier hail + From each iron scale + Of the monster's hide. + + "Strike your flag!" the rebel cries, + In his arrogant old plantation strain. + "Never!" our gallant Morris replies; + "It is better to sink than to yield!" + And the whole air pealed + With the cheers of our men. + + Then, like a kraken huge and black, + She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! + Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, + With a sudden shudder of death, + And the cannon's breath + For her dying gasp. + + Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, + Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head. + Lord, how beautiful was thy day! + Every waft of the air + Was a whisper of prayer, + Or a dirge for the dead. + + Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas! + Ye are at peace in the troubled stream. + Ho! brave land! with hearts like these, + Thy flag, that is rent in twain, + Shall be one again, + And without a seam! + + + + +THE FOSSIL MAN. + + +The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been: to +be found in the register of God, not in the records of men. The number +of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The Night of Time far +surpasseth the Day, and who knoweth the Equinox?--Sir THOMAS BROWNE. + +What a mysterious and subtile pleasure there is in groping back through +the early twilight of human history! The mind thirsts and longs so to +know the Beginning: who and what manner of men those were who laid +the first foundations of all that is now upon the earth: of what +intellectual power, of what degree of civilization, of what race and +country. We wonder how the fathers of mankind lived, what habitations +they dwelt in, what instruments or tools they employed, what crops they +tilled, what garments they wore. We catch eagerly at any traces that may +remain of their faiths and beliefs and superstitions; and we fancy, as +we gain a clearer insight into them, that we are approaching more nearly +to the mysterious Source of all life in the soul. The germ, to our +limited comprehension, seems nearer the Creator than the perfected +growth. Then the great problem of _Origin_ forever attracts us on,--the +multitudinous and intricate questions relating to "the ordained becoming +of beings": how the Creating Power has worked, whether through an almost +endless chain of gradual and advantageous changes, or by some sudden and +miraculous _ictus_, placing at once a completed body on the earth, as +an abode and instrument for a developed soul,--all these remote and +difficult questions lead us on. And yet the search for human origins, or +the earliest historic and scientific evidences of man on the earth, is +but a groping in the dark. + +We turn to the Hebrew and the inspired records; but we soon discover, +that, though containing a picture, unequalled for simplicity and +dignity, of the earliest experiences of the present family of man, they +are by no means a monument or relic of the most remote period, but +belong to a comparatively modern date, and that the question of _Time_ +is not at all directly treated in them. + +We visit the region where poetry and myth and tradition have placed a +most ancient civilization,--the Black-Land, or Land of the Nile: we +search its royal sepulchres, its manifold history written in funereal +records, in kingly genealogies, in inscriptions, and in the thousand +relics preserved of domestic life, whether in picture, sculpture, or the +embalmed remains of the dead; and we find ourselves thrown back to a +date far beyond any received date of history, and still we have before +us a ripened civilization, an art which could not belong to the +childhood of a race, a language which (so far as we can judge) must have +needed centuries for its development, and the divisions of human races, +whose formation from the original pair our philosophy teaches us must +have required immense and unknown spaces of time,--all as distinct as +they are at the present day. + +We traverse the regions to which both the comparison of languages and +the Biblical records assign the original birthplace of mankind,--the +country of the Euphrates and the plateau of Eastern Asia. Buried +kingdoms are revealed to us; the shadowy outlines of magnificent cities +appear which flourished and fell before recorded human history, and of +which even Herodotus never heard; Art and Science are unfolded, reaching +far back into the past; the signs of luxury and splendor are uncovered +from the ruin of ages: but, remote as is the date of these Turanian and +Semitic empires, almost equalling that of the Flood in the ordinary +system of chronology, they cannot be near the origin of things, and +a long process of development must have passed ere they reached the +maturity in which they are revealed to us. + +The Chinese records give us an antiquity and an acknowledged date before +the time of Abraham, (if we follow the received chronology,) and +even then their language must have been, as it is now, distinct and +solidified, betraying to the scholar no certain affinity to any other +family of language. The Indian history, so long boasted of for its +immense antiquity, is without doubt the most modern of the ancient +records, and offers no certain date beyond 1800 B.C. + +In Europe, the earliest evidences of man disclosed by our investigations +are even more vague and shadowy. Probably, without antedating in time +these historical records of Asia, they reach back to a more primitive +and barbarous era. The earliest history of Europe is not studied from +inscription or manuscript or even monument; it is not, like the Asiatic, +a conscious work of a people leaving a memorial of itself to a future +age. It is rather, like the geological history, an unconscious, gradual +deposit left by the remains of extinct and unknown races in the soil of +the fields or under the sediment of the waters. The earliest European +barbarian, as he burned his canoe from a log, or fabricated his necklace +from a bone, or worked out his knife from a flint, was in reality +writing a history of his race for distant days. We can follow him now +in his wanderings through the rivers and lakes and on the edges of the +forests; we open his simple mounds of burial, and study his barbarian +tools and ornaments; we discover that he knew nothing of metals, and +that bone and flint and amber and coal were his materials; we trace out +his remarkable defences and huts built on piles in the various lakes of +Europe, where the simple savage could escape the few gigantic "fossil" +animals which even then survived, and roved through the forests of +Prussia and France, or the still more terrible human enemies who were +continually pouring into Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland from the +Asiatic plains. We find that the early savage of Switzerland and Sweden +was not entirely ignorant of the care of animals, and that he had +fabricated some rude pottery. Of what race he was, or when he appeared +amid the forests of Northern Europe, no one can confidently say. +Collecting the various indications from the superstitions, language, +and habits of this barbarian people, and comparing them with like +peculiarities of the most ancient races now existing in Europe, we can +frame a very plausible hypothesis that these early savages belonged to +that great family of which the Finns and Laps, and possibly the Basques, +are scattered members. Their skulls, also, are analogous in form to +those of the Finnish race. This age the archaeologists have denominated +the "Stone Age" of European antiquity. + +Following this is what has been called by them the "Bronze Age." +Another, more powerful, and more cultivated race or collection of +peoples inundates Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, and other +districts. They make war against and destroy the early barbarians; they +burn their water-huts, and force them to the mountains, or to the most +northern portions of the continent. This new race has a taste for +objects of beauty. They work copper and bronze; they make use of +beautiful vases of earthenware and ornaments of the precious metals; +but they have yet no knowledge of iron or steel. Their dead are burned +instead of being buried, as was done by the preceding races. They are +evidently more warlike and more advanced than the Finnish barbarians. Of +their race or family it is difficult to say anything trustworthy. Their +skulls belong to the "long-skulled" races, and would ally them to the +Kelts. Antiquaries have called their remains "Keltic remains." + +Still another age in this ancient history is the "Iron Age," when the +tribes of Europe used iron weapons and implements, and had advanced from +the nomadic condition to that of cultivators of the ground, though still +gaining most of their livelihood from fishing and hunting. This period +no doubt approached the period of historical annals, and the iron men +may have been the earliest Teutons of the North,--our own forefathers; +but of their race or mixture of races we have no certain evidence, +and can only make approximate hypotheses,--the division of "ages" by +archaeologists, it should be remembered, being not in any way a fixed +division of races, but only indicating the probability of different +races at those different early periods. What was the date of these ages +cannot at all be determined; the earlier are long before any recorded +European annals, but there is no reason to believe that they approach in +antiquity the Asiatic records and remains. + +Such, until recently, were the historic and scientific evidences with +regard to the antiquity of man. His most venerable records, his most +ancient dates of historic chronology were but of yesterday, when +compared with the age of existing species of plants and animals, or +with the opening of the present geologic era. Every new scientific +investigation seemed, from its negative evidence, to render more +improbable the existence of the "fossil man." It is true that in various +parts of the world, during the past few years, human bones have been +discovered in connection with the bones of the fossil mammalia; but they +were generally found in caves or in lime-deposits, where they might +have been dropped or swept in by currents of water, or inserted in +more modern periods, and yet covered with the same deposit as the more +ancient relics. Geologists have uniformly reasoned on the _a priori_ +improbability of these being fossil bones, and have somewhat strained +the evidence--as some distinguished _savans_[A] now believe--against the +theory of a great human antiquity. + +[Footnote A: Pictet.] + +And yet the "negative evidence" against the existence of the fossil +man was open to many doubts. The records of geology are notoriously +imperfect. We probably read but a few leaves of a mighty library of +volumes. Moreover, the last ages preceding the present period were +witnesses of a series of changes and slowly acting agencies of +destruction, from which man may have in general escaped. We have reason +to believe that during long periods of time the land was gradually +elevated and subject to oscillations, so that the courses of rivers and +the beds of lakes were disturbed, and even the bottom of the ocean was +raised. The results were the inundation of some countries, and the +pouring of great currents of water over others, wearing down the hills +and depositing in the course of ages the regular layers of gravel, sand, +and marl, which now cover so large a part of Europe. This was still +further followed by a period in which the temperature of the earth was +lowered, and ice and glaciers had perhaps a part in forming the present +surface of the northern hemisphere. During the first period, which may +be called the "Quaternary Period,"[B] the mighty animals lived whose +bones are now found in caverns, or under the slowly deposited sediment +of the waters, or preserved in bog,--the mammoth, and rhinoceros, and +elk, and bear, and elephant, as well as many others of extinct species. + +[Footnote B: We should bear in mind that the Quaternary or Diluvian +Period, however ancient in point of time, has no clearly distinguishing +line of separation from the present period. The great difference lies in +the extinction of certain species of animals, which lived then, whose +destruction may be due both to gradual changes of climate and to +man.--PICTET.] + +We may suppose, that, if man did exist during these convulsions and +inundations, his superior intelligence would enable him to escape +the fate of the animals that were submerged,--or that, if his few +burial-places were invaded by the waters, his remains are now completely +covered by marine deposits under the ocean. If, however, in his +barbarian condition, he had fashioned implements of any hard material, +and especially if, as do the savages of the present family of man, he +had accidentally deposited them, or had buried them with the dead in +mighty mounds, the invading waters might well sweep them together from +their place and deposit them almost in mass, in situations where the +eddies should leave their gravel and sand.[C] + +[Footnote C: Sir C. Lyell, in his remarks before the British Association +in 1859, said upon the discovery alluded to here: "I am reminded of a +large Indian mound which I saw in St. Simon's Island in Georgia,--a +mound ten acres in area, and having an average height of five feet, +chiefly composed of cast-away oyster-shells, throughout which +arrow-heads, stone axes, and Indian pottery were dispersed. If the +neighboring river, the Altamalia, or the sea which is at hand, should +invade, sweep away, and stratify the contents of this mound, it might +produce a very analogous accumulation of human implements, unmixed, +perhaps, with human bones."--_Athenaeum_, September 21, 1859.] + +Such seems in reality to have been the case; though in regard to so +important a fact in the history of the world much caution must be +exercised in accepting the evidence. We will state briefly the proofs, +as they now appear, of the existence of a race of human beings on this +earth in an immense antiquity. + +A French gentleman, M. Boucher de Perthes, has for thirty-four years +been devoting his time and his fortune, with rare perseverance, to the +investigation of certain antiquities in the later geological deposits +in the North of France. His first work, "Les Antiquites Celtiques and +Antediluviennes," published in 1847, was received with much incredulity +and opposition; a second, under the same title, in 1857, met with a +scarce better reception, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he +could induce even the _savans_ of his own country to look at the mass of +evidence he had collected on this subject. + +He made the extraordinary claim to have discovered a great quantity of +rough implements of flint, fashioned by art, in the undisturbed beds of +clay, gravel, and sand, known as _drift_, near Abbeville and Amiens. +These beds vary in thickness from ten to twenty feet, and cover the +chalk hills in the vicinity; in portions of them, upon the hills, often +in company with the flints, are discovered numerous bones of the extinct +mammalia, such as the mammoth, the fossil rhinoceros, tiger, bear, +hyena, stag, ox, horse, and others. + +The flint implements are found in the lowest beds of gravel, just above +the chalk, while above them are sands with delicate fresh-water shells +and beds of brick-earth,--all this, be it remembered, on table-lands two +hundred feet above the level of the sea, in a country whose level and +face have remained unaltered during any historical period with which we +are acquainted. "It must have required," says Sir Charles Lyell, "a +long period for the wearing down of the chalk which supplied the broken +flints (stones) for the formation of so much gravel at various heights, +sometimes one hundred feet above the level of the Somme, for the +deposition of fine sediment, including entire shells, both terrestrial +and aquatic, and also for the denudation which the entire mass of +stratified drift has undergone, portions having been swept away, so +that what remains of it often terminates abruptly in old river-cliffs, +besides being covered by a newer unstratified drift. To explain these +changes, I should infer considerable oscillations in the level of the +land in that part of France, slow movements of upheaval and subsidence, +deranging, but not wholly displacing the course of ancient rivers." + +The President of the British Association, in his opening speech at +the meeting of 1860, affirms the immense antiquity of these flint +implements, and remarks:--"At Menchecourt, in the suburbs of Abbeville, +a nearly entire skeleton of the Siberian rhinoceros is said to have been +taken out about forty years ago,--a fact affording an answer to the +question often raised, as to whether the bones of the extinct mammalia +could have been washed out of an older alluvium into a newer one, and +so redeposited and mingled with the relics of human workmanship. +Far-fetched as was this hypothesis, I am informed that it would not, if +granted, have seriously shaken the proof of the high antiquity of human +productions; for that proof is independent of organic evidence or fossil +remains, and is based on physical data. As was stated to us last year +by Sir Charles Lyell, we should still have to allow time for great +denudation of the chalk, and the removal from place to place, and the +spreading out over the length and breadth of a large valley, of heaps of +chalk-flints in beds from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, covered +by loam and sands of equal thickness, these last often tranquilly +deposited,--all of which operations would require the supposition of a +great lapse of time." + +An independent proof of the age of these gravel-beds and the associated +loam, containing fossil remains, is derived by the same authority from +the large deposits of peat in the valley of the Somme, which contain not +only monuments of the Roman, but also those of an older, stone period, +the Finnic period; yet, says Lord Wrottesley, "distinguished geologists +are of opinion that the growth of all the vegetable matter, and even +the original scooping out of the hollows containing it, are events long +posterior in date to the gravel with flint-implements,--nay, posterior +even to the formation of the uppermost of the layers of loam with +fresh-water shells overlaying the gravel." + +The number of the flint implements is computed at above fourteen hundred +in an area of fourteen miles in length and half a mile in breadth. They +are of the rudest nature, as if formed by a people in the most degraded +state of barbarism. Some are mere flakes of flint, apparently used for +knives or arrow-heads; some are pointed and with hollowed bases, as if +for spear-heads, varying from four to nine inches in length; some are +almond-shaped, with a cutting edge, from two to nine inches in length. +Others again are fashioned into coarse representations of animals, such +as the whale, saurian, boar, eagle, fish, and even the human profile; +others have representations of foliage upon them; others are either +drilled with holes or are cut with reference to natural holes, so as to +serve as stones for slings, or for amulets, or for ornaments. The edges +in many cases seem formed by a great number of small artificial tips +or blows, and do not at all resemble edges made by a great natural +fracture. Very few are found with polished surfaces like the modern +remains in flint; and the whole workmanship differs from that of flint +arrow-heads in other parts of Europe, as well as from the later Finnish +(or so-called Keltic) remains, discovered in such quantities in France. +The only relics that have been found resembling them are, according to +Mr. Worsaae, some flint arrow-heads and spear-points discovered at great +depths in the bogs of Denmark. A few bone knives and necklaces of bone +have been met with in these deposits, but thus far no human bones. The +people who fabricated these instruments seemed to be a hunting and +fishing people, living in some such condition as the present savages of +Australia. + +These discoveries of M. de Perthes have at length aroused the attention +of English men of science, and during 1859 a number of eminent +gentlemen--among them Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Prestwich, Dr. Falconer, +and others--visited M. Perthes's collection, and saw the flints _in +situ_. Several of them have avowed their conviction of the genuineness +and antiquity of these relics. Sir Charles Lyell has given a guarded +sanction to the belief that they present one strong proof of a remote +human antiquity. + +The objections that would naturally be made to this evidence are, that +the flints are purely natural formations, and not works of man,--that +the deposit is alluvial and modern, rather than of the ancient +drift,--or that these implements had been dropped into crevices, or sunk +from above, in later periods. + +The testimony of disinterested observers seems to be sufficient as to +the human contrivance manifest in these flints; and the concurrence of +various scientific men hardly leaves room for doubt that these deposits +are of great antiquity, preceding the time in which the surface of +France took its present form, and dating back to what is called the +Post-Pliocene Period. Their horizontal position, and the great depth +at which the hatchets are found, together with their number, and the +peculiar incrustation and discoloration of each one, as well as their +being in company with the bones of the extinct mammalia, make it +improbable that they could have been dropped into fissures or sunk there +in modern times.[D] In regard to the absence of human bones, it should +be remembered that no bones are easily preserved, unless they are +buried in sediment or in bog; and furthermore, that the extent of the +researches in these formations is very small indeed. Besides, the +country where above all we should expect the most of human remains +in the drift-deposits, as being probably the most ancient abode of +man,--Asia,--has been the least explored for such purposes. Still this +is without doubt the weak point in the evidence, as proving human +antiquity. + +[Footnote D: An article in Blackwood, (October, 1860,) which is +understood to be from the pen of Professor H.D. Rogers, admits entirely +that the flints are of human workmanship, and that it is impossible for +them to have dropped through fissures, as, according to the writer's +observation of the deposits, it would be impossible even for a mole to +penetrate them, so close are they. Professor Rogers takes the ground +that human antiquity is not proven from these relics, for two +reasons:--First, because the indications in the deposits inclosing the +flints point clearly to a "turbulent diluvial action," and therefore it +is possible for a violent incursion of the ocean to have taken place in +the historic period, and to have mixed up the more recent works of man +with the previously buried bones or relics of a pre-historic period; and +secondly, because the different geological deposits do not necessarily +prove time, but only succession,--two schools of geology interpreting +all similar phenomena differently, as relating to the time required. + +The last position would be admitted by few scientific geologists at +the present day, as the evidence for time, though inferential from the +deposits known to us, is held generally to be conclusive. On the first +point, Professor Rogers has the weight of authority against him: all the +great masters of the science, who have examined the formation and the +deposits of the surrounding country, denying that there is any evidence +of an incursion of the ocean of such a nature, during the historic +period.] + +The chain of evidence in regard to this important question seems to be +filled out by a recent discovery of M. Edouard Lartet in Aurignac, in +the South of France, on the head-waters of the Garonne. As we have just +observed, the weak point in M. de Perthes's discoveries was the absence +of human bones in the deposits investigated, though this might have been +accounted for by the withdrawal of human beings from the floods of the +period. M. Lartet's investigations have fortunately been conducted in a +spot which was above the reach of the ordinary inundations of the Drift +Period, and whither human beings might have fled for refuge, or where +they might have lived securely during long spaces of time. + +Some ten years since, in Aurignac, (Haute Garonne,) in the +_Arrondissement_ of St. Gaudens, near the Pyrenees, a cavern was +discovered in the nummulitic rock. It had been concealed by a heap +of fragments of rock and vegetable soil, gradually detached and +accumulated, probably by atmospheric agency. In it were found the +human remains, it was estimated, of seventeen individuals, which were +afterwards buried formally by the order of the mayor of Aurignac. Along +with the bones were discovered the teeth of mammals, both carnivora and +herbivora; also certain small perforated corals, such as were used by +many ancient peoples as beads, and similar to those gathered in the +deposits of Abbeville. The cave had apparently served as a place of +sacrifice and of burial. In 1860 M. Lartet visited the spot. In +the layer of loose earth at the bottom of the cave he found flint +implements, worked portions of a reindeer's horn, mammal bones, and +human bones in a remarkable state of preservation. In a lower layer of +charcoal and ashes, indicating the presence of man and some ancient +fireplace or hearth, the bones of the animals were scratched and +indented as though by implements employed to remove the flesh; almost +every bone was broken, as if to extract the marrow, as is done by many +modern tribes of savages. The same peculiarity is noticed in the bones +discovered among the "water-huts" of the Danish lakes. + +In this deposit M. Lartet picked up many human implements, such as +bone knives, flattened circular stones supposed to have been used for +sharpening flint knives, perforated sling-stones, many arrow-heads and +spear-heads, flint knives, a bodkin made of a roebuck's horn, various +implements of reindeers' horn, and teeth beads, from the teeth of the +great fossil bear (_Ursus spelaeus_). Remains were also found of nine +different species of carnivora, such as the fossil bear, the hyena, cat, +wolf, fox, and others, and of twelve of herbivora, such as the fossil +elephant, the rhinoceros, the great stag, (_Cervus elephas_,) the +European bison, (aurochs,) horse, and others. The most common were the +aurochs, the reindeer, and the fox. How savages, armed only with flint +implements, could have captured these gigantic animals, is somewhat +mysterious; but, as M. Lartet suggests, they may have snared many of +them, or have overwhelmed single monsters with innumerable arrows and +spears, as Livingstone describes the slaying of the elephant by the +negroes at the present day. + +With reference to the mode in which these remains were brought to this +place, M. Lartet remarks,--"The fragmentary condition of the bones of +certain animals, the mode in which they are broken, the marks of +the teeth of the hyena on bones, necessarily broken in their recent +condition, even the distribution of the bones and their significant +consecration, lead to the conclusion that the presence of these animals +and the deposit of all these remains are due solely to human agency. +Neither the inclination of the ground nor the surrounding hydrographical +conditions allow us to suppose that the remains could have been brought +where they are found by natural causes." + +The conclusion, then, in palaeontology, which would be drawn from these +facts is, that man must have existed in Europe at the same time with the +fossil elephant and rhinoceros, the gigantic hyena, the aurochs, and the +elk, and even the cave-bear. This latter animal is thought by many to +have disappeared in the very opening of the Post-Pliocene Period; so +that this cave would--judging from the remains of that animal--have been +_prior_ to the long period of inundations in which the drift-deposits of +Abbeville and Amiens were made. The drift which fills the valleys of the +Pyrenees has not, it is evident, touched this elevated spot in Aurignac. + +In chronology, all that is proved by these discoveries of M. Lartet is +that the fossil animals mentioned above and man were contemporaries on +the earth. The age of each must be determined inferentially by comparing +the age of strata in which these animals are usually found with the age +in which the most ancient traces of man are discovered,--such as the +deposits already described in the North of France. + +Similar discoveries on a smaller scale are recorded by Mr. Prestwich +in Suffolk, England, and in Devonshire. We are informed also by Sir C. +Lyell of a recent important discovery near Troyes, France. In the Grotto +d'Arces, a human jaw-bone and teeth have been found imbedded with +_Elephas primigenius_, _Ursus spelaeus_, _Hyaena spelaea_, and other +extinct animals, under layers of stalagmite. Professor Pictet, the +celebrated geologist, who also gives his adhesion to these discoveries +of M. de Perthes, states that the cave-evidence has by no means been +sufficiently valued by geologists, and that there are caverns in Belgium +where the existence of human remains cannot be satisfactorily explained +on the theory of a modern introduction of them. The President of the +British Association (Lord Wrottesley) also states that in the cave of +Brixham, Devonshire, and in another near Palermo, in Sicily, flint +implements were observed by Dr. Falconer, in such a manner as to lead +him to infer that man must have coexisted with several lost species of +quadrupeds. + +Professor Owen, in his "Palaeontology," (1861,) appears to put faith in +the genuineness and antiquity of these flint relics. He also states that +similar flint weapons have been found by Mr. John Frere, F.R.S., in +Suffolk, in a bed of flint gravel, sixteen feet below the surface, of +the same geological age as that in the valley of the Somme. + +The conclusion from these discoveries--the most important scientific +discoveries, relating to human history, of modern times--is, that ages +ago, in the period of the extinct mammoth and the fossil bear, perhaps +before the Channel separated England from France, a race of barbarian +human beings lived on the soil of Europe, capable of fabricating rough +implements. The evidence has been carefully weighed by impartial and +experienced men, and thus far it seems complete. + +The mind is lost in astonishment, in looking back at such a vast +antiquity of human beings. A tribe of men in existence tens of thousands +of years before any of the received dates of Creation! savages who +hunted, with their flint-headed arrows, the gigantic elk of Ireland and +the buffalo of Germany, or who fled from the savage tiger of France, +or who trapped the immense clumsy mammoth of Northern Europe. Who were +they? we ask ourselves in wonder. Was there with man, as with other +forms of animal life, a long and gradual progression from the lowest +condition to a higher, till at length the world was made ready for a +more developed human being, and the Creator placed the first of the +present family of man upon the earth? Were those European barbarians of +the Drift Period a primeval race, destroyed before the creation of our +own race, and lower and more barbarian than the lowest of the present +inhabitants of the world? or, as seems more probable, were these +mysterious beings--the hunters of the mammoth and the aurochs--the +earliest progenitors of our own family, the childish fathers of the +human race? + +The subject hardly yet admits of an exact and scientific answer. We can +merely here suggest the probability of a vast antiquity to human beings, +and of the existence of the FOSSIL or PRE-ADAMITIC MAN. + + * * * * * + + +LIFE IN THE OPEN AIR. + +BY THE AUTHOR OF "CECIL DREEME" AND "JOHN BRENT." + +KATAHDIN AND THE PENOBSCOT. + + +CHAPTER X. + +RIPOGENUS. + + +Ripogenus is a tarn, a lovely oval tarn, within a rim of forest and +hill; and there behold, _O gioja!_ at its eastern end, stooping forward +and filling the sphere, was Katahdin, large and alone. + +But we must hasten, for day wanes, and we must see and sketch this +cloudless summit from _terra firma_. A mile and half-way down the lake, +we landed at the foot of a grassy hill-side, where once had been a +lumberman's station and hay-farm. It was abandoned now, and lonely in +that deeper sense in which widowhood is lonelier than celibacy, a home +deserted lonelier than a desert. Tumble-down was the never-painted +house; ditto its three barns. But, besides a camp, there were two things +to be had here,--one certain, one possible, probable even. The view, +that was an inevitable certainty; Iglesias would bag that as his share +of the plunder of Ripogenus. For my bagging, bears, perchance, awaited. +The trappers had seen a bear near the barns. Cancut, in his previous +visit, had seen a disappearance of bear. No sooner had the birch's +bow touched lightly upon the shore than we seized our respective +weapons,--Iglesias his peaceful and creative sketch-book, I my warlike +and destructive gun,--and dashed up the hill-side. + +I made for the barns to catch Bruin napping or lolling in the old hay. +I entertain a _vendetta_ toward the ursine family. I had a _duello_, +pistol against claw, with one of them in the mountains of Oregon, +and have nothing to show to point the moral and adorn the tale. My +antagonist of that hand-to-hand fight received two shots, and then +dodged into cover and was lost in the twilight. Soon or late in my life, +I hoped that I should avenge this evasion. Ripogenus would, perhaps, +give what the Nachchese Pass had taken away. + +Vain hope! I was not to be an ursicide. I begin to fear that I shall +slay no other than my proper personal bearishness. I did my duty for +another result at Ripogenus. I bolted audaciously into every barn. I +made incursions into the woods around. I found the mark of the beast, +not the beast. He had not long ago decamped, and was now, perhaps, +sucking the meditative paw hard-by in an arbor of his bear-garden. + +After a vain hunt, I gave up Beast and turned to Beauty. I looked about +me, seeing much. + +Foremost I saw a fellow-man, my comrade, fondled by breeze and +brightness, and whispered to by all sweet sounds. I saw Iglesias below +me, on the slope, sketching. He was preserving the scene at its _bel +momento_. I repented more bitterly of my momentary falseness to Beauty +while I saw him so constant. + +Furthermore, I saw a landscape of vigorous simplicity, easy to +comprehend. By mellow sunset the grass slope of the old farm seemed no +longer tanned and rusty, but ripened. The oval lake was blue and calm, +and that is already much to say; shadows of the western hills were +growing over it, but flight after flight of illumined cloud soared +above, to console the sky and the water for the coming of night. +Northward, a forest darkled, whose glades of brightness I could not see. +Eastward, the bank mounted abruptly to a bare fire-swept table-land, +whereon a few dead trees stood, parched and ghostly skeletons draped +with rags of moss. + +Furthermost and topmost, I saw Katahdin twenty miles away, a giant +undwarfed by any rival. The remainder landscape was only minor and +judiciously accessory. The hills were low before it, the lake lowly, +and upright above lake and hill lifted the mountain pyramid. +Isolate greatness tells. There were no underling mounts about this +mountain-in-chief. And now on its shoulders and crest sunset shone, +glowing. Warm violet followed the glow, soothing away the harshness of +granite lines. Luminous violet dwelt upon the peak, while below the +clinging forests were purple in sheltered gorges, where they could climb +nearer the summit, loved of light, and lower down gloomed green and +sombre in the shadow. + +Meanwhile, as I looked, the quivering violet rose higher and higher, and +at last floated away like a disengaged flame. A smouldering blue dwelt +upon the peak. Ashy-gray overcame the blue. As dusk thickened and stars +trembled into sight, the gray grew luminous. Katahdin's mighty presence +seemed to absorb such dreamy glimmers as float in limpid night-airs: +a faint glory, a twilight of its own, clothed it. King of the +daylit-world, it became queen of the dimmer realms of night, and like a +woman-queen it did not disdain to stoop and study its loveliness in +the polished lake, and stooping thus it overhung the earth, a shadowy +creature of gleam and gloom, an eternized cloud. + +I sat staring and straying in sweet reverie, until the scene before me +was dim as metaphysics. Suddenly a flame flashed up in the void. It +grew and steadied, and dark objects became visible about it. In the +loneliness--for Iglesias had disappeared--I allowed myself a moment's +luxury of superstition. Were these the Cyclops of Katahdin? Possibly. +Were they Trolls forging diabolic enginery, or Gypsies of Yankeedom? I +will see,--and went tumbling down the hill-side. + +As I entered the circle about the cooking-fire of drift-wood by the +lake, Iglesias said,-- + +"The beef-steak and the mutton-chops will do for breakfast; now, then, +with your bear!" + +"Haw, haw!" guffawed Cancut; and the sound, taking the lake at a stride, +found echoes everywhere, till he grew silent and peered suspiciously +into the dark. + +"There's more bears raound 'n yer kin shake a stick at," said one of the +muskrateers. "I wouldn't ricommend yer to stir 'em up naow, haowlin' +like that." + +"I meant it for laffin'," said Cancut, humbly. + +"Ef yer call that 'ere larfin', couldn't yer cry a little to kind er +slick daown the bears?" said the trapper. + +Iglesias now invited us to _chocolat a la creme_, made with the boon +of the ex-bar-keeper. I suppose I may say, without flattery, that this +tipple was marvellous. What a pity Nature spoiled a cook by making the +muddler of that chocolate a painter of grandeurs! When Fine Art is in +a man's nature, it must exude, as pitch leaks from a pine-tree. Our +muskrat-hunters partook injudiciously of this unaccustomed dainty, and +were visited with indescribable Nemesis. They had never been acclimated +to chocolate, as had Iglesias and I, by sipping it under the shade of +the mimosa and the palm. + +Up to a certain point, an unlucky hunter is more likely to hunt than +a lucky. Satiety follows more speedily upon success than despair upon +failure. Let us thank Heaven for that, brethren dear! I had bagged not a +bear, and must needs satisfy my assassin instincts upon something with +hoofs and horns. The younger trapper of muskrat, being young, was +ardent,--being young, was hopeful,--being young, believed in exceptions +to general rules,--and being young, believed, that, given a good fellow +with a gun, Nature would provide a victim. Therefore he proposed that we +should canoe it along the shallows in this sweetest and stillest of all +the nights. The senior shook his head incredulously; Iglesias shook his +head noddingly. + +"Since you have massacred all the bears," said Iglesias, "I will go lay +me down in their lair in the barn. If you find me cheek-by-jowl with +Ursa Major when you come back, make a pun and he will go." + +It was stiller than stillness upon the lake. Ripogenus, it seemed, had +never listened to such silence as this. Calm never could have been so +beyond the notion of calm. Stars in the empyrean and stars in Ripogenus +winked at each other across ninety-nine billions of leagues as +uninterruptedly as boys at a boarding-school table. + +I knelt amidships in the birch with gun and rifle on either side. The +pilot gave one stroke of his paddle, and we floated out upon what seemed +the lake. Whatever we were poised and floating upon he hesitated to +shatter with another dip of his paddle, lest he should shatter the thin +basis and sink toward heaven and the stars. + +Presently the silence seemed to demand gentle violence, and the +unwavering water needed slight tremors to teach it the tenderness of its +calm; then my guide used his blade, and cut into glassiness. We crept +noiselessly along by the lake-edge, within the shadows of the pines. +With never a plash we slid. Rare drops fell from the cautious paddle +and tinkled on the surface, overshot, not parted by, our imponderable +passage. Sometimes from far within the forest would come sounds of +rustling branches or crackling twigs. Somebody of life approaches with +stealthy tread. Gentlier, even gentlier, my steersman! Take up no pearly +drop from the lake, mother of pearliness, lest falling it sound too +loudly. Somewhat comes. Let it come unterrified to our ambush among the +shadows by the shore. + +Somewhat, something, somebody was coming, perhaps, but some other thing +or body thwarted it and it came not. To glide over glassiness while +uneventful moments link themselves into hours is monotonous. Night and +stillness laid their soothing spell upon me. I was entranced. I lost +myself out of time and space, and seemed to be floating unimpelled and +purposeless, nowhere in Forever. + +Somewhere in Now I suddenly found myself. + +There he was! There was the moose trampling and snorting hard-by, in the +shallows of Ripogenus, trampling out of being the whole nadir of stars, +making the world conscious of its lost silence by the death of silence +in tumult. + +I trembled with sudden eagerness. I seized my gun. In another instant +I should have lodged the fatal pellet! when a voice whispered over my +shoulder,-- + +"I kinder guess yer 've ben asleep an' dreamin', ha'n't yer?" + +So I had. + +Never a moose came down to cool his clumsy snout in the water and +swallow reflections of stars. Never a moose abandoned dry-browse in the +bitter woods for succulent lily-pads, full in their cells and veins of +water and sunlight. Till long past midnight we paddled and watched and +listened, whisperless. In vain. At last, as we rounded a point, the +level gleam of our dying camp-fire athwart the water reminded us of +passing hours and traveller duties, of rest to-night and toil to-morrow. + +My companions, fearless as if there were no bears this side of Ursa +Major, were bivouacked in one of the barns. There I entered skulkingly, +as a gameless hunter may, and hid my untrophied head beneath a mound of +ancient hay, not without the mustiness of its age. + +No one clawed us, no one chawed us, that night. A Ripogenus chill awaked +the whole party with early dawn. We sprang from our nests, shook the +hay-seed out of our hair, and were full-dressed without more ceremony, +ready for whatever grand sensation Nature might purvey for our aesthetic +breakfast. + +Nothing is ever as we expect. When we stepped into out-of-doors, looking +for Ripogenus, a lake of Maine, we found not a single aquatic fact in +the landscape. Ripogenus, a lake, had mizzled, (as the Americans say,) +literally mizzled. Our simplified view comprised a grassy hill with +barns, and a stern positive pyramid, surely Katahdin; aloft, beyond, +above, below, thither, hither, and yon, Fog, not fog, but FOG. + +Ripogenus, the water-body, had had aspirations, and a boon of brief +transfiguration into a cloud-body had been granted it by Nature, who +grants to every terrestrial essence prophetic experiences of what it one +day would be. + +In short, and to repeat, Ripogenus had transmuted itself into vapor, and +filled the valley full to our feet. A faint wind had power to billow +this mist-lake, and drive cresting surges up against the eastern +hill-side, over which they sometimes broke, and, involving it totally, +rolled clear and free toward Katahdin, where he stood hiding the glows +of sunrise. Leagues higher up than the mountain rested a presence of +cirri, already white and luminous with full daylight, and from them +drooped linking wreaths of orange mist, clinging to the rosy-violet +granite of the peak. + +Up clomb and sailed Ripogenus and befogged the whole; then we +condescended to breakfast. + + +CHAPTER XI. + +TOWARD KATAHDIN. + + +Singularly enough, mill-dams are always found below mill-ponds. +Analogously in the Maine rivers, below the lakes, rapids are. Rapids +too often compel carries. While we breakfasted without steak of bear +or cutlet of moose, Ripogenus gradually retracted itself, and became +conscious again of what poetry there is in a lake's pause and a rapid's +flow. Fog condensed into water, and water submitting to its destiny went +cascading down through a wild defile where no birch could follow. + +The Ripogenus carry is three miles long, a faint path through thickets. + +"First half," said Cancut, "'s plain enough; but after that 't would +take a philosopher with his spectacles on to find it." + +This was discouraging. Philosophers twain we might deem ourselves; but +what is a craftsman without tools? And never a goggle had we. + +But the trappers of muskrats had become our fast friends. They insisted +upon lightening our loads over the brambly league. This was kindly. +Cancut's elongated head-piece, the birch, was his share of the burden; +and a bag of bread, a firkin of various grub, damp blankets for three, +and multitudinous traps, seemed more than two could carry at one trip +over this longest and roughest of portages. + +We paddled from the camp to the lake-foot, and there, while the others +compacted the portables for portage, Iglesias and I, at cost of a +ducking with mist-drops from the thickets, scrambled up a crag for a +supreme view of the fair lake and the clear mountain. And we did +well. Katahdin, from the hill guarding the exit of the Penobscot from +Ripogenus, is eminent and emphatic, a signal and solitary pyramid, +grander than any below the realms of the unchangeable, more distinctly +mountainous than any mountain of those that stop short of the venerable +honors of eternal snow. + +We trod the trail, we others, easier than Cancut. He found it hard to +thread the mazes of an overgrown path and navigate his canoe at the +same time. "Better," thought he, as he staggered and plunged and bumped +along, extricating his boat-bonnet now from a bower of raspberry-bushes, +now from the branches of a brotherly birch-tree,--"better," thought he, +"were I seated in what I bear, and bounding gayly over the billow. Peril +is better than pother." + +Bushwhacking thus for a league, we circumvented the peril, and came upon +the river flowing fair and free. The trappers said adieu, and launched +us. Back then they went to consult their traps and flay their fragrant +captives, and we shot forward. + +That was a day all poetry and all music. Mountain airs bent and blunted +the noonday sunbeams. There was shade of delicate birches on either +hand, whenever we loved to linger. Our feather-shallop went dancing +on, fleet as the current, and whenever a passion for speed came after +moments of luxurious sloth, we could change floating at the river's +will into leaps and chasing, with a few strokes of the paddle. All was +untouched, unvisited wilderness, and we from bend to bend the first +discoverers. So we might fancy ourselves; for civilization had been +here only to cut pines, not to plant houses. Yet these fair curves, and +liberal reaches, and bright rapids of the birchen-bowered river were +only solitary, not lonely. It is never lonely with Nature. Without +unnatural men or unnatural beasts, she is capital society by herself. +And so we found her,--a lovely being in perfect toilet, which I +describe, in an indiscriminating, masculine way, by saying that it was a +forest and a river and lakes and a mountain and doubtless sky, all made +resplendent by her judicious disposition of a most becoming light. +Iglesias and I, being old friends, were received into close intimacy. +She smiled upon us unaffectedly, and had a thousand exquisite things to +say, drawing us out also, with feminine tact, to say our best things, +and teaching us to be conscious, in her presence, of more delicate +possibilities of refinement and a tenderer poetic sense. So we voyaged +through the sunny hours, and were happy. + +Yet there was no monotony in our progress. We could not always drift and +glide. Sometimes we must fight our way. Below the placid reaches were +the inevitable "rips" and rapids: some we could shoot without hitting +anything; some would hit us heavily, did we try to shoot. Whenever +the rocks in the current were only as thick as the plums in a +boarding-school pudding, we could venture to run the gantlet; whenever +they multiplied to a school-boy's ideal, we were arrested. Just at the +brink of peril we would sweep in by an eddy into a shady pool by the +shore. At such spots we found a path across the carry. Cancut at once +proceeded to bonnet himself with the trickling birch. Iglesias and I +took up the packs and hurried on with minds intent on berries. Berries +we always found,--blueberries covered with a cloudy bloom, blueberries +pulpy, saccharine, plenteous. + +Often, when a portage was not quite necessary, a dangerous bit of white +water would require the birch to be lightened. Cancut must steer her +alone over the foam, while we, springing ashore, raced through the thick +of the forest, tore through the briers, and plunged through the punk of +trees older than history, now rotting where they fell, slain by Time the +Giganticide. Cancut then had us at advantage. Sometimes we had laughed +at him, when he, a good-humored malaprop, made vague clutches at the +thread of discourse. Now suppose he should take a fancy to drop down +stream and leave us. What then? Berries then, and little else, unless we +had a chance at a trout or a partridge. It is not cheery, but dreary, to +be left in pathlessness, blanketless, guideless, and with breadths of +lake and mountain and Nature, shaggy and bearish, between man and man. +With the consciousness of a latent shudder in our hearts at such a +possibility, we parted brier and bramble until the rapid was passed, we +scuffled hastily through to the river-bank, and there always, in some +quiet nook, was a beacon of red-flannel shirt among the green leaves +over the blue and shadowy water, and always the fast-sailing Cancut +awaiting us, making the woods resound to amicable hails, and ready again +to be joked and to retaliate. + +Such alternations made our voyage a charming olla. We had the placid +glide, the fleet dash, the wild career, the pause, the landing, +the agreeable interlude of a portage, and the unburdened stampede +along-shore. Thus we won our way, or our way wooed us on, until, in +early afternoon, a lovely lakelet opened before us. The fringed +shores retired, and, as we shot forth upon wider calm, lo, Katahdin! +unlooked-for, at last, as a revolution. Our boat ruffled its shadow, +doing pretty violence to its dignity, that we might know the greater +grandeur of the substance. There was a gentle agency of atmosphere +softening the bold forms of this startling neighbor, and giving it +distance, lest we might fear it would topple and crush us. Clouds, level +below, hid the summit and towered aloft. Among them we might imagine the +mountain rising with thousands more of feet of heaven-piercing height: +there is one degree of sublimity in mystery, as there is another degree +in certitude. + +We lay to in a shady nook, just off Katahdin's reflection in the river, +while Iglesias sketched him. Meanwhile I, analyzing my view, presently +discovered a droll image in the track of a land-avalanche down the +front. It was a comical fellow, a little giant, a colossal dwarf, six +hundred feet high, and should have been thrice as tall, had it had any +proper development,--for out of his head grew two misdirected skeleton +legs, "hanging down and dangling." The countenance was long, elfin, +sneering, solemn, as of a truculent demon, saddish for his trade, an +ashamed, but unrepentant rascal. He had two immense erect ears, and in +his boisterous position had suffered a loss of hair, wearing nothing +save an impudent scalp-lock. A very grotesque personage. Was he the +guardian imp, the legendary Eft of Katahdin, scoffing already at us as +verdant, and warning that he would make us unhappy, if we essayed to +appear in demon realms and on Brocken heights without initiation? + +"A terrible pooty mountain," Cancut observed; and so it is. + +Not to fail in topographical duty, I record, that near this lakelet +flows in the river Sowadehunk, and not far below, a sister streamlet, +hardly less melodiously named Ayboljockameegus. Opposite the latter we +landed and encamped, with Katahdin full in front, and broadly visible. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +CAMP KATAHDIN. + + +Our camping-place was worthy of its view. On the bank, high and dry, a +noble yellow birch had been strong enough to thrust back the forest, +making a glade for its own private abode. Other travellers had already +been received in this natural pavilion. We had had predecessors, and +they had built them a hut, a half roof of hemlock bark, resting on a +frame. Time had developed the wrinkles in this covering into cracks, and +cracks only wait to be leaks. First, then, we must mend our mansion. +Material was at hand; hemlocks, with a back-load of bark, stood ready to +be disburdened. In August they have worn their garment so long that they +yield it unwillingly. Cancut's axe, however, was insinuating, not to +say peremptory. He peeled off and brought great scales of rough +purple roofing, and we disposed them, according to the laws of +forest architecture, upon our cabin. It became a good example of the +_renaissance_. Storm, if such a traveller were approaching, was shut +out at top and sides; our blankets could become curtains in front and +completely hide us from that unwelcome vagrant, should he peer about +seeking whom he might duck and what he might damage. + +Our lodge, built, must be furnished. We need a luxurious carpet, couch, +and bed; and if we have these, will be content without secondary +articles. Here, too, material was ready, and only the artist wanting, to +use it. While Cancut peeled the hemlocks, Iglesias and I stripped off +armfuls of boughs and twigs from the spruces to "bough down" our camp. +"Boughing down" is shingling the floor elaborately with evergreen +foliage; and when it is done well, the result counts among the high +luxuries of the globe. As the feathers of this bed are harsh stems +covered with leafage, the process of bed-making must be systematic, the +stems thoroughly covered, and the surface smooth and elastic. I have +slept on the various beds of the world,--in a hammock, in a pew, on +German feathers, on a bear-skin, on a mat, on a hide; all, all give but +a feeble, restless, unrecreating slumber, compared to the spruce or +hemlock bed in a forest of Maine. This is fragrant, springy, soft, +well-fitting, better than any Sybarite's coach of uncrumpled +rose-leaves. It sweetly rustles when you roll, and, by a gentle +titillation with the little javelin-leaves, keeps up a pleasant +electricity over the cuticle. Rheumatism never, after nights on such a +bed; agues never; vigor, ardor, fervor, always. + +We despatched our camp-building and bed-making with speed, for we had +a purpose. The Penobscot was a very beautiful river, and the +Ayboljockameegus a very pretty stream; and if there is one place in the +world where trout, at certain seasons, are likely to be found, it is in +a beautiful river at the mouth of a pretty stream. Now we wanted trout; +it was in the programme that something more delicate than salt-pork +should grace our banquets before Katahdin. Cancut sustained our _a +priori_, that trout were waiting for us over by the Aybol. By this +time the tree-shadows, so stiff at noon, began to relax and drift down +stream, cooling the surface. The trout could leave their shy lairs +down in the chilly deeps, and come up without fear of being parboiled. +Besides, as evening came, trout thought of their supper, as we did of +ours. + +Hereupon I had a new sensation. We made ready our flies and our rods, +and embarked, as I supposed, to be ferried across and fish from _terra +firma_. But no. Cancut dropped anchor very quietly opposite the Aybol's +mouth. Iglesias, the man of Maine experience, seemed nought surprised. +We were to throw our lines, as it appeared, from the birch; we were to +peril our lives on the unsteady basis of a roly-poly vessel,--to keep +our places and ballast our bowl, during the excitement of hooking +pounds. Self-poise is an acrobatic feat, when a person, not loaded at +the heels, undertakes trout-fishing from a birch. + +We threw our flies. Instantly at the lucky hackle something darted, +seized it, and whirled to fly, with the unwholesome bit in its mouth, up +the peaceful Ayboljockameegus. But the lucky man, and he happened to be +the novice, forgot, while giving the capturing jerk of his hook, that +his fulcrum was not solid rock. The slight shell tilted, turned--over +not quite, over enough to give everybody a start. One lesson teaches the +docile. Caution thereafter presided over our fishing. She told us to sit +low, keep cool, cast gently, strike firmly, play lightly, and pull in +steadily. So we did. As the spotted sparklers were rapidly translated +from water to a lighter element, a well-fed cheerfulness developed in +our trio. We could not speak, for fear of breaking the spell; we smiled +at each other. Twenty-three times the smile went round. Twenty-three +trout, and not a pigmy among them, lay at our feet. More fish for one +dinner and breakfast would be waste and wanton self-indulgence. We +stopped. And I must avow, not to claim too much heroism, that the fish +had also stopped. So we paddled home contented. + +Then, O Walton! O Davy! O Scrope! ye fishers hard by taverns! luxury was +ours of which ye know no more than a Chinaman does of music. Under +the noble yellow birch we cooked our own fish. We used our scanty +kitchen-battery with skill. We cooked with the high art of simplicity. +Where Nature has done her best, only fools rush in to improve: on the +salmonids, fresh and salt, she has lavished her creative refinements; +cookery should only ripen and develop. From our silver gleaming pile +of pounders, we chose the larger and the smaller for appropriate +experiments. Then we tested our experiments; we tasted our examples. +Success. And success in science proves knowledge and skill. We feasted. +The delicacy of our food made each feaster a finer essence. + +So we supped, reclined upon our couch of spruce-twigs. In our good cheer +we pitied the Eft of Katahdin: he might sneer, but he was supperless. We +were grateful to Nature for the grand mountain, for the fair and sylvan +woods, for the lovely river and what it had yielded us. + +By the time we had finished our flaky fare and sipped our chocolate from +the Magdalena, Night announced herself,--Night, a jealous, dark lady, +eclipsed and made invisible all her rivals, that she might solely +possess us. Night's whispers lulled us. The rippling river, the rustling +leaves, the hum of insects grew more audible; and these are gentle +sounds that prove wide quietude in Nature, and tell man that the burr +and buzz in his day-laboring brain have ceased, and he had better be +breathing deep in harmony. So we disposed ourselves upon the fragrant +couch of spruce-boughs, and sank slowly and deeper into sleep, as divers +sink into the thick waters down below, into the dreamy waters far below +the plunge of sunshine. + +By-and-by, as the time came for rising to the surface again, and the +mind began to be half conscious of facts without it, as the diver may +half perceive light through thinning strata of sea, there penetrated +through my last layers of slumber a pungent odor of wetted embers. It +was raining quietly. Drip was the pervading sound, as if the rain-drops +were counting aloud the leaves of the forest. Evidently a resolute and +permanent wetting impended. On rainy days one does not climb Katahdin. +Instead of rising by starlight, breakfasting by gray, and starting by +rosy dawn, it would be policy to persuade night to linger long into the +hours of a dull day. When daylight finally came, dim and sulky, there +was no rivalry among us which should light the fire. We did not leap, +but trickled slowly forth into the inhospitable morning, all forlorn. +Wet days in camp try "grit." "Clear grit" brightens more crystalline, +the more it is rained upon; sham grit dissolves into mud and water. + +Yankees, who take in pulverized granite with every breath of their +native dust, are not likely to melt in a drizzle. We three certainly +did not. We reacted stoutly against the forlorn weather, unpacking our +internal stores of sunshine, as a camel in a desert draws water from his +inner tank when outer water fails. We made the best of it. A breakfast +of trout and trimmings looks nearly as well and tastes nearly as well in +a fog as in a glare: that we proved by experience at Camp Katahdin. + +We could not climb the mountain dark and dim; we would not be idle: what +was to be done? Much. Much for sport and for use. We shouldered the +axe and sallied into the dripping forest. Only a faint smoke from the +smouldering logs curled up among the branches of the yellow birch over +camp. We wanted a big smoke, and chopped at the woods for fuel. Speaking +for myself, I should say that our wood-work was ill done. Iglesias +smiled at my axe-handling, and Cancut at his, as chopping we sent chips +far and wide. + +The busy, keen, short strokes of the axe resounded through the forest. +When these had done their work, and the bungler paused amid his wasteful +_debris_ to watch his toil's result, first was heard a rustle of leaves, +as if a passing whirlwind had alighted there; next came the crack of +bursting sinews; then the groan of a great riving spasm, and the tree, +decapitated at its foot, crashed to earth, with a vain attempt to clutch +for support at the stiff, unpitying arms of its woodland brotherhood. + +Down was the tree,--fallen, but so it should not lie. This tree we +proposed to promote from brute matter, mere lumber, downcast and +dejected, into finer essence: fuel was to be made into fire. + +First, however, the fuel must be put into portable shape. We top-sawyers +went at our prostrate and vanquished non-resistant, and without mercy +mangled and dismembered him, until he was merely a bare trunk, a torso +incapable of restoration. + +While we were thus busy, useful, and happy, the dripping rain, like a +clepsydra, told off the morning moments. The dinner-hour drew nigh. We +had determined on a feast, and trout were to be its daintiest dainty. +But before we cooked our trout, we must, according to sage Kitchener's +advice, catch our trout. They were, we felt confident, awaiting us in +the refrigerate larder at hand. We waited until the confusing pepper of +a shower had passed away and left the water calm. Then softly and deftly +we propelled our bark across to the Ayboljockameegus. We tossed to the +fish humbugs of wool, silk, and feathers, gauds such as captivate the +greedy or the guileless. Again the "gobemouches" trout, the fellows +on the look-out for novelty, dashed up and swallowed disappointing +juiceless morsels, and with them swallowed hooks. + +We caught an apostolic boat-load of beauties fresh and blooming +as Aurora, silver as the morning star, gemmy with eye-spots as a +tiger-lily. + +O feast most festal! Iglesias, of course, was the great artist who +devised and mainly executed it. As well as he could, he covered his pot +and pan from the rain, admitting only enough to season each dish with +gravy direct from the skies. As day had ripened, the banquet grew ripe. +Then as day declined, we reclined on our triclinium of hemlock and +spruce boughs, and made high festival, toasting each other in the +uninebriating flow of our beverages. Jollity reigned. Cancut fattened, +and visibly broadened. Toward the veriest end of the banquet, we seemed +to feel that there had been a slight sameness in its courses. The Bill +of Fare, however, proved the freest variety. And at the close we sat and +sipped our chocolate with uttermost content. No _garcon_, cringing, but +firm, would here intrude with the unhandsome bill. Nothing to pay is the +rarest of pleasures. This dinner we had caught ourselves, we had cooked +ourselves, and had eaten for the benefit of ourselves and no other. +There was nothing to repent of afterwards in the way of extravagance, +and certainly nothing of indigestion. Indigestion in the forest +primeval, in the shadow of Katahdin, is impossible. + +While we dined, we talked of our to-morrow's climb of Katahdin. We were +hopeful. We disbelieved in obstacles. To-morrow would be fine. We would +spring early from our elastic bed and stride topwards. Iglesias nerved +himself and me with a history of his ascent some years before, up the +eastern side of the mountain. He had left the house of Mr. Hunt, the +outsider at that time of Eastern Maine, with a squad of lumbermen, and +with them tramped up the furrow of a land-avalanche to the top, spending +wet and ineffective days in the dripping woods, and vowing then to +return and study the mountain from our present camping-spot. I recalled +also the first recorded ascent of the Natardin or Catardin Mountain by +Mr. Turner in 1804, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's +Collections, and identified the stream up whose valley he climbed with +the Ayboljockameegus. Cancut offered valuable contributions to our +knowledge from his recent ascent with our Boston predecessors. To-morrow +we would verify our recollections and our fancies. + +And so good-night, and to our spruce bed. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +UP KATAHDIN. + + +Next morning, when we awoke, just before the gray of dawn, the sky was +clear and scintillating; but there was a white cotton night-cap on +the head of Katahdin. As we inspected him, he drew his night-cap down +farther, hinting that he did not wish to see the sun that day. When +a mountain is thus in the sulks after a storm, it is as well not to +disturb him: he will not offer the prize of a view. Experience taught us +this: but then experience is only an empiric at the best. + +Besides, whether Katahdin were bare-headed or cloud-capped, it would be +better to blunder upward than lounge all day in camp and eat Sybaritic +dinners. We longed for the nervy climb. We must have it. "Up!" said +tingling blood to brain. "Dash through the forest! Grasp the crag, and +leap the cleft! Sweet flash forth the streamlets from granite fissures. +To breathe the winds that smite the peaks is life." + +As soon as dawn bloomed in the woods we breakfasted, and ferried the +river before sunrise. The ascent subdivides itself into five zones. 1. A +scantily wooded acclivity, where bears abound. 2. A dense, swampy forest +region. 3. Steep, mossy mountain-side, heavily wooded. 4. A belt of +dwarf spruces, nearly impenetrable. 5. Ragged rock. + +Cancut was our leader to-day. There are by far too many blueberries in +the first zone. No one, of course, intends to dally, but the purple +beauties tempted, and too often we were seduced. Still such yielding +spurred us on to hastier speed, when we looked up after delay and saw +the self-denying far ahead. + +To write an epic or climb a mountain is merely a dogged thing; the +result is more interesting to most than the process. Mountains, being +cloud-compellers, are rain-shedders, and the shed water will not always +flow with decorous gayety in dell or glen. Sometimes it stays bewildered +in a bog, and here the climber must plunge. In the moist places great +trees grow, die, fall, rot, and barricade the way with their corpses. +Katahdin has to endure all the ills of mountain being, and we had all +the usual difficulties to fight through doggedly. When we were clumsy, +we tumbled and rose up torn. Still we plodded on, following a path +blazed by the Bostonians, Cancut's late charge, and we grumblingly +thanked them. + +Going up, we got higher and drier. The mountain-side became steeper than +it could stay, and several land-avalanches, ancient or modern, crossed +our path. It would be sad to think that all the eternal hills were +crumbling thus, outwardly, unless we knew that they bubble up inwardly +as fast. Posterity is thus cared for in regard to the picturesque. +Cascading streams also shot by us, carrying light and music. From +them we stole refreshment, and did not find the waters mineral and +astringent, as Mr. Turner, the first climber, calumniously asserts. + +The trees were still large and surprisingly parallel to the mountain +wall. Deep soft moss covered whatever was beneath, and sometimes this +would yield and let the foot measure a crevice. Perilous pitfalls; but +we clambered unharmed. The moss, so rich, deep, soft, and earthily +fragrant, was a springy stair-carpet of a steep stairway. And sometimes +when the carpet slipped and the state of heels over head seemed +imminent, we held to the baluster-trees, as one after wassail clings to +the lamp-post. + +Even on this minor mountain the law of diminishing vegetation can be +studied. The great trees abandoned us, and stayed indolently down in +shelter. Next the little wiry trees ceased to be the comrades of our +climb. They were no longer to be seen planted upon jutting crags, and, +bold as standard-bearers, inciting us to mount higher. Big spruces, +knobby with balls of gum, dwindled away into little ugly dwarf spruces, +hostile, as dwarfs are said to be always, to human comfort. They grew +man-high, and hedged themselves together into a dense thicket. We could +not go under, nor over, nor through. To traverse them at all, we must +recall the period when we were squirrels or cats, in some former state +of being. + +Somehow we pierced, as man does ever, whether he owes it to the beast or +the man in him. From time to time, when in this struggle we came to an +open point of rock, we would remember that we were on high, and turn to +assure ourselves that nether earth was where we had left it. We always +found it _in situ_, in belts green, white, and blue, a tricolor of +woods, water, and sky. Lakes were there without number, forest without +limit. We could not analyze yet, for there was work to do. Also, +whenever we paused, there was the old temptation, blueberries. Every +out-cropping ledge offered store of tonic, ozone-fed blueberries, or +of mountain-cranberries, crimson and of concentrated flavor, or of the +white snowberry, most delicate of fruits that grow. + +As we were creeping over the top of the dwarf wood, Cancut, who was in +advance, suddenly disappeared; he seemed to fall through a gap in the +spruces, and we heard his voice calling in cavernous tones. We crawled +forward and looked over. It was the upper camp of the Bostonians. They +had profited by a hole in the rocks, and chopped away the stunted scrubs +to enlarge it into a snug artificial abyss. It was snug, and so to the +eye is a cell at Sing-Sing. If they were very misshapen Bostonians, they +may have succeeded in lying there comfortably. I looked down ten feet +into the rough chasm, and I saw, _Corpo di Bacco!_ I saw a cork. + +To this station our predecessors had come in an easy day's walk from the +river; here they had tossed through a night, and given a whole day to +finish the ascent, returning hither again for a second night. As we +purposed to put all this travel within one day, we could not stay and +sympathize with the late tenants. A little more squirrel-like skipping +and cat-like creeping over the spruces, and we were out among bulky +boulders and rough _debris_ on a shoulder of the mountain. Alas! the +higher, the more hopeless. Katahdin, as he had taken pains to inform us, +meant to wear the veil all day. He was drawing down the white drapery +about his throat and letting it fall over his shoulders. Sun and wind +struggled mightily with his sulky fit; sunshine rifted off bits of the +veil, and wind seized, whirled them away, and, dragging them over the +spruces below, tore them to rags. Evidently, if we wished to see the +world, we must stop here and survey, before the growing vapor covered +all. We climbed to the edge of Cloudland, and stood fronting the +semicircle of southward view. + +Katahdin's self is finer than what Katahdin sees. Katahdin is distinct, +and its view is indistinct. It is a vague panorama, a mappy, unmethodic +maze of water and woods, very roomy, very vast, very simple,--and these +are capital qualities, but also quite monotonous. A lover of largeness +and scope has the proper emotions stirred, but a lover of variety very +soon finds himself counting the lakes. It is a wide view, and it is a +proud thing for a man six feet or less high, to feel that he himself, +standing on something he himself has climbed, and having Katahdin under +his feet a mere convenience, can see all Maine. It does not make Maine +less, but the spectator more, and that is a useful moral result. Maine's +face, thus exposed, has almost no features: there are no great mountains +visible, none that seem more than green hillocks in the distance. +Besides sky, Katahdin's view contains only the two primal necessities +of wood and water. Nowhere have I seen such breadth of solemn forest, +gloomy, were it not for the cheerful interruption of many fair lakes, +and bright ways of river linking them. + +Far away on the southern horizon we detected the heights of Mount +Desert, our old familiar haunt. All the northern semicircle was lost to +us by the fog. We lost also the view of the mountain itself. All the +bleak, lonely, barren, ancient waste of the bare summit was shrouded +in cold fog. The impressive gray ruin and Titanic havoc of a granite +mountain top, the heaped boulders, the crumbling crags, the crater-like +depression, the long stern reaches of sierra, the dark curving slopes +channelled and polished by the storms and fine drifting mists of aeons, +the downright plunge of precipices, all the savageness of harsh rock, +unsoftened by other vegetation than rusty moss and the dull green +splashes of lichen, all this was hidden, except when the mist, white and +delicate where we stood, but thick and black above, opened whimsically +and delusively, as mountain mists will do, and gave us vistas into the +upper desolation. After such momentary rifts the mist thickened again, +and swooped forward as if to involve our station, but noon sunshine, +reverberated from the plains and valleys and lakes below, was our +ally; sunshine checked the overcoming mist, and it stayed overhead, an +unwelcome parasol, making our August a chilly November. Besides what our +eyes lost, our minds lost, unless they had imagination enough to create +it, the sentiment of triumph and valiant energy that the man of body and +soul feels upon the windy heights, the highest, whence he looks far and +wide, like a master of realms, and knows that the world is his; and they +lost the sentiment of solemn joy that the man of soul recognizes as one +of the surest intimations of immortality, stirring within him, whenever +he is in the unearthly regions, the higher world. + +We stayed studying the pleasant solitude and dreamy breadth of +Katahdin's panorama for a long time, and every moment the mystery of the +mist above grew more enticing. Pride also was awakened. We turned +from sunshine and Cosmos into fog and Chaos. We made ourselves quite +miserable for nought. We clambered up into Nowhere, into a great, white, +ghostly void. We saw nothing but the rough surfaces we trod. We pressed +along crater-like edges, and all below was filled with mist, troubled +and rushing upward like the smoke of a volcano. Up we went,--nothing but +granite and gray dimness. Where we arrived we know not. It was a top, +certainly: that was proved by the fact that there was nothing within +sight. We cannot claim that it was the topmost top; Kimchinjinga might +have towered within pistol-shot; popgun-shot was our extremest range of +vision, except for one instant, when a kind-hearted sunbeam gave us +a vanishing glimpse of a white lake and breadth of forest far in the +unknown North toward Canada. + +When we had thus reached the height of our folly and made nothing by it, +we addressed ourselves to the descent, no wiser for our pains. Descent +is always harder than ascent, for divine ambitions are stronger and +more prevalent than degrading passions. And when Katahdin is befogged, +descent is much more perilous than ascent. We edged along very +cautiously by remembered landmarks the way we had come, and so, after +a dreary march of a mile or so through desolation, issued into welcome +sunshine and warmth at our point of departure. When I said "we," I did +not include the grave-stone peddler. He, like a sensible fellow, had +determined to stay and eat berries rather than breathe fog. While we +wasted our time, he had made the most of his. He had cleared Katahdin's +shoulders of fruit, and now, cuddled in a sunny cleft, slept the sleep +of the well-fed. His red shirt was a cheerful beacon on our weary way. +We took in the landscape with one slow, comprehensive look, and, waking +Cancut suddenly, (who sprang to his feet amazed, and cried "Fire!") we +dashed down the mountain-side. + +It was long after noon; we were some dozen of miles from camp; we must +speed. No glissade was possible, nor plunge such as travellers make down +through the ash-heaps of Vesuvius; but, having once worried through the +wretched little spruces, mean counterfeits of trees, we could fling +ourselves down from mossy step to step, measuring off the distance by +successive leaps of a second each, and alighting, sound after each, on +moss yielding as a cushion. + +On we hastened, retracing our footsteps of the morning across the +avalanches of crumbled granite, through the bogs, along the brooks; +undelayed by the beauty of sunny glade or shady dell, never stopping to +botanize or to classify, we traversed zone after zone, and safely ran +the gantlet of the possible bears on the last level. We found lowland +Nature still the same; Ayboljockameegus was flowing still; so was +Penobscot; no pirate had made way with the birch; we embarked and +paddled to camp. + +The first thing, when we touched _terra firma_, was to look back +regretfully toward the mountain. Regret changed to wrath, when we +perceived its summit all clear and mistless, smiling warmly to the +low summer's sun. The rascal evidently had only waited until we were +out of sight in the woods to throw away his night-cap. + +One long rainy day had somewhat disgusted us with the old +hemlock-covered camp in the glade of the yellow birch, and we were +reasonably and not unreasonably morbid after our disappointment with +Katahdin. We resolved to decamp. In the last hour of sunlight, floating +pleasantly from lovely reach to reach, and view to view, we could choose +a spot of bivouac where no home-scenery would recall any sorry fact of +the past. We loved this gentle gliding by the tender light of evening +over the shadowy river, marking the rhythm of our musical progress by +touches of the paddle. We determined, too, that the balance of bodily +forces should be preserved: legs had been well stretched over the bogs +and boulders; now for the arms. Never did our sylvan sojourn look so +fair as when we quitted it, and seemed to see among the streaming +sunbeams in the shadows the Hamadryads of the spot returned, and +waving us adieux. We forgot how damp and leaks and puddles had forced +themselves upon our intimacy there; we remembered that we were gay, +though wet, and there had known the perfection of Ayboljockameegus +trout. + +As we drifted along the winding river, between the shimmering birches on +either bank, Katahdin watched us well. Sometimes he would show the point +of his violet gray peak over the woods, and sometimes, at a broad bend +of the water, he revealed himself fully--and threw his great image down +beside for our nearer view. We began to forgive him, to disbelieve in +any personal spite of his, and to recall that he himself, seen thus, was +far more precious than any mappy dulness we could have seen from his +summit. One great upright pyramid like this was worth a continent of +grovelling acres. + +Sunset came, and with it we landed at a point below a lake-like stretch +of the river, where the charms of a neighbor and a distant view of the +mountain combined. Cancut the Unwearied roofed with boughs an old frame +for drying moose-hides, while Iglesias sketched, and I worshipped +Katahdin. Has my reader heard enough of it,--a hillock only six thousand +feet high? We are soon to drift away, and owe it here as kindly a +farewell as it gave us in that radiant twilight by the river. + +From our point of view we raked the long stern front tending westward. +Just before sunset, from beneath a belt of clouds evanescing over the +summit, an inconceivably tender, brilliant glow of rosy violet mantled +downward, filling all the valley. Then the violet purpled richer and +richer, and darkened slowly to solemn blue, that blended with the gloom +of the pines and shadowy channelled gorges down the steep. The peak +was still in sunlight, and suddenly, half way down, a band of roseate +clouds, twining and changing like a choir of Bacchantes, soared around +the western edge and hung poised above the unillumined forests at the +mountain-base; light as air they came and went and faded away, ghostly, +after their work of momentary beauty was done. One slight maple, +prematurely ripened to crimson and heralding the pomp of autumn, +repeated the bright cloud-color amid the vivid verdure of a little +island, and its image wavering in the water sent the flame floating +nearly to our feet. + +Such are the transcendent moments of Nature, unseen and disbelieved by +the untaught. The poetic soul lays hold of every such tender pageant of +beauty and keeps it forever. Iglesias, having an additional method of +preservation, did not fail to pencil rapidly the wondrous scene. When +he had finished his dashing sketch of this glory, so transitory, he +peppered the whole with cabalistic cipher, which only he could interpret +into beauty. + +Cancut's camp-fire now began to overpower the faint glimmers of +twilight. The single-minded Cancut, little distracted by emotions, had +heaped together logs enough to heat any mansion for a winter. The warmth +was welcome, and the great flame, with its bright looks of familiar +comradery, and its talk like the complex murmur of a throng, made a +fourth in our party by no means terrible, as some other incorporeal +visitors might have been. Fire was not only a talker, but an important +actor: Fire cooked for us our evening chocolate; Fire held the +candlestick, while we, without much ceremony of undressing, disposed +ourselves upon our spruce-twig couch; and Fire watched over our +slumbers, crouching now as if some stealthy step were approaching, now +lifting up its head and peering across the river into some recess where +the water gleamed and rustled under dark shadows, and now sending far +and wide over the stream and the clearing and into every cleft of the +forest a penetrating illumination, a blaze of light, death to all +treacherous ambush. So Fire watched while we slept, and when safety came +with the earliest gray of morning, it, too, covered itself with ashes +and slept. + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +HOMEWARD. + + +Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful is dawn in the woods. Sweet the first +opalescent stir, as if the vanguard sunbeams shivered as they dashed +along the chilly reaches of night. And the growth of day, through violet +and rose and all its golden glow of promise, is tender and tenderly +strong, as the deepening passions of dawning love. Presently up comes +the sun very peremptory, and says to people, "Go about your business! +Laggards not allowed in Maine! Nothing here to repent of, while you +lie in bed and curse to-day because it cannot shake off the burden of +yesterday; all clear the past here; all serene the future; into it at +once!" + +Birch was ready for us. Objects we travel on, if horses, often stampede +or are stampeded; if wagons, they break down; if shanks, they stiffen; +if feet, they chafe. No such trouble befalls Birch; leak, however, it +will, as ours did this morning. We gently beguiled it into the position +taken tearfully by unwhipped little boys, when they are about to receive +birch. Then, with a firebrand, the pitch of the seams was easily +persuaded to melt and spread a little over the leaky spot, and Birch was +sound as a drum. + +Staunch and sound Birch needed to be, for presently Penobscot, always a +skittish young racer, began to grow lively after he had shaken off the +weighty shadow of Katahdin, and, kicking up his heels, went galloping +down hill, so furiously that we were at last, after sundry frantic +plunges, compelled to get off his back before worse befell us. In the +balmy morning we made our first portage through a wood of spruces. +How light our firkin was growing! its pork, its hard-tack, and its +condiments were diffused among us three, and had passed into muscle. +Lake Degetus, as pretty a pocket lake as there is, followed the carry. +Next came Lake Ambajeejus, larger, but hardly less lovely. Those who +dislike long names may use its shorter Indian title, Umdo. We climbed a +granite crag draped with moss long as the beard of a Druid,--a crag on +the south side of Ambajeejus or Umdo. Thence we saw Katahdin, noble as +ever, unclouded in the sunny morning, near, and yet enchantingly vague, +with the blue sky which surrounded it. It was still an isolate pyramid +rising with no effect from the fair blue lakes and the fair green sea +of the birch-forest,--a brilliant sea of woods, gay as the shallows of +ocean shot through with sunbeams and sunlight reflected upward from +golden sands. + +We sped along all that exquisite day, best of all our poetic voyage. +Sometimes we drifted and basked in sunshine, sometimes we lingered in +the birchen shade; we paddled from river to lake, from lake to river +again; the rapids whirled us along, surging and leaping under us with +magnificent gallop; frequent carries struck in, that we might not lose +the forester in the waterman. It was a fresh world that we traversed +on our beautiful river-path,--new as if no other had ever parted its +overhanging bowers. + +At noon we floated out upon Lake Pemadumcook, the largest bulge of +the Penobscot, and irregular as the verb To Be. Lumbermen name it +Bammydumcook: Iglesias insisted upon this as the proper reading; and as +he was the responsible man of the party, I accepted it. Woods, woody +hills, and woody mountains surround Bammydumcook. I have no doubt parts +of it are pretty and will be famous in good time; but we saw little. By +the time we were fairly out in the lake and away from the sheltering +shore, a black squall to windward, hiding all the West, warned us to +fly, for birches swamp in squalls. We deemed that Birch, having brought +us through handsomely, deserved a better fate: swamped it must not be. +We plied paddle valiantly, and were almost safe behind an arm of the +shore when the storm overtook us, and in a moment more, safe, with a +canoe only half-full of Bammydumcook water. + +It is easy to speak in scoffing tone; but when that great roaring +blackness sprang upon us, and the waves, showing their white teeth, +snarled around, we were far from being in the mood to scoff. It is +impossible to say too much of the charm of this gentle scenery, mingled +with the charm of this adventurous sailing. And then there were no +mosquitoes, no alligators, no serpents uncomfortably hugging the trees, +no miasmas lurking near; and blueberries always. Dust there was none, +nor the things that make dust. But Iglesias and I were breathing AIR, +--Air sweet, tender, strong, and pure as an ennobling love. It was a day +very happy, for Iglesias and I were near what we both love almost best +of all the dearly-beloveds. It is such influence as this that rescues +the thought and the hand of an artist from enervating mannerism. He +cannot be satisfied with vague blotches of paint to convey impressions +so distinct and vivid as those he is forced to take direct from a Nature +like this. He must be true and powerful. + +The storm rolled by and gave us a noble view of Katahdin, beyond a +broad, beautiful scope of water, and rising seemingly directly from it. +We fled before another squall, over another breadth of Bammydumcook, and +made a portage around a great dam below the lake. The world should know +that at this dam the reddest, spiciest, biggest, thickest wintergreen +berries in the world are to be found, beautiful as they are good. + +Birch had hitherto conducted himself with perfect propriety. I, the +novice, had acquired such entire confidence in his stability of +character that I treated him with careless ease, and never listened +to the warnings of my comrades that he would serve me a trick. Cancut +navigated Birch through some white water below the dam, and Birch went +curveting proudly and gracefully along, evidently feeling his oats. +When Iglesias and I came to embark, I, the novice, perhaps a little +intoxicated with wintergreen berries, stepped jauntily into the +laden boat. Birch, alas, failed me. He tilted; he turned; he took in +Penobscot,--took it in by the quart, by the gallon, by the barrel; he +would have sunk without mercy, had not Iglesias and Cancut succeeded +in laying hold of a rock and restoring equilibrium. I could not have +believed it of Birch. I was disappointed, and in consternation; and if +I had not known how entirely it was Birch's fault that everybody +was ducked and everybody now had a wet blanket, I should have felt +personally foolish. I punished myself for another's fault and my own +inexperience by assuming the wet blankets as my share at the next carry. +I suppose few of my readers imagine how many pounds of water a blanket +can absorb. + +After camps at Katahdin, any residence in the woods without a stupendous +mountain before the door would have been tame. It must have been this, +and not any wearying of sylvan life, that made us hasten to reach the +outermost log-house at the Millinoket carry before nightfall. The +sensation of house and in-door life would be a new one, and so +satisfying in itself that we should not demand beautiful objects to meet +our first blink of awakening eyes. + +An hour before sunset, Cancut steered us toward a beach, and pointed out +a vista in the woods, evidently artificial, evidently a road trodden +by feet and hoofs, and ruled by parallel wheels. A road is one of the +kindliest gifts of brother man to man: if a path in the wilderness, it +comes forward like a friendly guide offering experience and proposing +a comrade dash deeper into the unknown world; if a highway, it is the +great, bold, sweeping character with which civilization writes its +autograph upon a continent. Leaving our plunder on the beach, beyond +the reach of plunderers, whose great domain we were about to enter, we +walked on toward the first house, compelled at parting to believe, that, +though we did not love barbarism less, we loved civilization more. In +the morning, Cancut should, with an ox-cart, bring Birch and our traps +over the three miles of the carry. + + +CHAPTER XV. + +OUT OF THE WOODS. + + +What could society do without women and children? Both we found at the +first house, twenty miles from the second. The children buzzed about us; +the mother milked for us one of Maine's vanguard cows. She baked for +us bread, fresh bread,--such bread! not staff of life,--life's +vaulting-pole. She gave us blueberries with cream of cream. Ah, what a +change! We sat on chairs, at a table, and ate from plates. There was a +table-cloth, a salt-cellar made of glass, of glass never seen at +camps near Katahdin. There was a sugar-bowl, a milk-jug, and other +paraphernalia of civilization, including--O memories of Joseph +Bourgogne!--a dome of baked beans, with a crag of pork projecting from +the apex. We partook decorously, with controlled elbows, endeavoring to +appear as if we were accustomed to sit at tables and manage plates. The +men, women, and children of Millinoket were hospitable and delighted to +see strangers, and the men, like all American men in the summer before +a Presidential election, wanted to talk politics. Katahdin's last +full-bodied appearance was here; it rises beyond a breadth of black +forest, a bulkier mass, but not so symmetrical as from the southern +points of view. We slept that night on a feather-bed, and took cold for +want of air, beneath a roof. + +By the time we had breakfasted, Cancut arrived with Birch on an +ox-sledge. Here our well-beloved west branch of the Penobscot, called +of yore Norimbagua, is married to the east branch, and of course by +marriage loses his identity, by-and-by, changing from the wild, free, +reckless rover of the forest to a tamish family-man style of river, +useful to float rafts and turn mills. However, during the first moments +of the honeymoon, the happy pair, Mr. Penobscot and Miss Milly Noket, +now a unit under the marital name, are gay enough, and glide along +bowery reaches and in among fair islands, with infinite endearments and +smiles, making the world very sparkling and musical there. By-and-by +they fall to romping, and, to avoid one of their turbulent frolics, +Cancut landed us, as he supposed, on the mainland, to lighten the canoe. +Just as he was sliding away down-stream, we discovered that he had left +us upon an island in the midst of frantic, impassable rapids. "Stop, +stop, John Gilpin!" and luckily he did stop, otherwise he would have +gone on to tidewater, ever thinking that we were before him, while we, +with our forest appetites, would have been glaring hungrily at each +other, or perhaps drawing lots for a cannibal doom. Once again, as we +were shooting a long rapid, a table-top rock caught us in mid-current. +We were wrecked. It was critical. The waves swayed us perilously this +way and that. Birch would be full of water, or overturned, in a moment. +Small chance for a swimmer in such maelstroems! All this we saw, but had +no time to shudder at. Aided by the urgent stream, we carefully and +delicately--for a coarse movement would have been death--wormed our boat +off the rock and went fleeting through a labyrinth of new perils, onward +with a wild exhilaration, like galloping through prairie on fire. Of all +the high distinctive national pleasures of America, chasing buffalo, +stump-speaking, and the like, there is none so intense as shooting +rapids in a birch. Whenever I recall our career down the Penobscot, a +longing comes over me to repeat it. + +We dropped down stream without further adventures. We passed the second +house, the first village, and other villages, very white and wide-awake, +melodiously named Nickertow, Pattagumpus, and Mattascunk. We spent the +first night at Mattawamkeag. We were again elbowed at a tavern table, +and compelled to struggle with real and not ideal pioneers for fried +beefsteak and soggy doughboys. The last river day was tame, but not +tiresome. We paddled stoutly by relays, stopping only once, at the +neatest of farm-houses, to lunch on the most airy-substantial bread and +baked apples and cream. It is surprising how confidential a traveller +always is on the subject of his gastronomic delights. He will have the +world know how he enjoyed his dinner, perhaps hoping that the world by +sympathy will enjoy its own. + +Late in the afternoon of our eighth day from Greenville, Moosehead Lake, +we reached the end of birch-navigation, the great mill-dams of Indian +Oldtown, near Bangor. Acres of great pine logs, marked three crosses and +a dash, were floating here at the boom; we saw what Maine men suppose +timber was made for. According to the view acted upon at Oldtown, +Senaglecouna has been for a century or centuries training up its lordly +pines, that gang-saws, worked by Penobscot, should shriek through their +helpless cylinders, gnashing them into boards and chewing them into +sawdust. + +Poor Birch! how out of its element it looked, hoisted on a freight-car +and travelling by rail to Bangor! There we said adieu to Birch and +Cancut. Peace and plenteous provender be with him! Journeys make friends +or foes; and we remember our fat guide, not as one who from time to time +just did not drown us, but as the jolly comrade of eight days crowded +with novelty and beauty, and fine, vigorous, manly life. END. + + * * * * * + + +A WOMAN. + + + Not perfect, nay! but full of tender wants.--THE PRINCESS + +I sat by my window sewing, one bright autumn day, thinking much of +twenty other things, and very little of the long seam that slipped away +from under my fingers slowly, but steadily, when I heard the front-door +open with a quick push, and directly into my open door entered Laura +Lane, with a degree of impetus that explained the previous sound in the +hall. She threw herself into a chair before me, flung her hat on the +floor, threw her shawl across the window-sill, and looked at me without +speaking: in fact, she was quite too much out of breath to speak. + +I was used to Laura's impetuousness; so I only smiled and said, "Good +morning." + +"Oh!" said Laura, with a long breath, "I have got something to tell you, +Sue." + +"That's nice," said I; "news is worth double here in the country; tell +me slowly, to prolong the pleasure." + +"You must guess first. I want to have you try your powers for once; +guess, do!" + +"Mr. Lincoln defeated?" + +"Oh, no,--at least not that I know of; all the returns from this State +are not in yet, of course not from the others; besides, do you think I'd +make such a fuss about politics?" + +"You might," said I, thinking of all the beautiful and brilliant women +that in other countries and other times had made "fuss" more potent than +Laura's about politics. + +"But I shouldn't," retorted she. + +"Then there is a new novel out?" + +"No!" (with great indignation). + +"Or the parish have resolved to settle Mr. Hermann?" + +"How stupid you are, Sue! Everybody knew that yesterday." + +"But I am not everybody." + +"I shall have to help you, I see," sighed Laura, half provoked. +"Somebody is going to be married." + +"Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle!" + +Laura stared at me. I ought to have remembered she was eighteen, and +not likely to have read Sevigne. I began more seriously, laying down my +seam. + +"Is it anybody I know, Laura?" + +"Of course, or you wouldn't care about it, and it would be no fun to +tell you." + +"Is it you?" + +Laura grew indignant. + +"Do you think I should bounce in, in this way, to tell you _I_ was +engaged?" + +"Why not? shouldn't you be happy about it?" + +"Well, if I were, I should"---- + +Laura dropped her beautiful eyes and colored. + + "The thoughts of youth are long, long + thoughts." + +I am sure she felt as much strange, sweet shyness sealing her girlish +lips at that moment as when she came, very slowly and silently, a year +after, to tell me she was engaged to Mr. Hermann. I had to smile and +sigh both. + +"Tell me, then, Laura; for I cannot guess." + +"I'll tell you the gentleman's name, and perhaps you can guess the +lady's then: it is Frank Addison." + +"Frank Addison!" echoed I, in surprise; for this young man was one I +knew and loved well, and I could not think who in our quiet village had +sufficient attraction for his fastidious taste. + +He was certainly worth marrying, though he had some faults, being as +proud as was endurable, as shy as a child, and altogether endowed with a +full appreciation, to say the least, of his own charms and merits: but +he was sincere, and loyal, and tender; well cultivated, yet not priggish +or pedantic; brave, well-bred, and high-principled; handsome besides. I +knew him thoroughly; I had held him on my lap, fed him with sugar-plums, +soothed his child-sorrows, and scolded his naughtiness, many a time; I +had stood with him by his mother's dying bed and consoled him by my own +tears, for his mother I loved dearly; so, ever since, Frank had been +both near and dear to me, for a mutual sorrow is a tie that may +bind together even a young man and an old maid in close and kindly +friendship. I was the more surprised at his engagement because I thought +he would have been the first to tell me of it; but I reflected that +Laura was his cousin, and relationship has an etiquette of precedence +above any other social link. + +"Yes,--Frank Addison! Now guess, Miss Sue! for he is not here to tell +you,--he is in New York; and here in my pocket I have got a letter for +you, but you shan't have it till you have well guessed." + +I was--I am ashamed to confess it--but I was not a little comforted +at hearing of that letter. One may shake up a woman's heart with every +alloy of life, grind, break, scatter it, till scarce a throb of its +youth beats there, but to its last bit it is feminine still; and I felt +a sudden sweetness of relief to know that my boy had not forgotten me. + +"I don't know whom to guess, Laura; who ever marries after other +people's fancy? If I were to guess Sally Hetheridge, I might come as +near as I shall to the truth." + +Laura laughed. + +"You know better," said she. "Frank Addison is the last man to marry a +dried-up old tailoress." + +"I don't know that he is; according to his theories of women and +marriage, Sally would make him happy. She is true-hearted, I am +sure,--generous, kind, affectionate, sensible, and poor. Frank has +always raved about the beauty of the soul, and the degradation of +marrying money,--therefore, Laura, I believe he is going to marry a +beauty and an heiress. I guess Josephine Bowen." + +"Susan!" exclaimed Laura, with a look of intense astonishment, "how +could you guess it?" + +"Then it is she?" + +"Yes, it is,--and I am so sorry! such a childish, giggling, silly little +creature! I can't think how Frank could fancy her; she is just like Dora +in "David Copperfield,"--a perfect gosling! I am as vexed"---- + +"But she is exquisitely pretty." + +"Pretty! well, that is all; he might as well have bought a nice picture, +or a dolly! I am out of all patience with Frank. I haven't the heart to +congratulate him." + +"Don't be unreasonable, Laura; when you get as old as I am, you will +discover how much better and greater facts are than theories. It's all +very well for men to say,-- + + 'Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,'-- + +the soul is all they love,--the fair, sweet character, the lofty mind, +the tender woman's heart, and gentle loveliness; but when you come down +to the statistics of love and matrimony, you find Sally Hetheridge at +sixty an old maid, and Miss Bowen at nineteen adored by a dozen men and +engaged to one. No, Laura, if I had ten sisters, and a fairy godmother +for each, I should request that ancient dame to endow them all with +beauty and silliness, sure that then they would achieve a woman's best +destiny,--a home." + +Laura's face burned indignantly; she hardly let me finish before she +exclaimed,-- + +"Susan Lee! I am ashamed of you! Here are you, an old maid, as happy as +anybody, decrying all good gifts to a woman, except beauty, because, +indeed, they stand in the way of her marriage! as if a woman was only +made to be a housekeeper!" + +Laura's indignation amused me. I went on. + +"Yes, I am happy enough; but I should have been much happier, had I +married. Don't waste your indignation, dear; you are pretty enough +to excuse your being sensible, and you ought to agree with my ideas, +because they excuse Frank, and yours do not." + +"I don't want to excuse him; I am really angry about it. I can't bear to +have Frank throw himself away; she is pretty now, but what will she be +in ten years?" + +"People in love do not usually enter into such remote calculations; love +is to-day's delirium; it has an element of divine faith in it, in not +caring for the morrow. But, Laura, we can't help this matter, and we +have neither of us any conscience involved in it. Miss Bowen may be +better than we know. At any rate, Frank is happy, and that ought to +satisfy both you and me just now." + +Laura's eyes filled with tears. I could see them glisten on the dark +lashes, as she affected to tie her hat, all the time untying it as fast +as ever the knot slid. She was a sympathetic little creature, and loved +Frank very sincerely, having known him as long as she could remember. +She gave me a silent kiss, and went away, leaving the letter, yet +unopened, lying in my lap. I did not open it just then. I was thinking +of Josephine Bowen. + +Every summer, for three years, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen had come to Ridgefield +for country-air, bringing with them their adopted daughter, whose +baptismal name had resigned in favor of the pet appellation "Kitten,"--a +name better adapted to her nature and aspect than the _Imperatrice_ +appellation that belonged to her. She was certainly as charming a little +creature as ever one saw in flesh and blood. Her sweet child's face, her +dimpled, fair cheeks, her rose-bud of a mouth, and great, wistful, blue +eyes, that laughed like flax-flowers in a south-wind, her tiny, round +chin, and low, white forehead, were all adorned by profuse rings and +coils and curls of true gold-yellow, that never would grow long, or be +braided, or stay smooth, or do anything but ripple and twine and push +their shining tendrils out of every bonnet or hat or hood the little +creature wore, like a stray parcel of sunbeams that would shine. Her +delicate, tiny figure was as round as a child's,--her funny hands as +quaint as some fat baby's, with short fingers and dimpled knuckles. She +was a creature as much made to be petted as a King-Charles spaniel,--and +petted she was, far beyond any possibility of a crumpled rose-leaf. Mrs. +Bowen was fat, loving, rather foolish, but the best of friends and the +poorest of enemies; she wanted everybody to be happy, and fat, and well +as she was, and would urge the necessity of wine, and entire idleness, +and horse-exercise, upon a poor minister, just as honestly and +energetically as if he could have afforded them: an idea to the contrary +never crossed her mind spontaneously, but, if introduced there, brought +forth direct results of bottles, bank-bills, and loans of ancient +horses, only to be checked by friendly remonstrance, or the suggestion +that a poor man might be also proud. Mr. Bowen was tall and spare, a +man of much sense and shrewd kindliness, but altogether subject and +submissive to "Kitten's" slightest wish. She never wanted anything; no +princess in a story-book had less to desire; and this entire spoiling +and indulgence seemed to her only the natural course of things. She +took it as an open rose takes sunshine, with so much simplicity, +and heartiness, and beaming content, and perfume of sweet, careless +affection, that she was not given over to any little vanities or +affectations, but was always a dear, good little child, as happy as the +day was long, and quite without a fear or apprehension. I had seen +very little of her in those three summers, for I had been away at the +sea-side, trying to fan the flickering life that alone was left to me +with pungent salt breezes and stinging baptisms of spray, but I had +liked that little pretty well. I did not think her so silly as Laura +did: she seemed to me so purely simple, that I sometimes wondered if her +honest directness and want of guile were folly or not. But I liked to +see her, as she cantered past my door on her pony, the gold tendrils +thick clustered about her throat and under the brim of her black hat, +and her bright blue eyes sparkling with the keen air, and a real +wild-rose bloom on her smiling face. She was a prettier sight even than +my profuse chrysanthemums, whose masses of garnet and yellow and white +nodded languidly to the autumn winds to-day. + +I recalled myself from this dream of recollection, better satisfied with +Miss Bowen than I had been before. I could see just how her beauty had +bewitched Frank,--so bright, so tiny, so loving: one always wants to +gather a little, gay, odor-breathing rose-bud for one's own, and such +she was to him. + +So then I opened his letter. It was dry and stiff: men's letters almost +always are; they cannot say what they feel; they will be fluent of +statistics, or description, or philosophy, or politics, but as to +feeling,--there they are dumb, except in real love-letters, and, of +course, Frank's was unsatisfactory accordingly. Once, toward the end, +came out a natural sentence: "Oh, Sue! if you knew her, you wouldn't +wonder!" So he had, after all, felt the apology he would not speak; he +had some little deference left for his deserted theories. + +Well I knew what touched his pride, and struck that little revealing +spark from his deliberate pen: Josephine Bowen was rich, and he only a +poor lawyer in a country-town: he felt it even in this first flush of +love, and to that feeling I must answer when I wrote him,--not merely to +the announcement, and the delight, and the man's pride. So I answered +his letter at once, and he answered mine in person. I had nothing to say +to him, when I saw him; it was enough to see how perfectly happy and +contented he was,--how the proud, restless eyes, that had always looked +a challenge to all the world, were now tranquil to their depths. Nothing +had interfered with his passion. Mrs. Bowen liked him always, Mr. Bowen +liked him now; nobody had objected, it had not occurred to anybody to +object; money had not been mentioned any more than it would have been in +Arcadia. Strange to say, the good, simple woman, and the good, shrewd +man had both divined Frank's peculiar sensitiveness, and respected it. + +There was no period fixed for the engagement, it was indefinite as yet, +and the winter, with all its excitements of South and North, passed by +at length, and the first of April the Bowens moved out to Ridgefield. It +was earlier than usual; but the city was crazed with excitement, and Mr. +Bowen was tried and worn; he wanted quiet. Then I saw a great deal of +Josephine, and in spite of Laura, and her still restless objections to +the child's childish, laughing, inconsequent manner, I grew into liking +her: not that there seemed any great depth to her; she was not specially +intellectual, or witty, or studious, or practical; she did not try to +be anything: perhaps that was her charm to me. I had seen so many women +laboring at themselves to be something, that one who was content to live +without thinking about it was a real phenomenon to me. Nothing bores me +(though I be stoned for the confession, I must make it!) more than a +woman who is bent on improving her mind, or forming her manners, or +moulding her character, or watching her motives, with that deadly-lively +conscientiousness that makes so many good people disagreeable. Why can't +they consider the lilies, which grow by receiving sun and air and dew +from God, and not hopping about over the lots to find the warmest corner +or the wettest hollow, to see how much bigger and brighter they can +grow? It was real rest to me to have this tiny, bright creature come +in to me every day during Frank's office-hours as unintentionally as a +yellow butterfly would come in at the window. Sometimes she strayed to +the kitchen-porch, and, resting her elbows on the window-sill and her +chin on both palms, looked at me with wondering eyes while I made bread +or cake; sometimes she came by the long parlor-window, and sat down on a +_brioche_ at my feet while I sewed, talking in her direct, unconsidered +way, so fresh, and withal so good and pure, I came to thinking the day +very dull that did not bring "Kitten" to see me. + +The nineteenth of April, in the evening, my door opened again with an +impetuous bang; but this time it was Frank Addison, his eyes blazing, +his dark cheek flushed, his whole aspect fired and furious. + +"Good God, Sue! do you know what they've done in Baltimore?" + +"What?" said I, in vague terror, for I had been an alarmist from the +first: I had once lived at the South. + +"Fired on a Massachusetts regiment, and killed--nobody knows how many +yet; but killed, and wounded." + +I could not speak: it was the lighted train of a powder-magazine burning +before my eyes. Frank began to walk up and down the room. + +"I must go! I must! I must!" came involuntarily from his working lips. + +"Frank! Frank! remember Josephine." + +It was a cowardly thing to do, but I did it. Frank turned ghastly white, +and sat down in a chair opposite me. I had, for the moment, quenched his +ardor; he looked at me with anxious eyes, and drew a long sigh, almost a +groan. + +"Josephine!" he said, as if the name were new to him, so vitally did the +idea seize all his faculties. + +"Well, dear!" said a sweet little voice at the door. + +Frank turned, and seemed to see a ghost; for there in the door-way stood +"Kitten," her face perhaps a shade calmer than ordinary, swinging in one +hand the tasselled hood she wore of an evening, and holding her shawl +together with the other. Over her head we discerned the spare, upright +shape of Mr. Bowen looking grim and penetrative, but not unkindly. + +"What is the matter?" went on the little lady. + +Nobody answered, but Frank and I looked at each other. She came in now +and went toward him, Mr. Bowen following at a respectful distance, as if +he were her footman. + +"I've been looking for you everywhere," said she, with the slightest +possible suggestion of reserve, or perhaps timidity, in her voice. +"Father went first for me, and when you were not at Laura's, or the +office, or the post-office, or Mrs. Sledge's, then I knew you were here; +so I came with him, because--because"--she hesitated the least bit +here--"we love Sue." + +Frank still looked at her with his soul in his eyes, as if he wanted to +absorb her utterly into himself and then die. I never saw such a look +before; I hope I never may again; it haunts me to this day. + +I can pause now to recall and reason about the curious, exalted +atmosphere that seemed suddenly to have surrounded us, as if bare +spirits communed there, not flesh and blood. Frank did not move; he sat +and looked at her standing near him, so near that her shawl trailed +against his chair; but presently when she wanted to grasp something, she +moved aside and took hold of another chair,--not his: it a little thing, +but it interpreted her. + +"Well?" said he, in a hoarse tone. + +Just then she moved, as I said, and laid one hand on the back of a +chair: it was the only symptom of emotion she showed; her voice was as +childish-clear and steady as before. + +"You want to go, Frank, and I thought you would rather be married to me +first; so I came to find you and tell you I would." + +Frank sprang to his feet like a shot man; I cried; Josephine stood +looking at us quite steadily, her head a little bent toward me, her eyes +calm, but very wide open; and Mr. Bowen gave an audible grunt. I suppose +the right thing for Frank to have done in any well-regulated novel would +have been to fall on his knees and call her all sorts of names; but +people never do--that is, any people that I know--just what the +gentlemen in novels do; so he walked off and looked out of the window. +To my aid came the goddess of slang. I stopped snuffling directly. + +"Josephine," said I, solemnly, "you are a brick!" + +"Well, I should think so!" said Mr. Bowen, slightly sarcastic. + +Josey laughed very softly. Frank came back from the window, and then the +three went off together, she holding by her father's arm, Frank on his +other side. I could not but look after them as I stood in the hall-door, +and then I came back and sat down to read the paper Frank had flung on +the floor when he came in. It diverted my mind enough from myself to +enable me to sleep; for I was burning with self-disgust to think of +my cowardice. I, a grown woman, supposed to be more than ordinarily +strong-minded by some people, fairly shamed and routed by a girl Laura +Lane called "Dora"! + +In the morning, Frank came directly after breakfast. He had found his +tongue now, certainly,--for words seemed noway to satisfy him, talking +of Josephine; and presently she came, too, as brave and bright as ever, +sewing busily on a long housewife for Frank; and after her, Mrs. Bowen, +making a huge pin-ball in red, white, and blue, and full of the trunk +she was packing for Frank to carry, to be filled with raspberry-jam, +hard gingerbread, old brandy, clove-cordial, guava-jelly, strong +peppermints, quinine, black cake, cod-liver oil, horehound-candy, +Brandreth's pills, damson-leather, and cherry-pectoral, packed in with +flannel and cotton bandages, lint, lancets, old linen, and cambric +handkerchiefs. + +I could not help laughing, and was about to remonstrate, when Frank +shook his head at me from behind her. He said afterward he let her go +on that way, because it kept her from crying over Josephine. As for +the trunk, he should give it to Miss Dix as soon as ever he reached +Washington. + +In a week, Frank had got his commission as captain of a company in a +volunteer regiment; he went into camp at Dartford, our chief town, and +set to work in earnest at tactics and drill. The Bowens also went to +Dartford, and the last week in May came back for Josey's wedding. I am +a superstitious creature,--most women are,--and it went to my heart +to have them married in May; but I did not say so, for it seemed +imperative, as the regiment were to leave for Washington in June, early. + +The day but one before the wedding was one of those warm, soft days that +so rarely come in May. My windows were open, and the faint scent of +springing grass and opening blossoms came in on every southern breath of +wind. Josey had brought her work over to sit beside me. She was hemming +her wedding-veil,--a long cloud of _tulle_; and as she sat there, +pinching the frail stuff in her fingers, and handling her needle with +such deft little ways, as if they were old friends and understood each +other, there was something so youthful, so unconscious, so wistfully +sweet in her aspect, I could not believe her the same resolute, brave +creature I had seen that night in April. + +"Josey," said I, "I don't know how you can be willing to let Frank go." + +It was a hard thing for me to say, and I said it without thinking. + +She leaned back in her chair, and pinched her hem faster than ever. + +"I don't know, either," said she. "I suppose it was because I ought. I +don't think I am so willing now, Sue: it was easy at first, for I was +so angry and grieved about those Massachusetts men; but now, when I get +time to think, I do ache over it! I never let him know; for it is just +the same right now, and he thinks so. Besides, I never let myself grieve +much, even to myself, lest he might find it out. I must keep bright till +he goes. It would be so very hard on him, Susy, to think I was crying at +home." + +I said no more,--I could not; and happily for me, Frank came in with +a bunch of wild-flowers, that Josey took with a smile as gay as the +columbines, and a blush that outshone the "pinkster-bloomjes," as our +old Dutch "chore-man" called the wild honeysuckle. A perfect shower of +dew fell from them all over her wedding-veil. + +The day of her marriage was showery as April, but a gleam of soft, +fitful sunshine streamed into the little church windows, and fell across +the tiny figure that stood by Frank Addison's side, like a ray of +glory, till the golden curls glittered through her veil, and the fresh +lilies-of-the-valley that crowned her hair and ornamented her simple +dress seemed to send out a fresher fragrance, and glow with more pearly +whiteness. Mrs. Bowen, in a square pew, sobbed, and snuffled, and sopped +her eyes with a lace pocket-handkerchief, and spilt cologne all over +her dress, and mashed the flowers on her French hat against the dusty +pew-rail, and behaved generally like a hen that has lost her sole +chicken. Mr. Bowen sat upright in the pew-corner, uttering sonorous +hems, whenever his wife sobbed audibly; he looked as dry as a stick, and +as grim as Bunyan's giant, and chewed cardamom-seeds, as if he were a +ruminating animal. + +After the wedding came lunch: it was less formal than dinner, and +nobody wanted to sit down before hot dishes and go through with the +accompanying ceremonies. For my part, I always did hate gregarious +eating: it is well enough for animals, in pasture or pen; but a thing +that has so little that is graceful or dignified about it as this taking +food, especially as the thing is done here in America, ought, in my +opinion, to be a solitary act. I never bring my quinine and iron to my +friends and invite them to share it; why should I ask them to partake +of my beef, mutton, and pork, with the accompanying mastication, the +distortion of face, and the suppings and gulpings of fluid dishes that +many respectable people indulge in? No,--let me, at least, eat alone. +But I did not do so to-day; for Josey, with the most unsentimental air +of hunger, sat down at the table and ate two sandwiches, three pickled +mushrooms, a piece of pie, and a glass of jelly, with a tumbler of ale +besides. Laura Lane sat on the other side of the table, her great +dark eyes intently fixed on Josephine, and a look in which wonder was +delicately shaded with disgust quivering about her mouth. She was a +feeling soul, and thought a girl in love ought to live on strawberries, +honey, and spring-water. I believe she really doubted Josey's affection +for Frank, when she saw her eat a real mortal meal on her wedding-day. +As for me, I am a poor, miserable, unhealthy creature, not amenable to +ordinary dietetic rules, and much given to taking any excitement, above +a certain amount in lieu of rational food; so I sustained myself on a +cup of coffee, and saw Frank also make tolerable play of knife and fork, +though he did take some blanc-mange with his cold chicken, and profusely +peppered his Charlotte-Russe! + +Mrs. Bowen alternately wept and ate pie. Mr. Bowen said the jelly tasted +of turpentine, and the chickens must have gone on Noah's voyage, they +were so tough; he growled at the ale, and asked nine questions about the +coffee, all of a derogatory sort, and never once looked at Josephine, +who looked at him every time he was particularly cross, with a rosy +little smile, as if she knew why! The few other people present behaved +after the ordinary fashion; and when we had finished, Frank and +Josephine, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen, Laura Lane and I, all took the train for +Dartford. Laura was to stay two weeks, and I till the regiment left. + +An odd time I had, after we were fairly settled in our quiet hotel, with +those two girls. Laura was sentimental, sensitive, rather high-flown, +very shy, and self-conscious; it was not in her to understand Josey at +all. We had a great deal of shopping to do, as our little bride had put +off buying most of her finery till this time, on account of the few +weeks between the fixing of her marriage-day and its arrival. It was +pretty enough to see the _naive_ vanity with which she selected her +dresses and shawls and laces,--the quite inconsiderate way in which she +spent her money on whatever she wanted. One day we were in a dry-goods' +shop, looking at silks; among them lay one of Marie-Louise blue,--a +plain silk, rich from its heavy texture only, soft, thick, and perfect +in color. + +"I will have that one," said Josephine, after she had eyed it a moment, +with her head on one side, like a canary-bird. "How much is it?" + +"Two fifty a yard, Miss," said the spruce clerk, with an inaccessible +air. + +"I shall look so nice in it!" Josey murmured. "Sue, will seventeen yards +do? it must be very full and long; I can't wear flounces." + +"Yes, that's plenty," said I, scarce able to keep down a smile at +Laura's face. + +She would as soon have smoked a cigar on the steps of the hotel as have +mentioned before anybody, much less a supercilious clerk, that she +should "look so nice" in anything. Josey never thought of anything +beyond the fact, which was only a fact. So, after getting another dress +of a lavender tint, still self-colored, but corded and rich, because it +went well with her complexion, and a black one, that "father liked to +see against her yellow wig, as he called it," Mrs. Josephine proceeded +to a milliner's, where, to Laura's further astonishment, she bought +bonnets for herself, as if she had been her own doll, with an utter +disregard of proper self-depreciation, trying one after another, and +discarding them for various personal reasons, till at last she fixed on +a little gray straw, trimmed with gray ribbon and white daisies, "for +camp," she said, and another of white lace, a fabric calculated to wear +twice, perhaps, if its floating sprays of clematis did not catch in any +parasol on its first appearance. She called me to see how becoming both +the bonnets were, viewed herself in various ways in the glass, and at +last announced that she looked prettiest in the straw, but the lace was +most elegant. To this succeeded purchases of lace and shawls, that still +farther opened Laura's eyes, and made her face grave. She confided to +me privately, that, after all, I must allow Josephine was silly and +extravagant. I had just come from that little lady's room, where she sat +surrounded by the opened parcels, saying, with the gravity of a child,-- + +"I do like pretty things, Sue! I like them more now than I used to, +because Frank likes me. I am so glad I'm pretty!" + +I don't know how it was, but I could not quite coincide with Laura's +strictures. Josey was extravagant, to be sure; she was vain; but +something so tender and feminine flavored her very faults that they +charmed me. I was not an impartial judge; and I remembered, through all, +that April night, and the calm, resolute, self-poised character that +invested the lovely, girlish face with such dignity, strength, and +simplicity. No, she was not silly; I could not grant that to Laura. + +Every day we drove to the camp, and brought Frank home to dinner. Now +and then he stayed with us till the next day, and even Laura could not +wonder at his "infatuation," as she had once called it, when she saw how +thoroughly Josephine forgot herself in her utter devotion to him; over +this, Laura's eyes filled with sad forebodings. + +"If anything should happen to him, Sue, it will kill her," she said. +"She never can lose him and live. Poor little thing! how could Mr. Bowen +let her marry him?" + +"Mr. Bowen lets her do much as she likes, Laura, and always has, I +imagine." + +"Yes, she has been a spoiled child, I know, but it is such a pity!" + +"_Has_ she been spoiled? I believe, as a general thing, more children +are spoiled by what the Scotch graphically call 'nagging' than by +indulgence. What do you think Josey would have been, if Mrs. Brooks had +been her mother?" + +"I don't know, quite; unhappy, I am sure; for Mrs. Brooks's own children +look as if they had been fed on chopped catechism, and whipped early +every morning, ever since they were born. I never went there without +hearing one or another of them told to sit up, or sit down, or keep +still, or let their aprons alone, or read their Bibles; and Joe Brooks +confided to me in Sunday-school that he called Deacon Smith 'old +bald-head,' one day, in the street, to see if a bear wouldn't come and +eat him up, he was so tired of being a good boy!" + +"That's a case in point, I think, Laura; but what a jolly little boy! he +ought to have a week to be naughty in, directly." + +"He never will, while his mother owns a rod!" said she, emphatically. + +I had beguiled Laura from her subject; for, to tell the truth, it was +one I did not dare to contemplate; it oppressed and distressed me too +much. + +After Laura went home, we stayed in Dartford only a week, and then +followed the regiment to Washington. We had been there but a few days, +before it was ordered into service. Frank came into my room one night to +tell me. + +"We must be off to-morrow, Sue,--and you must take her back to +Ridgefield at once. I can't have her here. I have told Mr. Bowen. If we +should be beaten,--and we may,--raw troops may take a panic, or may +fight like veterans,--but if we should run, they will make a bee-line +for Washington. I should go mad to have her here with a possibility of +Rebel invasion. She must go; there is no question." + +He walked up and down the room, then came back and looked me straight in +the face. + +"Susan, if I never come back, you will be her good friend, too?" + +"Yes," said I, meeting his eye as coolly as it met mine: I had learned a +lesson of Josey. "I shall see you in the morning?" + +"Yes"; and so he went back to her. + +Morning came. Josephine was as bright, as calm, as natural, as the June +day itself. She insisted on fastening "her Captain's" straps on his +shoulders, purloined his cumbrous pin-ball and put it out of sight, and +kept even Mrs. Bowen's sobs in subjection by the intense serenity of +her manner. The minutes seemed to go like beats of a fever-pulse; +ten o'clock smote on a distant bell; Josephine had retreated, as if +accidentally, to a little parlor of her own, opening from our common +sitting-room. Frank shook hands with Mr. Bowen; kissed Mrs. Bowen +dutifully, and cordially too; gave me one strong clasp in his arms, and +one kiss; then went after Josephine. I closed the door softly behind +him. In five minutes by the ticking clock he came out, and strode +through the room without a glance at either of us. I had heard her say +"Good bye" in her sweet, clear tone, just as he opened the door; but +some instinct impelled me to go in to her at once: she lay in a dead +faint on the floor. + +We left Washington that afternoon, and went straight back to Ridgefield. +Josey was in and out of my small house continually: but for her father +and mother, I think she would have stayed with me from choice. Rare +letters came from Frank, and were always reported to me, but, of course, +never shown. If there was any change in her manner, it was more steadily +affectionate to her father and mother than ever; the fitful, playful +ways of her girlhood were subdued, but, except to me, she showed no +symptom of pain, no show of apprehension: with me alone she sometimes +drooped and sighed. Once she laid her little head on my neck, and, +holding me to her tightly, half sobbed,-- + +"Oh, I wish--I wish I could see him just for once!" + +I could not speak to answer her. + +As rumors of a march toward Manassas increased, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen took +her to Dartford: there was no telegraph-line to Ridgefield, and but one +daily mail, and now a day's delay of news might be a vital loss. I could +not go with them; I was too ill. At last came that dreadful day of Bull +Run. Its story of shame and blood, trebly exaggerated, ran like fire +through the land. For twenty-four long hours every heart in Ridgefield +seemed to stand still; then there was the better news of fewer dead +than the first report, and we knew that the enemy had retreated, but no +particulars. Another long, long day, and the papers said Colonel ----'s +regiment was cut to pieces; the fourth mail told another story: the +regiment was safe, but Captains Addison, Black, and--Jones, I think, +were missing. The fifth day brought me a letter from Mr. Bowen. Frank +was dead, shot through the heart, before the panic began, cheering on +his men; he had fallen in the very front rank, and his gallant company, +at the risk of their lives, after losing half their number as wounded or +killed, had brought off his body, and carried it with them in retreat, +to find at last that they had ventured all this for a lifeless corpse! +He did not mention Josephine, but asked me to come to them at once, as +he was obliged to go to Washington. I could not, for I was too ill to +travel without a certainty of being quite useless at my journey's end. I +could but just sit up. Five days after, I had an incoherent sobbing sort +of letter from Mrs. Bowen, to say that they had arranged to have the +funeral at Ridgefield the next day but one,--that Josephine would come +out, with her, the night before, and directly to my house, if I was able +to receive them. I sent word by the morning's mail that I was able, and +went myself to the station to meet them. + +They had come alone, and Josey preceded her mother into the little room, +as if she were impatient to have any meeting with a fresh face over. She +was pale as any pale blossom of spring, and as calm. Her curls, tucked +away under the widow's-cap she wore, and clouded by the mass of crape +that shrouded her, left only a narrow line of gold above the dead quiet +of her brow. Her eyes were like the eyes of a sleep-walker: they seemed +to see, but not to feel sight. She smiled mechanically, and put a cold +hand into mine. For any outward expression of emotion, one might have +thought Mrs. Bowen the widow: her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, her +nose was red, her lips tremulous, her whole face stained and washed with +tears, and the skin seemed wrinkled by their salt floods. She had cried +herself sick,--more over Josephine than Frank, as was natural. + +It was but a short drive over to my house, but an utterly silent one. +Josephine made no sort of demonstration, except that she stooped to pat +my great dog as we went in. I gave her a room that opened out of mine, +and put Mrs. Bowen by herself. Twice in the night I stole in to look at +her: both times I found her waking, her eyes fixed on the open window, +her face set in its unnatural quiet; she smiled, but did not speak. Mrs. +Bowen told me in the morning that she had neither shed a tear nor slept +since the news came; it seemed to strike her at once into this cold +silence, and so she had remained. About ten, a carriage was sent over +from the village to take them to the funeral. This miserable custom of +ours, that demands the presence of women at such ceremonies, Mrs. Bowen +was the last person to evade; and when I suggested to Josey that she +should stay at home with me, she looked surprised, and said, quietly, +but emphatically, "Oh, no!" + +After they were gone, I took my shawl and went out on the lawn. There +was a young pine dense enough to shield me from the sun, sitting under +which I could see the funeral-procession as it wound along the river's +edge up toward the burying-ground, a mile beyond the station. But there +was no sun to trouble me; cool gray clouds brooded ominously over all +the sky; a strong south-wind cried, and wailed, and swept in wild gusts +through the woods, while in its intervals a dreadful quiet brooded over +earth and heaven,--over the broad weltering river, that, swollen by +recent rain, washed the green grass shores with sullen flood,--over +the heavy masses of oak and hickory trees that hung on the farther +hill-side,--over the silent village and its gathering people. The +engine-shriek was borne on the coming wind from far down the valley. +There was an air of hushed expectation and regret in Nature itself that +seemed to fit the hour to its event. + +Soon I saw the crowd about the station begin to move, and presently the +funeral-bell swung out its solemn tones of lamentation; its measured, +lingering strokes, mingled with the woful shrieking of the wind and the +sighing of the pine-tree overhead, made a dirge of inexpressible force +and melancholy. A weight of grief seemed to settle on my very breath: it +was not real sorrow; for, though I knew it well, I had not felt yet that +Frank was dead,--it was not real to me,--I could not take to my stunned +perceptions the fact that he was gone. It is the protest of Nature, +dimly conscious of her original eternity, against this interruption of +death, that it should always be such an interruption, so incredible, so +surprising, so new. No,--the anguish that oppressed me now was not the +true anguish of loss, but merely the effect of these adjuncts; the pain +of want, of separation, of reaching in vain after that which is gone, of +vivid dreams and tearful waking,--all this lay in wait for the future, +to be still renewed, still suffered and endured, till time should be no +more. Let all these pangs of recollection attest it,--these involuntary +bursts of longing for the eyes that are gone and the voice that is +still,--these recoils of baffled feeling seeking for the one perfect +sympathy forever fled,--these pleasures dimmed in their first +resplendence for want of one whose joy would have been keener and +sweeter to us than our own,--these bitter sorrows crying like children +in pain for the heart that should have soothed and shared them! No,-- +there is no such dreary lie as that which prates of consoling Time! You +who are gone, if in heaven you know how we mortals fare, you know that +life took from you no love, no faith,--that bitterer tears fall for you +to-day than ever wet your new graves,--that the gayer words and the +recalled smiles are only like the flowers that grow above you, symbols +of the deeper roots we strike in your past existence,--that to the +true soul there is no such thing as forgetfulness, no such mercy as +diminishing regret! + +Slowly the long procession wound up the river,--here, black with plumed +hearse and sable mourners,--there, gay with regimental band and bright +uniforms,--no stately, proper funeral, ordered by custom and marshalled +by propriety, but a straggling array of vehicles: here, the doctor's old +chaise,--there, an open wagon, a dusty buggy, a long, open omnibus, +such as the village-stable kept for pleasure-parties or for parties of +mourning who wanted to go _en masse_. + +All that knew Frank, in or about Ridgefield, and all who had sons or +brothers in the army, swarmed to do him honor; and the quaint, homely +array crept slowly through the valley, to the sound of tolling bell and +moaning wind and the low rush of the swollen river,--the first taste +of war's desolation that had fallen upon us, the first dark wave of a +whelming tide! + +As it passed out of sight, I heard the wheels cease, one by one, their +crunch and grind on the gravelled road up the slope of the grave-yard. +I knew they had reached that hill-side where the dead of Ridgefield +lie calmer than its living; and presently the long-drawn notes of that +hymn-tune consecrated to such occasions--old China--rose and fell in +despairing cadences on my ear. If ever any music was invented for the +express purpose of making mourners as distracted as any external thing +can make them, it is the bitter, hopeless, unrestrained wail of this +tune. There is neither peace nor resignation in it, but the very +exhaustion of raving sorrow that heeds neither God nor man, but +cries out, with the soulless agony of a wind-harp, its refusal to be +comforted. + +At length it was over, and still in that same dead calm Josephine came +home to me. Mrs. Bowen was frightened, Mr. Bowen distressed. I could not +think what to do, at first; but remembering how sometimes a little thing +had utterly broken me down from a regained calmness after loss, some +homely association, some recall of the past, I begged of Mr. Bowen to +bring up from the village Frank's knapsack, which he had found in one of +his men's hands,--the poor fellow having taken care of that, while he +lost his own: "For the captain's wife," he said. As soon as it came, I +took from it Frank's coat, and his cap and sword. My heart was in my +mouth as I entered Josephine's room, and saw the fixed quiet on her face +where she sat. I walked in, however, with no delay, and laid the things +down on her bed, close to where she sat. She gave one startled look at +them and then at me; her face relaxed from all its quiet lines; she sank +on her knees by the bedside, and, burying her head in her arms, cried, +and cried, and cried, so helplessly, so utterly without restraint, that +I cried, too. It was impossible for me to help it. At last the tears +exhausted themselves; the dreadful sobs ceased to convulse her; all +drenched and tired, she lifted her face from its rest, and held out her +arms to me. I took her up, and put her to bed like a child. I hung the +coat and cap and sword where she could see them. I made her take a cup +of broth, and before long, with her eyes fixed on the things I had hung +up, she fell asleep, and slept heavily, without waking, till the next +morning. + +I feared almost to enter her room when I heard her stir; I had dreaded +her waking,--that terrible hour that all know who have suffered, the dim +awakening shadow that darkens so swiftly to black reality; but I need +not have dreaded it for her. She told me afterward that in all that +sleep she never lost the knowledge of her grief; she did not come into +it as a surprise. Frank had seemed to be with her, distant, sad, yet +consoling; she felt that he was gone, but not utterly,--that there was +drear separation and loneliness, but not forever. + +When I went in, she lay there awake, looking at her trophy, as she came +to call it, her eyes with all their light quenched and sodden out with +crying, her face pale and unalterably sad, but natural in its sweetness +and mobility. She drew me down to her and kissed me. + +"May I get up?" she asked; and then, without waiting for an answer, went +on,--"I have been selfish, Sue; I will try to be better now; I won't +run away from my battle. Oh, how glad I am he didn't run away! It is +dreadful now, dreadful! Perhaps, if I had to choose if he should have +run away or--or this, I should have wanted him to run,--I'm afraid I +should. But I am glad now. If God wanted him, I'm glad he went from the +front ranks. Oh, those poor women whose husbands ran away, and were +killed, too!" + +She seemed to be so comforted by that one thought! It was a strange +trait in the little creature; I could not quite fathom it. + +After this, she came down-stairs and went about among us, busying +herself in various little ways. She never went to the grave-yard; but +whenever she was a little tired, I was sure to find her sitting in her +room with her eyes on that cap and coat and sword. Letters of condolence +poured in, but she would not read them or answer them, and they all fell +into my hands. I could not wonder; for, of all cruel conventionalities, +visits and letters of condolence seem to me the most cruel. If friends +can be useful in lifting off the little painful cares that throng in the +house of death till its presence is banished, let them go and do their +work quietly and cheerfully; but to make a call or write a note, to +measure your sorrow and express theirs, seems to me on a par with +pulling a wounded man's bandages off and probing his hurt, to hear him +cry out and hear yourself say how bad it must be! + +Laura Lane was admitted, for Frank's sake, as she had been his closest +and dearest relative. The day she came, Josey had a severe headache, and +looked wretchedly. Laura was shocked, and showed it so obviously, that, +had there been any real cause for her alarm, I should have turned her +out of the room without ceremony, almost before she was fairly in it. As +soon as she left, Josey looked at me and smiled. + +"Laura thinks I am going to die," said she; "but I'm not. If I could, +I wouldn't, Sue; for poor father and mother want me, and so will the +soldiers by-and-by." A weary, heart-breaking look quivered in her face +as she went on, half whispering,--"But I should--I _should_ like to see +him!" + +In September she went away. I had expected it ever since she spoke of +the soldiers needing her. Mrs. Bowen went to the sea-side for her annual +asthma. Mr. Bowen went with Josephine to Washington. There, by some +talismanic influence, she got admission to the hospitals, though she +was very pretty, and under thirty. I think perhaps her pale face and +widow's-dress, and her sad, quiet manner, were her secret of success. +She worked here like a sprite; nothing daunted or disgusted her. She +followed the army to Yorktown, and nursed on the transport-ships. One +man said, I was told, that it was "jes' like havin' an apple-tree blow +raound, to see that Mis' Addison; she was so kinder cheery an' pooty, +an' knew sech a sight abaout nussin', it did a feller lots of good only +to look at her chirpin' abaout." + +Now and then she wrote to me, and almost always ended by declaring she +was "quite well, and almost happy." If ever she met with one of Frank's +men,--and all who were left reenlisted for the war,--he was sure to be +nursed like a prince, and petted with all sorts of luxuries, and told +it was for his old captain's sake. Mr. and Mrs. Bowen followed her +everywhere, as near as they could get to her, and afforded unfailing +supplies of such extra hospital-stores as she wanted; they lavished on +her time and money and love enough to have satisfied three women, but +Josey found use for it all--for her work. Two months ago, they all came +back to Dartford. A hospital had been set up there, and some one was +needed to put it in operation; her experience would be doubly useful +there, and it was pleasant for her to be so near Frank's home, to be +among his friends and hers. + +I went in, to do what I could, being stronger than usual, and found +her hard at work. Her face retained its rounded outline, her lips had +recovered their bloom, her curls now and then strayed from the net under +which she carefully tucked them, and made her look as girlish as ever, +but the girl's expression was gone; that tender, patient, resolute look +was born of a woman's stern experience; and though she had laid aside +her widow's-cap, because it was inconvenient, her face was so sad in its +repose, so lonely and inexpectant, she scarce needed any outward symbol +to proclaim her widowhood. Yet under all this new character lay still +some of those childish tastes that made, as it were, the "fresh perfume" +of her nature: everything that came in her way was petted; a little +white kitten followed her about the wards, and ran to meet her, whenever +she came in, with joyful demonstrations; a great dog waited for her at +home, and escorted her to and from the hospital; and three canaries hung +in her chamber;--and I confess here, what I would not to Laura, that she +retains yet a strong taste for sugar-plums, gingerbread, and the "Lady's +Book." She kept only so much of what Laura called her vanity as to be +exquisitely neat and particular in every detail of dress; and though a +black gown, and a white linen apron, collar, and cuffs do not afford +much room for display, yet these were always so speckless and spotless +that her whole aspect was refreshing. + +Last week there was a severe operation performed in the hospital, and +Josephine had to be present. She held the poor fellow's hand till he +was insensible from the kindly chloroform they gave him, and, after the +surgeons were through, sat by him till night, with such a calm, cheerful +face, giving him wine and broth, and watching every indication of pulse +or skin, till he really rallied, and is now doing well. + +As I came over, the next day, I met Doctor Rivers at the door of her +ward. + +"Really," said he, "that little Mrs. Addison is a true heroine!" + +The kitten purred about my feet, and as I smiled assent to him, I said +inwardly to myself,-- + +"Really, she is a true woman!" + + + + +ABOUT WARWICK. + + +Between bright, new Leamington, the growth of the present century, +and rusty Warwick, founded by King Cymbeline in the twilight ages, a +thousand years before the mediaeval darkness, there are two roads, +either of which may be measured by a sober-paced pedestrian in less than +half an hour. + +One of these avenues flows out of the midst of the smart parades and +crescents of the former town,--along by hedges and beneath the shadow of +great elms, past stuccoed Elizabethan villas and wayside ale-houses, and +through a hamlet of modern aspect,--and runs straight into the principal +thoroughfare of Warwick. The battlemented turrets of the castle, +embowered half-way up in foliage, and the tall, slender tower of St. +Mary's Church, rising from among clustered roofs, have been visible +almost from the commencement of the walk. Near the entrance of the town +stands St. John's School-House, a picturesque old edifice of stone, with +four peaked gables in a row, alternately plain and ornamented, and wide, +projecting windows, and a spacious and venerable porch, all overgrown +with moss and ivy, and shut in from the world by a high stone fence, not +less mossy than the gabled front. There is an iron gate, through the +rusty open-work of which you see a grassy lawn, and almost expect to +meet the shy, curious eyes of the little boys of past generations, +peeping forth from their infantile antiquity into the strangeness of our +present life. I find a peculiar charm in these long-established English +schools, where the school-boy of to-day sits side by side, as it were, +with his great-grandsire, on the same old benches, and often, I believe, +thumbs a later, but unimproved edition of the same old grammar or +arithmetic. The new-fangled notions of a Yankee school-committee would +madden many a pedagogue, and shake down the roof of many a time-honored +seat of learning, in the mother-country. + +At this point, however, we will turn back, in order to follow up the +other road from Leamington, which was the one that I loved best to take. +It pursues a straight and level course, bordered by wide gravel-walks +and overhung by the frequent elm, with here a cottage and there a villa, +on one side a wooded plantation, and on the other a rich field of grass +or grain, until, turning at right angles, it brings you to an arched +bridge over the Avon. Its parapet is a balustrade carved out of +freestone, into the soft substance of which a multitude of persons have +engraved their names or initials, many of them now illegible, while +others, more deeply cut, are illuminated with fresh green moss. These +tokens indicate a famous spot; and casting our eyes along the smooth +gleam and shadow of the quiet stream, through a vista of willows that +droop on either side into the water, we behold the gray magnificence of +Warwick Castle, uplifting itself among stately trees, and rearing its +turrets high above their loftiest branches. We can scarcely think the +scene real, so completely do those machicolated towers, the long line of +battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out +our indistinct ideas of the antique time. It might rather seem as if the +sleepy river (being Shakspeare's Avon, and often, no doubt, the mirror +of his gorgeous visions) were dreaming now of a lordly residence that +stood here many centuries ago; and this fantasy is strengthened, +when you observe that the image in the tranquil water has all the +distinctness of the actual structure. Either might be the reflection of +the other. Wherever Time has gnawed one of the stones, you see the +mark of his tooth just as plainly in the sunken reflection. Each is so +perfect, that the upper vision seems a castle in the air, and the lower +one an old stronghold of feudalism, miraculously kept from decay in an +enchanted river. + +A ruinous and ivy-grown bridge, that projects from the bank a little on +the hither side of the castle, has the effect of making the scene appear +more entirely apart from the every-day world, for it ends abruptly in +the middle of the stream,--so that, if a cavalcade of the knights and +ladies of romance should issue from the old walls, they could never +tread on earthly ground, any more than we, approaching from the side of +modern realism, can overleap the gulf between our domain and theirs. +Yet, if we seek to disenchant ourselves, it may readily be done. +Crossing the bridge on which we stand, and passing a little farther on, +we come to the entrance of the castle, abutting on the highway, and +hospitably open at certain hours to all curious pilgrims who choose to +disburse half a crown or so towards the support of the Earl's domestics. +The sight of that long series of historic rooms, full of such splendors +and rarities as a great English family necessarily gathers about itself, +in its hereditary abode, and in the lapse of ages, is well worth the +money, or ten times as much, if indeed the value of the spectacle could +be reckoned in money's-worth. But after the attendant has hurried you +from end to end of the edifice, repeating a guide-book by rote, and +exorcising each successive hall of its poetic glamour and witchcraft +by the mere tone in which he talks about it, you will make the doleful +discovery that Warwick Castle has ceased to be a dream. It is better, +methinks, to linger on the bridge, gazing at Caesar's Tower and Guy's +Tower in the dim English sunshine above, and in the placid Avon below, +and still keep them as thoughts in your own mind, than climb to their +summits, or touch even a stone of their actual substance. They will have +all the more reality for you, as stalwart relics of immemorial time, if +you are reverent enough to leave them in the intangible sanctity of a +poetic vision. + +From the bridge over the Avon, the road passes in front of the +castle-gate, and soon enters the principal street of Warwick, a little +beyond St. John's School-House, already described. Chester itself, most +antique of English towns, can hardly show quainter architectural shapes +than many of the buildings that border this street. They are mostly of +the timber-and-plaster kind, with bowed and decrepit ridge-poles, and a +whole chronology of various patchwork in their walls; their low-browed +door-ways open upon a sunken floor; their projecting stories peep, as +it were, over one another's shoulders, and rise into a multiplicity of +peaked gables; they have curious windows, breaking out irregularly all +over the house, some even in the roof, set in their own little peaks, +opening lattice-wise, and furnished with twenty small panes of +lozenge-shaped glass. The architecture of these edifices (a visible +oaken framework, showing the whole skeleton of the house,--as if a man's +bones should be arranged on his outside, and his flesh seen through the +interstices) is often imitated by modern builders, and with sufficiently +picturesque effect. The objection is, that such houses, like all +imitations of by-gone styles, have an air of affectation; they do not +seem to be built in earnest; they are no better than playthings, or +overgrown baby-houses, in which nobody should be expected to encounter +the serious realities of either birth or death. Besides, originating +nothing, we leave no fashions for another age to copy, when we ourselves +shall have grown antique. + +Old as it looks, all this portion of Warwick has overbrimmed, as it +were, from the original settlement, being outside of the ancient wall. +The street soon runs under an arched gateway, with a church or some +other venerable structure above it, and admits us into the heart of +the town. At one of my first visits, I witnessed a military display. A +regiment of Warwickshire militia, probably commanded by the Earl, was +going through its drill in the market-place; and on the collar of one of +the officers was embroidered the Bear and Ragged Staff, which has been +the cognizance of the Warwick earldom from time immemorial. The soldiers +were sturdy young men, with the simple, stolid, yet kindly, faces of +English rustics, looking exceedingly well in a body, but slouching into +a yeoman-like carriage and appearance, the moment they were dismissed +from drill. Squads of them were distributed everywhere about the +streets, and sentinels were posted at various points; and I saw a +sergeant, with a great key in his hand, (big enough to have been the key +of the castle's main entrance when the gate was thickest and heaviest,) +apparently setting a guard. Thus, centuries after feudal times are +past, we find warriors still gathering under the old castle-walls, and +commanded by a feudal lord, just as in the days of the King-Maker, who, +no doubt, often mustered his retainers in the same market-place where I +beheld this modern regiment. + +The interior of the town wears a less old-fashioned aspect than the +suburbs through which we approach it; and the High Street has shops with +modern plate-glass, and buildings with stuccoed fronts, exhibiting as +few projections to hang a thought or sentiment upon as if an architect +of to-day had planned them. And, indeed, so far as their surface goes, +they are perhaps new enough to stand unabashed in an American street; +but behind these renovated faces, with their monotonous lack of +expression, there is probably the substance of the same old town that +wore a Gothic exterior in the Middle Ages. The street is an emblem of +England itself. What seems new in it is chiefly a skilful and fortunate +adaptation of what such a people as ourselves would destroy. The new +things are based and supported on sturdy old things, and derive a +massive strength from their deep and immemorial foundations, though with +such limitations and impediments as only an Englishman could endure. +But he likes to feel the weight of all the past upon his back; and, +moreover, the antiquity that overburdens him has taken root in his +being, and has grown to be rather a hump than a pack, so that there is +no getting rid of it without tearing his whole structure to pieces. In +my judgment, as he appears to be sufficiently comfortable under the +mouldy accretion, he had better stumble on with it as long as he can. +He presents a spectacle which is by no means without its charm for a +disinterested and unincumbered observer. + +When the old edifice, or the antiquated custom or institution, appears +in its pristine form, without any attempt at intermarrying it with +modern fashions, an American cannot but admire the picturesque effect +produced by the sudden cropping up of an apparently dead-and-buried +state of society into the actual present, of which he is himself a part. +We need not go far in Warwick without encountering an instance of the +kind. Proceeding westward through the town, we find ourselves confronted +by a huge mass of natural rock, hewn into something like architectural +shape, and penetrated by a vaulted passage, which may well have been one +of King Cymbeline's original gateways; and on the top of the rock, over +the archway, sits a small, old church, communicating with an ancient +edifice, or assemblage of edifices, that look down from a similar +elevation on the side of the street. A range of trees half hides the +latter establishment from the sun. It presents a curious and venerable +specimen of the timber-and-plaster style of building, in which some of +the finest old houses in England are constructed; the front projects +into porticos and vestibules, and rises into many gables, some in a row, +and others crowning semi-detached portions of the structure; the windows +mostly open on hinges, but show a delightful irregularity of shape and +position; a multiplicity of chimneys break through the roof at their own +will, or, at least, without any settled purpose of the architect. The +whole affair looks very old,--so old, indeed, that the front bulges +forth, as if the timber framework were a little weary, at last, of +standing erect so long; but the state of repair is so perfect, and there +is such an indescribable aspect of continuous vitality within the system +of this aged house, that you feel confident that there may be safe +shelter yet, and perhaps for centuries to come, under its time-honored +roof. And on a bench, sluggishly enjoying the sunshine, and looking into +the street of Warwick as from a life apart, a few old men are generally +to be seen, wrapped in long cloaks, on which you may detect the +glistening of a silver badge representing the Bear and Ragged Staff. +These decorated worthies are some of the twelve brethren of Leicester's +Hospital,--a community which subsists to-day under the identical modes +that were established for it in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and of +course retains many features of a social life that has vanished almost +everywhere else. + +The edifice itself dates from a much older period than the charitable +institution of which it is now the home. It was the seat of a religious +fraternity far back in the Middle Ages, and continued so till Henry +VIII. turned all the priesthood of England out-of-doors, and put the +most unscrupulous of his favorites into their vacant abodes. In many +instances, the old monks had chosen the sites of their domiciles so +well, and built them on such a broad system of beauty and convenience, +that their lay-occupants found it easy to convert them into stately and +comfortable homes; and as such they still exist, with something of the +antique reverence lingering about them. The structure now before us +seems to have been first granted to Sir Nicholas Lestrange, who perhaps +intended, like other men, to establish his household gods in the niches +whence he had thrown down the images of saints, and to lay his hearth +where an altar had stood. But there was probably a natural reluctance +in those days (when Catholicism, so lately repudiated, must needs Lave +retained an influence over all but the most obdurate characters) to +bring one's hopes of domestic prosperity and a fortunate lineage into +direct hostility with the awful claims of the ancient religion. At all +events, there is still a superstitious idea, betwixt a fantasy and a +belief, that the possession of former Church-property has drawn a curse +along with it, not only among the posterity of those to whom it was +originally granted, but wherever it has subsequently been transferred, +even if honestly bought and paid for. There are families, now inhabiting +some of the beautiful old abbeys, who appear to indulge a species of +pride in recording the strange deaths and ugly shapes of misfortune that +have occurred among their predecessors, and may be supposed likely to +dog their own pathway down the ages of futurity. Whether Sir Nicholas +Lestrange, in the beef-eating days of Old Harry and Elizabeth, was a +nervous man, and subject to apprehensions of this kind, I cannot tell; +but it is certain that he speedily rid himself of the spoils of the +Church, and that, within twenty years afterwards, the edifice became the +property of the famous Dudley, Earl of Leicester, brother of the Earl of +Warwick. He devoted the ancient religious precinct to a charitable use, +endowing it with an ample revenue, and making it the perpetual home of +twelve poor, honest, and war-broken soldiers, mostly his own retainers, +and natives either of Warwickshire or Gloucestershire. These veterans, +or others wonderfully like them, still occupy their monkish dormitories +and haunt the time-darkened corridors and galleries of the hospital, +leading a life of old-fashioned comfort, wearing the old-fashioned +cloaks, and burnishing the identical silver badges which the Earl of +Leicester gave to the original twelve. He is said to have been a bad man +in his day; but he has succeeded in prolonging one good deed into what +was to him a distant future. + +On the projecting story, over the arched entrance, there is the date, +1571, and several coats-of-arms, either the Earl's or those of his +kindred, and immediately above the door-way a stone sculpture of the +Bear and Ragged Staff. + +Passing through the arch, we find ourselves in a quadrangle, or +inclosed court, such as always formed the central part of a great +family-residence in Queen Elizabeth's time, and earlier. There can +hardly be a more perfect specimen of such an establishment than +Leicester's Hospital. The quadrangle is a sort of sky-roofed hall, to +which there is convenient access from all parts of the house. The four +inner fronts, with their high, steep roofs and sharp gables, look into +it from antique windows, and through open corridors and galleries along +the sides; and there seems to be a richer display of architectural +devices and ornaments, quainter carvings in oak, and more fantastic +shapes of the timber framework, than on the side towards the street. On +the wall opposite the arched entrance are the following inscriptions, +comprising such moral rules, I presume, as were deemed most essential +for the daily observance of the community: "HONOR ALL MEN"--"FEAR +GOD"--"HONOR THE KING"--"LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD"; and again, as if this +latter injunction needed emphasis and repetition among a household of +aged people soured with the hard fortune of their previous lives,--"BE +KINDLY AFFECTIONED ONE TO ANOTHER." One sentence, over a door +communicating with the Master's side of the house, is addressed to +that dignitary,--"HE THAT RULETH OVER MEN MUST BE JUST." All these +are charactered in black-letter, and form part of the elaborate +ornamentation of the Louse. Everywhere--on the walls, over windows and +doors, and at all points where there is room to place them--appear +escutcheons of arms, cognizances, and crests, emblazoned in their proper +colors, and illuminating the ancient quadrangle with their splendor. One +of these devices is a large image of a porcupine on an heraldic wreath, +being the crest of the Lords de Lisle. But especially is the cognizance +of the Bear and Ragged Staff repeated over and over, and over again and +again, in a great variety of attitudes, at full-length and half-length, +in paint and in oaken sculpture, in bas-relief and rounded image. +The founder of the hospital was certainly disposed to reckon his own +beneficence as among the hereditary glories of his race; and had he +lived and died a half-century earlier, he would have kept up an old +Catholic custom by enjoining the twelve bedesmen to pray for the welfare +of his soul. + +At my first visit, some of the brethren were seated on the bench outside +of the edifice, looking down into the street; but they did not vouchsafe +me a word, and seemed so estranged from modern life, so enveloped in +antique customs and old-fashioned cloaks, that to converse with them +would have been like shouting across the gulf between our age and +Queen Elizabeth's. So I passed into the quadrangle, and found it quite +solitary, except that a plain and neat old woman happened to be crossing +it, with an aspect of business and carefulness that bespoke her a woman +of this world, and not merely a shadow of the past. Asking her if I +could come in, she answered very readily and civilly that I might, and +said that I was free to look about me, hinting a hope, however, that I +would not open the private doors of the brotherhood, as some visitors +were in the habit of doing. Under her guidance, I went into what was +formerly the great hall of the establishment, where King James I. had +once been feasted by an Earl of Warwick, as is commemorated by an +inscription on the cobwebbed and dingy wall. It is a very spacious and +barn-like apartment, with a brick floor, and a vaulted roof, the rafters +of which are oaken beams, wonderfully carved, but hardly visible in +the duskiness that broods aloft. The hall may have made a splendid +appearance, when it was decorated with rich tapestry, and illuminated +with chandeliers, cressets, and torches glistening upon silver dishes, +while King James sat at supper among his brilliantly dressed nobles; +but it has come to base uses in these latter days,--being improved, +in Yankee phrase, as a brewery and wash-room, and as a cellar for the +brethren's separate allotments of coal. + +The old lady here left me to myself, and I returned into the quadrangle. +It was very quiet, very handsome, in its own obsolete style, and must be +an exceedingly comfortable place for the old people to lounge in, when +the inclement winds render it inexpedient to walk abroad. There are +shrubs against the wall, on one side; and on another is a cloistered +walk, adorned with stags' heads and antlers, and running beneath a +covered gallery, up to which ascends a balustraded staircase. In the +portion of the edifice opposite the entrance-arch are the apartments +of the Master; and looking into the window, (as the old woman, at no +request of mine, had specially informed me that I might,) I saw a low, +but vastly comfortable parlor, very handsomely furnished, and altogether +a luxurious place. It had a fireplace with an immense arch, the antique +breadth of which extended almost from wall to wall of the room, though +now fitted up in such a way that the modern coal-grate looked very +diminutive in the midst. Gazing into this pleasant interior, it seemed +to me, that, among these venerable surroundings, availing himself of +whatever was good in former things, and eking out their imperfection +with the results of modern ingenuity, the Master might lead a not +unenviable life. On the cloistered side of the quadrangle, where the +dark oak panels made the inclosed space dusky, I beheld a curtained +window reddened by a great blaze from within, and heard the bubbling and +squeaking of something--doubtless very nice and succulent--that was +being cooked at the kitchen-fire. I think, indeed, that a whiff or +two of the savory fragrance reached my nostrils; at all events, the +impression grew upon me that Leicester's Hospital is one of the jolliest +old domiciles in England. + +I was about to depart, when another old woman, very plainly dressed, +but fat, comfortable, and with a cheerful twinkle in her eyes, came in +through the arch, and looked curiously at me. This repeated apparition +of the gentle sex (though by no means under its loveliest guise) had +still an agreeable effect in modifying my ideas of an institution which +I had supposed to be of a stern and monastic character. She asked +whether I wished to see the hospital, and said that the porter, whose +office it was to attend to visitors, was dead, and would be buried that +very day, so that the whole establishment could not conveniently be +shown me. She kindly invited me, however, to visit the apartment +occupied by her husband and herself; so I followed her up the antique +staircase, along the gallery, and into a small, oak-panelled parlor, +where sat an old man in a long blue garment, who arose and saluted me +with much courtesy. He seemed a very quiet person, and yet had a look of +travel and adventure, and gray experience, such as I could have fancied +in a palmer of ancient times, who might likewise have worn a similar +costume. The little room was carpeted and neatly furnished; a portrait +of its occupant was hanging on the wall; and on a table were two swords +crossed,--one, probably, his own battle-weapon, and the other, which +I drew half out of the scabbard, had an inscription on the blade, +purporting that it had been taken from the field of Waterloo. My +kind old hostess was anxious to exhibit all the particulars of their +housekeeping, and led me into the bed-room, which was in the nicest +order, with a snow-white quilt upon the bed; and in a little intervening +room was a washing and bathing apparatus,--a convenience (judging from +the personal aspect and atmosphere of such parties) seldom to be met +with in the humbler ranks of British life. + +The old soldier and his wife both seemed glad of somebody to talk with; +but the good woman availed herself of the privilege far more copiously +than the veteran himself, insomuch that he felt it expedient to give her +an occasional nudge with his elbow in her well-padded ribs. "Don't you +be so talkative!" quoth he; and, indeed, he could hardly find space for +a word, and quite as little after his admonition as before. Her nimble +tongue ran over the whole system of life in the hospital. The brethren, +she said, had a yearly stipend, (the amount of which she did not +mention,) and such decent lodgings as I saw, and some other advantages, +free; and instead of being pestered with a great many rules, and made +to dine together at a great table, they could manage their little +household-matters as they liked, buying their own dinners, and having +them cooked in the general kitchen, and eating them snugly in their own +parlors. "And," added she, rightly deeming this the crowning privilege, +"with the Master's permission, they can have their wives to take care of +them; and no harm comes of it; and what more can an old man desire?" +It was evident enough that the good dame found herself in what she +considered very rich clover, and, moreover, had plenty of small +occupations to keep her from getting rusty and dull; but the veteran +impressed me as deriving far less enjoyment from the monotonous ease, +without fear of change or hope of improvement, that had followed upon +thirty years of peril and vicissitude. I fancied, too, that, while +pleased with the novelty of a stranger's visit, he was still a little +shy of becoming a spectacle for the stranger's curiosity; for, if he +chose to be morbid about the matter, the establishment was but an +almshouse, in spite of its old-fashioned magnificence, and his fine blue +cloak only a pauper's garment, with a silver badge on it that perhaps +galled his shoulder. In truth, the badge and the peculiar garb, though +quite in accordance with the manners of the Earl of Leicester's age, +are repugnant to modern prejudices, and might fitly and humanely be +abolished. + +A year or two afterwards I paid another visit to the hospital, and found +a new porter established in office, and already capable of talking like +a guide-book about the history, antiquities, and present condition of +the charity. He informed me that the twelve brethren are selected from +among old soldiers of good character, whose private resources must +not exceed an income of five pounds; thus excluding all commissioned +officers, whose half-pay would of course be more than that amount. They +receive from the hospital an annuity of eighty pounds each, besides +their apartments, a garment of fine blue cloth, an annual abundance of +ale, and a privilege at the kitchen-fire; so that, considering the class +from which they are taken, they may well reckon themselves among the +fortunate of the earth. Furthermore, they are invested with political +rights, acquiring a vote for member of Parliament in virtue either +of their income or brotherhood. On the other hand, as regards their +personal freedom and conduct, they are subject to a supervision which +the Master of the hospital might render extremely annoying, were he so +inclined; but the military restraint under which they have spent the +active portion of their lives makes it easier for them to endure the +domestic discipline here imposed upon their age. The porter bore his +testimony (whatever were its value) to their being as contented and +happy as such a set of old people could possibly be, and affirmed that +they spent much time in burnishing their silver badges, and were as +proud of them as a nobleman of his star. These badges, by-the-by, except +one that was stolen and replaced in Queen Anne's time, are the very same +that decorated the original twelve brethren. + +I have seldom met with a better guide than my friend the porter. +He appeared to take a genuine interest in the peculiarities of the +establishment, and yet had an existence apart from them, so that he +could the better estimate what those peculiarities were. To be sure, his +knowledge and observation were confined to external things, but, so +far, had a sufficiently extensive scope. He led me up the staircase +and exhibited portions of the timber framework of the edifice that are +reckoned to be eight or nine hundred years old, and are still neither +worm-eaten nor decayed; and traced out what had been a great hall, in +the days of the Catholic fraternity, though its area is now filled up +with the apartments of the twelve brethren; and pointed to ornaments of +sculptured oak, done in an ancient religious style of art, but hardly +visible amid the vaulted dimness of the roof. Thence we went to the +chapel--the Gothic church which I noted several pages back--surmounting +the gateway that stretches half across the street. Here the brethren +attend daily prayer, and have each a prayer-book of the finest paper, +with a fair, large type for their old eyes. The interior of the chapel +is very plain, with a picture of no merit for an altar-piece, and +a single old pane of painted glass in the great eastern window, +representing--no saint, nor angel, as is customary in such cases--but +that grim sinner, the Earl of Leicester. Nevertheless, amid so many +tangible proofs of his human sympathy, one comes to doubt whether the +Earl could have been such a hardened reprobate, after all. + +We ascended the tower of the chapel, and looked down between its +battlements into the street, a hundred feet below us; while clambering +half-way up were foxglove-flowers, weeds, small shrubs, and tufts of +grass, that had rooted themselves into the roughnesses of the stone +foundation. Far around us lay a rich and lovely English landscape, with +many a church-spire and noble country-seat, and several objects of high +historic interest. Edge Hill, where the Puritans defeated Charles I., is +in sight on the edge of the horizon, and much nearer stands the house +where Cromwell lodged on the night before the battle. Right under our +eyes, and half-enveloping the town with its high-shouldering wall, so +that all the closely compacted streets seemed but a precinct of the +estate, was the Earl of Warwick's delightful park, a wide extent of +sunny lawns, interspersed with broad contiguities of forest-shade. Some +of the cedars of Lebanon were there,--a growth of trees in which the +Warwick family take an hereditary pride. The two highest towers of the +castle heave themselves up out of a mass of foliage, and look down in a +lordly manner upon the plebeian roofs of the town, a part of which are +slate-covered, (these are the modern houses,) and a part are coated with +old red tiles, denoting the more ancient edifices. A hundred and sixty +or seventy years ago, a great fire destroyed a considerable portion +of the town, and doubtless annihilated many structures of a remote +antiquity; at least, there was a possibility of very old houses in the +long past of Warwick, which King Cymbeline is said to have founded in +the year ONE of the Christian era! + +And this historic fact or poetic fiction, whichever it may be, brings to +mind a more indestructible reality than anything else that has occurred +within the present field of our vision; though this includes the scene +of Guy of Warwick's legendary exploits, and some of those of the Round +Table, to say nothing of the Battle of Edge Hill. For perhaps it was +in the landscape now under our eyes that Post-humus wandered with the +King's daughter, the sweet, chaste, faithful, and courageous Imogen, the +tenderest and womanliest woman that Shakspeare ever made immortal in +the world. The silver Avon, which we see flowing so quietly by the gray +castle, may have held their images in its bosom. + +The day, though it began brightly, had long been overcast, and the +clouds now spat down a few spiteful drops upon us, besides that the +east-wind was very chill; so we descended the winding tower-stair, and +went next into the garden, one side of which is shut in by almost the +only remaining portion of the old city-wall. A part of the garden-ground +is devoted to grass and shrubbery, and permeated by gravel-walks, in the +centre of one of which is a beautiful stone vase of Egyptian sculpture, +having formerly stood on the top of a Nilometer, or graduated pillar +for measuring the rise and fall of the River Nile. On the pedestal is +a Latin inscription by Dr. Parr, who (his vicarage of Hatton being so +close at hand) was probably often the Master's guest, and smoked his +interminable pipe along these garden-walks. Of the vegetable-garden, +which lies adjacent, the lion's share is appropriated to the Master, and +twelve small, separate patches to the individual brethren, who cultivate +them at their own judgment and by their own labor; and their beans +and cauliflowers have a better flavor, I doubt not, than if they had +received them directly from the dead hand of the Earl of Leicester, like +the rest of their food. In the farther part of the garden is an arbor +for the old men's pleasure and convenience, and I should like well to +sit down among them there, and find out what is really the bitter and +the sweet of such a sort of life. As for the old gentlemen themselves, +they put me queerly in mind of the Salem Custom-House, and the venerable +personages whom I found so quietly at anchor there. + +The Master's residence, forming one entire side of the quadrangle, +fronts on the garden, and wears an aspect at once stately and homely. +It can hardly have undergone any perceptible change with in three +centuries; but the garden, into which its old windows look, has probably +put off a great many eccentricities and quaintnesses, in the way of +cunningly clipped shrubbery, since the gardener of Queen Elizabeth's +reign threw down his rusty shears and took his departure. The present +Master's name is Harris; he is a descendant of the founder's family, a +gentleman of independent fortune, and a clergyman of the Established +Church, as the regulations of the hospital require him to be. I know +not what are his official emoluments; but, according to all English +precedent, an ancient charitable fund is certain to be held directly for +the behoof of those who administer it, and perhaps incidentally, in a +moderate way, for the nominal beneficiaries; and, in the case before us, +the brethren being so comfortably provided for, the Master is likely to +be at least as comfortable as all the twelve together. Yet I ought not, +even in a distant land, to fling an idle gibe against a gentleman of +whom I really know nothing, except that the people under his charge bear +all possible tokens of being tended and cared for as sedulously as if +each of them sat by a warm fireside of his own, with a daughter bustling +round the hearth to make ready his porridge and his titbits. It is +delightful to think of the good life which a suitable man, in the +Master's position, has an opportunity to lead,--linked to time-honored +customs, welded in with an ancient system, never dreaming of radical +change, and bringing all the mellowness and richness of the past down +into these railway-days, which do not compel him or his community +to move a whit quicker than of yore. Everybody can appreciate the +advantages of going ahead; it might be well, sometimes, to think whether +there is not a word or two to be said in favor of standing still, or +going to sleep. + +From the garden we went into the kitchen, where the fire was burning +hospitably, and diffused a genial warmth far and wide, together with the +fragrance of some old English roast-beef, which, I think must at that +moment have been nearly to a turn. The kitchen is a lofty, spacious, +and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace by a sort of +semicircular oaken screen, or, rather, an arrangement of heavy and +high-backed settles, with an ever open entrance between them, on either +side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff, +three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and +unctuous kitchen-smoke. The ponderous mantel-piece, likewise of carved +oak, towers high towards the dusky ceiling, and extends its mighty +breadth to take in a vast area of hearth, the arch of the fireplace +being positively so immense that I could compare it to nothing but the +city-gateway. Above its cavernous opening were crossed two ancient +halberds, the weapons, possibly, of soldiers who had fought under +Leicester in the Low Countries; and elsewhere on the walls were +displayed several muskets, which some of the present inmates of the +hospital may have levelled against the French. Another ornament of the +mantel-piece was a square of silken needlework or embroidery, faded +nearly white, but dimly representing that wearisome Bear and Ragged +Staff, which we should hardly look twice at, only that it was wrought by +the fair fingers of poor Amy Robsart, and beautifully framed in oak from +Kenilworth Castle at the expense of a Mr. Conner, a countryman of our +own. Certainly, no Englishman would be capable of this little bit of +enthusiasm. Finally, the kitchen-firelight glistens on a splendid +display of copper flagons, all of generous capacity, and one of them +about as big as a half-barrel; the smaller vessels contain the customary +allowance of ale, and the larger one is filled with that foaming liquor +on four festive occasions of the year, and emptied amain by the jolly +brotherhood. I should be glad to see them do it; but it would be an +exploit fitter for Queen Elizabeth's age than these degenerate times. + +The kitchen is the social hall of the twelve brethren. In the day-time, +they bring their little messes to be cooked here, and eat them in their +own parlors; but after a certain hour, the great hearth is cleared and +swept, and the old men assemble round its blaze, each with his tankard +and his pipe, and hold high converse through the evening. If the Master +be a fit man for his office, methinks he will sometimes sit down +sociably among them; for there is an elbow-chair by the fireside which +it would not demean his dignity to fill, since it was occupied by King +James at the great festival of nearly three centuries ago. A sip of the +ale and a whiff of the tobacco-pipe would put him in friendly relations +with his venerable household; and then we can fancy him instructing them +by pithy apothegms and religious texts which were first uttered here by +some Catholic priest and have impregnated the atmosphere ever since. If +a joke goes round, it shall be of an elder coinage than Joe Miller's, as +old as Lord Bacon's collection, or as the jest-book that Master Slender +asked for when he lacked small-talk for sweet Anne Page. No news shall +be spoken of, later than the drifting ashore, on the northern coast, +of sonic stern-post or figure-head, a barnacled fragment of one of the +great galleons of the Spanish Armada. What a tremor would pass through +the antique group, if a damp newspaper should suddenly be spread to dry +before the fire! They would feel as if either that printed sheet or they +themselves must be an unreality. What a mysterious awe, if the shriek +of the railway-train, as it reaches the Warwick station, should ever so +faintly invade their ears! Movement of any kind seems inconsistent with +the stability of such an institution. Nevertheless, I trust that the +ages will carry it along with them; because it is such a pleasant kind +of dream for an American to find his way thither, and behold a piece of +the sixteenth century set into our prosaic times, and then to depart, +and think of its arched door-way as a spell-guarded entrance which will +never be accessible or visible to him any more. + +Not far from the market-place of Warwick stands the great church of St. +Mary's: a vast edifice, indeed, and almost worthy to be a cathedral. +People who pretend to skill in such matters say that it is in a poor +style of architecture, though designed (or, at least, extensively +restored) by Sir Christopher Wren; but I thought it very striking, with +its wide, high, and elaborate windows, its tall tower, its immense +length, and (for it was long before I outgrew this Americanism, the +love of an old thing merely for the sake of its age) the tinge of gray +antiquity over the whole. Once, while I stood gazing up at the tower, +the clock struck twelve with a very deep intonation, and immediately +some chimes began to play, and kept up their resounding music for five +minutes, as measured by the hand upon the dial. It was a very delightful +harmony, as airy as the notes of birds, and seemed a not unbecoming +freak of half-sportive fancy in the huge, ancient, and solemn church; +although I have seen an old-fashioned parlor-clock that did precisely +the same thing, in its small way. + +The great attraction of this edifice is the Beauchamp (or, as the +English, who delight in vulgarizing their fine old Norman names, call +it, the Beechum) Chapel, where the Earls of Warwick and their kindred +have been buried, from four hundred years back till within a recent +period. It is a stately and very elaborate chapel, with a large window +of ancient painted glass, as perfectly preserved as any that I remember +seeing in England, and remarkably vivid in its colors. Here are several +monuments with marble figures recumbent upon them, representing the +Earls in their knightly armor, and their dames in the ruffs and +court-finery of their day, looking hardly stiffer in stone than they +must needs have been in their starched linen and embroidery. The +renowned Earl of Leicester of Queen Elizabeth's time, the benefactor +of the hospital, reclines at full length on the tablet of one of these +tombs, side by side with his Countess,--not Amy Robsart, but a lady who +(unless I have confused the story with some other mouldy scandal) is +said to have avenged poor Amy's murder by poisoning the Earl himself. +Be that as it may, both figures, and especially the Earl, look like the +very types of ancient Honor and Conjugal Faith. In consideration of +his long-enduring kindness to the twelve brethren, I cannot consent to +believe him as wicked as he is usually depicted; and it seems a marvel, +now that so many well-established historical verdicts have been +reversed, why some enterprising writer does not make out Leicester to +have been the pattern nobleman of his age. + +In the centre of the chapel is the magnificent memorial of its founder, +Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI. On a richly +ornamented altar-tomb of gray marble lies the bronze figure of a knight +in gilded armor, most admirably executed: for the sculptors of those +days had wonderful skill in their own style, and could make so life-like +an image of a warrior, in brass or marble, that, if a trumpet were +sounded over his tomb, you would expect him to start up and handle his +sword. The Earl whom we now speak of, however, has slept soundly in +spite of a more serious disturbance than any blast of a trumpet, unless +it were the final one. Some centuries after his death, the floor of the +chapel fell down and broke open the stone coffin in which he was buried; +and among the fragments appeared the Earl of Warwick, with the color +scarcely faded out of his checks, his eyes a little sunken, but in other +respects looking as natural as if he had died yesterday. But exposure to +the atmosphere appeared to begin and finish the long-delayed process of +decay in a moment, causing him to vanish like a bubble; so that, almost +before there had been time to wonder at him, there was nothing left of +the stalwart Earl save his hair. This sole relic the ladies of Warwick +made prize of, and braided it into rings and brooches for their own +adornment; and thus, with a chapel and a ponderous tomb built on purpose +to protect his remains, this great nobleman could not help being brought +untimely to the light of day, nor even keep his love-locks on his skull +after he had so long done with love. There seems to be a fatality that +disturbs people in their sepulchres, when they have been over-careful to +render them magnificent and impregnable,--as witness the builders of +the Pyramids, and Hadrian, Augustus, and the Scipios, and most other +personages whose mausoleums have been conspicuous enough to attract the +violator; and as for dead men's hair, I have seen a lock of King Edward +the Fourth's, of a reddish-brown color, which perhaps was once twisted +round the delicate forefinger of Mistress Shore. + +The direct lineage of the renowned characters that lie buried in this +splendid chapel has long been extinct. The earldom is now held by +the Grevilles, descendants of the Lord Brooke who was slain in the +Parliamentary War; and they have recently (that is to say, within +a century) built a burial-vault on the other side of the church, +calculated (as the sexton assured me, with a nod as if be were pleased) +to afford suitable and respectful accommodation to as many as fourscore +coffins. Thank Heaven, the old man did not call them "CASKETS"!--a vile +modern phrase, which compels a person of sense and good taste to shrink +more disgustfully than ever before from the idea of being buried at +all. But as regards those eighty coffins, only sixteen have as yet +been contributed; and it may be a question with some minds, not merely +whether the Grevilles will hold the earldom of Warwick until the +full number shall be made up, but whether earldoms and all manner of +lordships will not have faded out of England long before those many +generations shall have passed from the castle to the vault. I hope not. +A titled and landed aristocracy, if anywise an evil and an incumbrance, +is so only to the nation which is doomed to bear it on its shoulders; +and an American, whose sole relation to it is to admire its picturesque +effect upon society, ought to be the last man to quarrel with what +affords him so much gratuitous enjoyment. Nevertheless, conservative +as England is, and though I scarce ever found an Englishman who seemed +really to desire change, there was continually a dull sound in my ears +as if the old foundations of things were crumbling away. Some time or +other,--by no irreverent effort of violence, but, rather, in spite of +all pious efforts to uphold a heterogeneous pile of institutions that +will have outlasted their vitality,--at some unexpected moment, there +must come a terrible crash. The sole reason why I should desire it to +happen in my day is, that I might be there to see! But the ruin of my +own country is, perhaps, all that I am destined to witness; and that +immense catastrophe (though I am strong in the faith that there is a +national lifetime of a thousand years in us yet) would serve any man +well enough as his final spectacle on earth. + +If the visitor is inclined to carry away any little memorial of Warwick, +he had better go to an Old Curiosity Shop in the High Street, where +there is a vast quantity of obsolete gewgaws, great and small, and many +of them so pretty and ingenious that you wonder how they came to be +thrown aside and forgotten. As regards its minor tastes, the world +changes, but does not improve; it appears to me, indeed, that there have +been epochs of far more exquisite fancy than the present one, in matters +of personal ornament, and such delicate trifles as we put upon a +drawing-room table, a mantel-piece, or a what-not. The shop in question +is near the East Gate, but is hardly to be found without careful +search, being denoted only by the name of "REDFERN," painted not very +conspicuously in the top-light of the door. Immediately on entering, we +find ourselves among a confusion of old rubbish and valuables, ancient +armor, historic portraits, ebony cabinets inlaid with pearl, tall, +ghostly clocks, hideous old China, dim looking-glasses in frames of +tarnished magnificence,--a thousand objects of strange aspect, and +others that almost frighten you by their likeness in unlikeness to +things now in use. It is impossible to give an idea of the variety of +articles, so thickly strewn about that we can scarcely move without +overthrowing some great curiosity with a crash, or sweeping away some +small one hitched to our sleeves. Three stories of the entire house are +crowded in like manner. The collection, even as we see it exposed to +view, must have been got together at great cost; but the real treasures +of the establishment lie in secret repositories, whence they are not +likely to be drawn forth at an ordinary summons; though, if a gentleman +with a competently long purse should call for them, I doubt not that +the signet-ring of Joseph's friend Pharaoh, or the Duke of Alva's +leading-staff, or the dagger that killed the Duke of Buckingham, or +any other almost incredible thing, might make its appearance. Gold +snuff-boxes, antique gems, jewelled goblets, Venetian wine-glasses, +(which burst when poison is poured into them, and therefore must not be +used for modern wine-drinking,) jasper-handled knives, painted Sevres +teacups,--in short, there are all sorts of things that a virtuoso +ransacks the world to discover. + +It would be easier to spend a hundred pounds in Mr. Redfern's shop than +to keep it in one's pocket; but, for my part, I contented myself with +buying a little old spoon of silver-gilt, and fantastically shaped, and +got it at all the more reasonable rate because there happened to be no +legend attached to it. I could supply any deficiency of that kind at +much less expense than re-gilding the spoon! + + * * * * * + + +LYRICS OF THE STREET. + + +III. + +THE CHARITABLE VISITOR. + + + She carries no flag of fashion, her clothes are but passing plain, + Though she comes from a city palace all jubilant with her reign. + She threads a bewildering alley, with ashes and dust thrown out, + And fighting and cursing children, who mock as she moves about. + + Why walk you this way, my lady, in the snow and slippery ice? + These are not the shrines of virtue,--here misery lives, and vice: + Rum helps the heart of starvation to a courage bold and bad; + And women are loud and brawling, while men sit maudlin and mad. + + I see in the corner yonder the boy with the broken arm, + And the mother whose blind wrath did it, strange guardian from childish + harm. + That face will grow bright at your coming, but your steward might come + as well, + Or better the Sunday teacher that helped him to read and spell. + + Oh! I do not come of my willing, with froward and restless feet; + I have pleasant tasks in my chamber, and friends well-beloved to greet. + To follow the dear Lord Jesus I walk in the storm and snow; + Where I find the trace of His footsteps, there lilies and roses grow. + + He said that to give was blessed, more blessed than to receive; + But what could He take, dear angels, of all that we had to give, + Save a little pause of attention, and a little thrill of delight, + When the dead were waked from their slumbers, and the blind recalled to + sight? + + Say, the King came forth with the morning, and opened His palace-doors, + Thence flinging His gifts like sunbeams that break upon marble floors; + But the wind with wild pinions caught them, and carried them round + about: + Though I looked till mine eyes were dazzled, I never could make them out. + + But He bade me go far and find them, "go seek them with zeal and pain; + The hand is most welcome to me that brings me mine own again; + And those who follow them farthest, with faithful searching and sight, + Are brought with joy to my presence, and sit at my feet all night." + + So, hither and thither walking, I gather them broadly cast; + Where yonder young face doth sicken, it may be the best and last. + In no void or vague of duty I come to his aid to-day; + I bring God's love to his bed-side, and carry God's gift away. + + + + +MR. AXTELL. + +PART V. + + +"Miss Anna! Miss Anna! Doctor Percival is waiting for you," were the +opening words of the next day's life. Its bells had had no influence in +restoring me to consciousness of existence. I never have liked metallic +commanders. Now Jeffy's Ethiopian tones were inspiriting, and to their +music I began the mystic march of another day. + +Doctor Percival was not out of patience, it seemed, with waiting; for, +as I went in, he was so engrossed with a morning paper that he did not +even look up, or notice me, until I made myself vocal, and then only to +say,-- + +"Ring for breakfast, Anna; I shall have done by the time it comes." + +"It is here, father"; and he dropped the newspaper, turned his chair to +the table, leaned his arms upon it, covered his precious face with two +thin, quivering hands, and remained thus, whilst I prepared coffee, and +lingered as long as possible in the seeming occupation. + +Jeffy--and I suspect that the mischievous African designed the +act--overturned the coffee in handing it to my father, who is not +endowed with the most equable temper ever consigned to mortals; but this +morning he did not give Jeffy even a severe look, for his eyes were full +of tender pity, such as I had never seen in them in all the past. + +"How is your patient?" I asked. + +"Better, thank God!" he replied. + +"Were you with him all night?" + +"Yes, all night. I must go out this morning to see some patients. I'll +send up a nurse from the hospital on my way. I don't think the delirium +will return before mid-day; can you watch him till then, Anna?"--and +he asked with a seeming doubt either of my willingness or my ability, +perhaps a mingling of both. + +I did not like to recount my serious failures with Miss Axtell, but I +answered,-- + +"I will try." + +Before he went, he took me in to the place of my watching. The gentleman +was asleep. The housekeeper was quite willing to relinquish her office. +The good physician gave me orders concerning the febrifuge to be +administered in case of increase of febrile symptoms, and saying that +"it wouldn't be long ere some one came to relieve me," he bent over the +sleeping patient for an instant, and the next was gone. + +I think a half-hour must have fled in silence, when Jeffy stole in, his +eyes opening as Chloe's had done not many days agone, when the vision +of myself was painted thereon. I upheld a cautionary index, and he was +still as a mouse, but like a mouse he proceeded to investigate; he +opened a bureau-drawer the least way, and pushing his arm in where my +laces were wont to dwell, he drew out, with exultant delight, the wig +before mentioned. + +"What _do_ you s'pose _he_ wants with this thing'?" whispered Jeffy; and +he pointed to the soft, fair masses of curling hair that rested against +the pillow. + +Jeffy was a spoiled boy,--"my doing," everybody said, and it may +have been truly. He was Chloe's son, and had inherited her ways and +affectionate heart, and for these I forgave him much. + +I said, "Hush!"--whereupon he lifted up the wig and deposited it upon +the top of his tangled circlets of hair before I could stay him. + +I reached out my hand for it, not venturing on words, for fear of +disturbing the patient; but Jeffy, with unpardonable wilfulness, danced +out of my circuit, and at the same instant the sick man turned his head, +and beheld Jeffy in the possession of his property. Jeffy looked very +repentant, said in low, deprecatory tones, "I'm sorry," and, depositing +the wig in the drawer, hastened to escape, which I know he would not +have done but for the disabled condition of the invalid, who could only +look his wrath. I had so hoped that he would sleep until some one came; +but this unfortunate Jeffy had dissipated my hope, and left me in +pitiable dilemma. + +In the vain endeavor to restore the scattered influence of Morpheus, +I flew to one of the aids of the mystic god, and beseeching its +assistance, I prepared to administer the draught. I could not find a +spoon on the instant. When I did, I made a mistake in dropping the +opiate, and was obliged to commence anew, and all the while that +handsome face, with large, pleading eyes in it, held me in painful +duress. When I turned towards him and held the glass to his lips, I +trembled, as I had not done, even in the church, when Abraham Axtell and +I stood before the opened entrance into earth. All the words that I that +day had heard in the tower were ringing like clarions in the air, and +they shook me with their vibrant forces. + +"Am _I_ in heaven?" + +It was the same voice that had said to Miss Axtell, "Will you send me +out again?" that spake these words. + +Was he going into delirium again? I was desirous of keeping him upon our +planet, and I said,-- + +"Oh, no,--they don't need morphine in heaven." + +"They need _you_ there, though. You must go _now_," he said; and he made +an effort to take the glass from my hand. + +"I have never been in heaven," I said. + +"Then they deceive, they deceive, and there isn't any heaven! Oh, what +if after all there shouldn't be such a place?" + +He lifted up his one usable hand in agony. + +"We wait until we die, before going there," I said; "I am alive, don't +you see?" + +"Alive, and not dead? you! whom I killed eighteen years ago, have you +come to reproach me now? Oh, I have suffered, even to atonement, for it! +You would pardon, if you only knew what I have suffered for you." + +Surely delirium had returned. I urged the poor man to take the contents +of the glass. + +He promised, upon condition of my forgiveness,--forgiveness for having +killed me, who never had been killed, who was surely alive. Jeffy had +come in again, and had listened to the pleading. + +"Why don't you tell him yes, Miss Anna? He doesn't know a word he's +sayin'. It'll keep him quiet like; he's like a baby," he whispered, with +a covert pull at my dress by way of impressment. + +And so, guided by Chloe's boy, I said, "I forgive." + +"Why don't you go, if you forgive me? I don't like to keep you here, +when you belong up there"; and he pointed his words by the aid of his +available hand. + +I knew then _why_ Miss Axtell had loved this man: it was simply one of +those cruel, compulsory offerings up of self, that allure one, in open +sight of torture, on to the altar. Oh, poor woman! why hath thy Maker +so forsaken thee? And in mute wonder at this most wondrous wrong, that +crept into mortal life when the serpent went out through Eden and +left an opening in the Garden, I forgot for the while my present +responsibility, in compassionate pity for the pale, beautiful lady in +Redleaf, into whose heart this man had come,--unwillingly, I knew, when +I looked into his face, and yet, _having come, must grow into its Eden, +even unto the time that Eternity shadows;_ and I sent out the arms of my +spirit, and twined them invisibly around her, who truly had spoken when +she said, "I want you," with such hungry tones. God, the Infinite, +has given me comprehension of such women, has given me His own loving +pity,--in little human grains, it is true, but they come from "the +shining shore." "Miss Axtell does want me," I thought; "she is right,--I +am gladness to her." + +"Will you go?" came from the invalid. + +"A woman, loving thus, never comes alone into a friend's heart," +something said; "you must receive her shadow"; and I looked at the +person who had said, "Will you go?" + +There are various words used in the dictionary of life, descriptive +of men such as him now before me. They mostly are formed in syllables +numbering four and five, which all integrate in the one word +_irresistible_: how pitifully I abhor that word!--every letter has a +serpent-coil in it. "Love thy neighbor even as thyself." It is good that +these words came just here to wall themselves before the torrent that +might not have been stayed until I had laid the mountain of my thought +upon the sycophantic syllabication that the world loves to "lip" unto +the world,--the false world, that, blinded, blinds to blinder blindness +those that fain would behold. There is a crying out in the earth for +a place of torment; there are sins for which we want what God hath +prepared for the wicked. + +"Are you going?"--and this time there was plaintive moaning in the +accents. + +"You must take him in, too," my spirit whispered; and I acted the "I +will" that formed in the mental court where my soul sat enthroned,--my +own judge. + +"Oh, no, I am not going away," I said; "I am come to stay with you, +until some one else comes." + +A certain resignment of opposition seemed to be effected. I knew it +would be so,--it is in all such natures,--and he seemed intent upon +making atonement for his imaginary wrong, since I would stay. + +"Mary, I didn't mean to kill you," he said; "I wouldn't have destroyed +your young life; oh! I wouldn't;--but I did! I did!" + +"You make some strange mistake; you ought not to talk," I urged, +surprised at this second time being called Mary. + +"Yes, I guess 'twas a mistake,--you're right, all a mistake,--I didn't +mean to kill you; but I did _him_, though. Oh! I wanted to destroy +him,--_he hadn't any pity, he wouldn't yield_. But it's _you_, Mary, +_you_ oughtn't to hear me say such things of _him_." + +"I am not Mary, I am Miss Percival; and you may tell me." + +"I beg pardon, I had no right to call you Mary; but it is there, now, on +your tomb-stone in the old church-yard,--Mary Percival,--there isn't any +Miss there. Do they call you Miss Percival in heaven?"--and he began to +sing, deep, stirring songs of rhythmic melody, that catch up individual +existences and bear them to congregated continents, where mountains sing +and seas respond, amid the _encore_ of starry spheres. + +O Music! if we could but divine thee, dear divinity, thou mightst be +less divine! then let us be content to be divinized in thee!--and I was. +I let him sing, knowing that it was in delirium; and for the moment my +wonder ceased concerning Miss Axtell's love for Herbert. + +This while, Jeffy stood speechless, transfused into melody. Whence came +this love of Africans for harmonious measure? Oh, I remember: the scroll +of song whereon were written the accents of the joyed morning-stars, +when they grew jubilant that earth stood create, was let fall by an +angel upon Afric's soil. No one of the children of the land was found of +wisdom sufficient to read the hieroglyphs; therefore the sacred roll was +divided among the souls in the nation: unto each was given one note from +the divine whole. + +"Jeffy must have received a semi-breve as his portion," I thought, for +he was rapt in ecstasy. + +"Oh, sing again!" he said, unconsciously, when, exhausted, the invalid +reached the shore of Silence,--where he did not long linger, for he +changed his song to lament that he could not reach his ship, that would +sail before he could recover; and he made an effort to rise. He fell +back, fainting. + +It seemed a great blessing that at this moment the housekeeper +introduced the person Doctor Percival had sent. + +That night, and for many after, it seemed, my father looked extremely +anxious. I did not see the patient again until the eventful twenty-fifth +of March was past. + +Two days only was I permitted for my visit. Would Miss Axtell expect me? +or had she, it might be, forgotten that she had asked my presence? + +My father had not forgotten the obligation of the ring of gold; he made +allusion to it in the moment of parting, and I felt it tightening about +me more and more as the miles of sea and land rolled back over our +separation; and a question, asked long ago and unanswered yet, was +repeated in my mental realm,--"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of +the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" and I said, "I will not +try." + +It was evening when I arrived at the parsonage. Sophie was full of sweet +sisterly joy on seeing me, and of surprise when I told her what had +occurred in our father's house. It was so unprecedented, this taking in +a stranger whose name and home were unknown; for I could not tell Sophie +my conviction that father had discovered who the patient was. + +"Miss Axtell is almost well." Sophie gave the information before I found +time to ask. "She pleases to be quite charming to me. I hope she will be +equally gracious to you." And so I hoped. + +From out the ark of the round year God sends some day-doves of summer +into the barren spring-time, to sing of coming joys and peck the buds +into opening. One of His sending brooded over Redleaf when I walked +forth in its morning-time to redeem my promise. + +"Miss Percival! I'm so glad!" + +Katie showed me into the room that once I had been so much afraid of. +She did not long leave me there. + +"Miss Lettie would like to see you in her room." + +Sophie was right. She is almost well. + +"Come!" was the sole word that met my entering in; then followed two +small acts, supposed to be conventionalities. Isn't it good that all +suppositions are _not_ based upon truth? I thought it good then. I hope +I may away on to the dawning of the new life. + +This was my first seeing of Miss Axtell in her self-light. She said,-- + +"This is the only day that I have been down in time for +breakfast,"--she, who looked as if the fair Dead-Sea fruits had been all +of sustenance that had dropped through the leaden waves for her; and +an emotion of awe swept past me, borne upon the renewal of the +consciousness that I had been made essential to her. + +"I knew that you would come," she continued. "Oh! I have great +confidence in you; you must never disappoint me,--will you?"--and, +playfully, she motioned me to the footstool where she had appointed me a +place on the first night when she told me of her mother, dead. + +I assured her that I should. I must begin that moment by mentioning the +time of my visit's duration. + +"How long?" and there was import in the tone of her voice. + +"I must be at home to-morrow morning." + +"No reprieve?" + +I answered, "None,"--and turned the circlet of obligation upon my +finger. + +"I am glad you told me; I like limits; I wish to know the precise moment +when my rainbows will disband. It's very nice, meeting Fate half-way; +there's consolation in knowing that it will have as far to go as you on +the return voyage." + +I smiled; a little inward ripple of gladness sent muscle-waves to my +lips. She noticed it, and her tone changed. + +"I see, I see, my good little Anemone! You don't know how exultant it +is to stand alone, above the forest of your fellows,--to lift up your +highest bough of feeling,--to meet the Northland's fiercest courser that +thinks to lay you low. Did you ever turn to see the expression with +which the last leap of wind is met, the peculiar suavity of the bowing +of the boughs, that says as plainly as ever did speaking leaves, '_You +have left me myself_'? You don't understand these things, you small +wind-flower, that have grown sheltered from all storms!" + +"One would think not, Miss Axtell, but"--and I paused until she bade me +"Go on." + +"Perhaps it is vanity,--I hope not,--but it seems to me that I have a +mirror of all Nature set into the frame of my soul. It isn't a part of +myself; it is a mental telescope, that resolves the actions of all the +people around me into myriads of motives, atomies of inducement, that I +see woven and webbed around them, by the sight-power given. Besides, I +am not an anemone,--oh, no! I am something more substantial." + +"I see, very"; and before I could divine her intent, she had lifted up +my face in both her hands and held my eyes in her own intensity of gaze, +as, oh, long ago! I remember my mother to have done, when she doubted my +perfect truth. + +Miss Axtell was engaged in looking over old treasured letters, bits of +memory-memoranda, when I arrived. She had laid them aside to greet me, +somewhat hastily, and a rustling commotion testified their feeling at +their summary disposal. Now she sat framed in by the yellow-and-white +foam, that had settled to motionlessness,--an island in the midst of +waves of memory. + +"Did you bring my treasures?" were the first words, after investigating +my truth. + +"They are safely here." + +I gave the package. + +She made no mention of former occurrences. She trusted me implicitly, +with that far-deep of confidence that says, "Explanation would be +useless; your spirit recognizes mine." She only said, drooping her regal +head with the slightest dip into motion,-- + +"I want to tell you a story; it is of people who are, some in heaven and +some upon the earth;--a story with which you must have something to do +for me, because I cannot do it for myself. I did not intend telling so +soon, but my disbanded rainbow lies in the future." + +Before commencing, she wandered up and down the room a little, stopped +before the dressing-bureau, brushed back the hair, with many repetitions +of stroke, from the temples wherein so much of worship had been +gathered, smoothed down the swollen arches of veinery that fretted +across either temple's dome, looked one moment into the censers of +incense that burned always with emotionary fires, flashed out a little +superabundant flame into the cold quicksilver, turned the key, fastening +our two selves in, examined the integrity of the latch leading into the +dressing-room beyond, threw up the window-sash,--the same one that Mr. +Axtell had lifted to look out into the night for her,--asked, "should I +be cold, if she left it open?" looked contentment at my negative answer, +rolled the lounge out to where her easy-chair was still vibrating in +memory of her late presence, made me its occupant, reached out for the +package over which I had been guardian, pinioned it between her two +beautiful hands, laid it down one moment to wrap a shawl around me, +then, resuming it, sat where she had when she said, "I want to tell you +a story," and perhaps she was praying. I may never know, but it was many +moments before she made answer to my slight touch, "Yes, child, I have +not forgotten," and with face hidden from me she told me her story. + + +MISS AXTELL'S STORY. + + +"Alice Axtell was my sister. Eighteen years ago last August-time she was +here. + +"There has been beauty in the Axtell race; in her it was radiant. It +would have been truth to say, 'She is beautiful.' + +"I said that it was August-time,--the twenty-seventh day of the month. +Alice and I had been out in the little bay outside of Redcliff beach, +with your sister. You don't remember her: she was like you. Doctor +Percival had given Mary a boat, taught her to row it, and she had that +afternoon given Alice a first lesson in the art. The day went down hot +and sultry; we lingered on the cooler beach until near evening. We +saw clouds lying dark along the western horizon, and that voiceless +lightnings played in them. Then we came home. The air was tiresome, the +walk seemed endless; still Alice and Mary lingered at the gate of your +father's house to say their last words. The mid-summer weariness was +over us both, as we reached home. We came up to this room,--our room +then. Alice said,-- + +"'I think I shall go to bed, I'm so tired.' + +"She closed the blinds. As she did so, a crash of thunder came. + +"'We're going to have a thunder-shower, after all,' she said; 'how +quickly it is coming up! Come and see.' + +"I looked a moment out. Jet masses of vapor were curling up amid the +stars, blotting out, one by one, their brightness from the sky. Alice +was always timid in thunder-storms. She shuddered, as a second flash +pealed out its thunder, and crept up to me. I put my arms around her, +and rested my cheek against her head. She was trembling violently. + +"'Lie down, Allie; let me close the other blinds; don't look out any +longer.' + +"Our mother came in. + +"'I came to see if the windows were all down,' she said; 'it will rain +in a moment'; and she hurried away, and I heard her closing, one after +another, the windows that had been all day open. + +"Alice lay for a long time quietly. The storm uprose with fearful might; +it shook the house in its passing grasp, and I sat by this table, +listening to the music wrought out of the thunderous echoes. + +"'Couldn't we have a window open?' Alice asked; 'I feel stifled in +here'; and she went across the room and lifted the sash before I was +aware. + +"I looked around, when I heard the noise. The same instant there came a +blinding, dazzling light; then, that awful vacuous rattle in the throat +of thunder that tells it comes in the name of Death the destroyer. + +"'Oh, Allie, come away!' I screamed. + +"In obedience to my wish, she leaned towards me; but, oh, her face! I +caught her, ere she fell, even. I sent out the wings of my voice, but no +one heard me, no one came. I could not lift her in my arms, so I laid +her upon the floor, and ran down. + +"'Go to Alice,--the lightning!' was all I could say, and it was enough. +I heard groans before I gained the street. + +"My pale, silent sister was stronger than the storm which flapped its +wings around me and threatened to take me to its eyry; but it did not; +it permitted me to gain Doctor Percival's door. I was dazzled with the +lightning, only my brain was distinct with 'its skeleton of woe,' when I +found myself in your father's house. + +"I could not see the faces that were there. I asked for Doctor Percival. +Some one answered, 'He is not come home. What has happened?' and Mary +ran forward in alarm. + +"'It is lightning! Oh, come!' was all that I could utter; and with me +there went out into the pouring rain every soul that was there when I +went in. + +"'She is dead; there is nothing to be done.' + +"Three hours after the stroke, these words came. Then I looked up. +Alice, with her little white face of perfect beauty, lay upon that bed. +Thunder-storms would never more make her tremble, never awake to fear +the spirit gone. It was Doctor Percival from whom these fateful words +came. I had had so much hope! In very desperation of feeling, I strove +to look up to his face. My eyes were arrested before they reached him. + +"'By what?' did you ask?" + +Her long silence had incited me to question, and she turned her face to +me, and slowly said,-- + +"By the Lightning of Life. + +"Two sisters, in one night,--one unto Death, the other unto Life. Beside +Doctor Percival was standing one. I do not know what he was like, I +cannot tell you; but, believe me, it is solemnly true, that, that +instant, this human being flashed into my heart and soul. I saw, and +felt, and have heard the rolling thunder that followed the flash to this +very hour. It was very hard, over my Alice. If I had only been she, how +much, how much happier it would have been!--and yet it must have been +wiser. She could not have endured to the end. She would have failed in +the bitterness of the trial. + +"My Alice! I am devoutly thankful that you are safe in heaven!"--and for +a moment the hands were lifted up from the treasured packet; they closed +over it, and she went on. + +"Alice was wrapped up in earth. In the moment when the first fold of the +clod-mantle, that trails about us all at the last, fell protectingly +over her, I was in that condition of superlative misery that cries out +for something to the very welkin that sends down such harsh hardness; +and I hurried my eyes out of the open grave, only to find them again +arrested by the same soul that had stood beside Doctor Percival and +Alice in her death. They said something to me, kinder than ever came out +of the blue vault, and yet they awoke the fever of resistance. I would +have no thought but that of Alice. What right had any other to come in +then and there? + +"September came. Its days brought my sorrow to me ever anew. The early +dew baptized it; the great sun laid his hot hand upon its brow and named +it Death, in the name of the Mighty God; and the evening stars looked +down on me, rocking Alice in my soul, and singing lamentful lullabies +to her, sleeping, till such time as Lethean vapors curled through the +horizon of my mind, and hid its formless shadows of suffering. + +"Mary Percival was Alice's best friend; as such, she came to comfort and +to mourn with me. One day, it was the latest of September's thirty, Mary +lured me on to the sea-shore, and into her small boat once more. Little +echoes of gladness sprang up from the sea; voices from Alice's silence +floated on the unbroken waves. + +"'You look a little like yourself again; I'm so glad to see it!' Mary +said. 'There comes Mr. McKey. I wonder what brings him here.' + +"I looked up, and saw, slowly walking on to the point at which Mary was +securing her boat, the possessor of the existence that had come into +mine. There was no way for me to flee, except seaward; and of two +suicides I chose the pleasanter, and I stayed. + +"'Who is it, Mary?' I had time to question, and she to answer. + +"'It is Bernard McKey; he has come to study medicine in papa's office; +he came the night Alice died.' + +"He was too near to permit of questioning more, and so I stood upon the +seashore and saw my fate coming close. + +"Mary simply said, 'Good evening,' to him, followed by the requisite +introductory words that form the basis of acquaintance. + +"'I think Miss Axtell and I scarcely need an introduction,' he said; +nevertheless he looked the pleasure it had strewed into his field, and +guarded it, as a careful husbandman would choicest seed. + +"He asked the style of question which monosyllables can never answer, to +which responding, one has to offer somewhat of herself; and all the +time of that sombre autumn, there grew from out the chasm of the +lightning-stroke luxuriant foliage. I gave it all the resistance of my +nature, yet I knew, as the consumptive knows, that I should be conquered +by my conqueror. It was only the old story of the captive polishing +chains to wear them away; and yet Mr. McKey was simply very civil and +intentionally kind, where he might have been courteously indifferent. +Abraham was away when Bernard McKey came to Redleaf. For more than +twelve months this terrible something had been working its power into +my soul. Yet we were not lovers,"--and Miss Axtell made the +_pronunciamiento_ as if she held the race mentioned in utmost +veneration. "Day by day brought to me new reasons why Bernard McKey must +be unto me only a medical student in Doctor Percival's office, and the +stars sealed all that the day had done; whilst no night of sky was +without a wandering comet, whereon was inscribed, in letters that +flashed every way, the sentence that came with the lightning-stroke; +even storms drowned it not; winter's cold did not freeze it. Verily, +little friend, _I know that God had put it into Creation for me, and yet +there seemed His own law written against it_"; and Miss Axtell's tones +grew very soft and tremulously low, as she said,-- + +"Mr. McKey had faults that could not, existing in action, make any woman +happy: do you think happiness was meant for woman?" + +She waited my answer in the same way that she had done when she was +ill and asked if I liked bitters concealed. She waited as long without +reply. The pause grew oppressive, and I spanned it by an assurance of +individual possessive happiness. + +"Anemones never know which way the wind blows, until it comes down close +to the ground," she said; "but souls which are on bleak mountain-summits +_must_ watch whirlwinds, poised in space, and note their airy march. So +I saw, clearly cut into the rock of the future, my own face, with all +the lines and carvings wrought into it that the life of Bernard McKey +would chisel out, and I only waited. I might have waited on forever, for +Mr. McKey had not cast one pebbly word that must send up wavy ripples +from deep spirit-waters; he only wandered, as any other might have +done, upon the shore of my life, along its quiet, dewy sands, above its +chalk-cliffs, and by the side of its green, sloping shores. He never +questioned why rose and fell the waves; he never went down where 'tide, +the moon-slave, sleeps,' to find the foundations of my heart's mainland. +I had only seen him standing at times, as one sees a person upon a +ship's deck, peering off over Earth's blue ocean-cheek, simply in mute, +solemn wonder at what may be beyond, without one wish to speed the ship +on. + +"It might have been forever thus, but Abraham came home. He is my +brother, you know. If he made me suffer, he has been made to suffer +with me. Bernard McKey was Doctor Percival's favorite. He made him his +friend, and was everything to him that friend could be. I cannot tell +you my story without mention of my brother, he has been so woven into +every part of it. An unaccountable fancy for the study of medicine +developed itself in his erratic nature soon after he came home; and he +relinquished his brilliant prospects and devoted himself to the little +white office near Doctor Percival's house, with Bernard McKey for his +hourly companion. The two had scarce a thought in common: one was +impulsive, prone to throw himself on the stream of circumstance, to waft +with the wind, and blossom with the spring; the other was the great +mountain-pine, distilling the same aroma in all atmospheres, extending +fibrous roots against Nature's granite, whenceever it comes up. How +could the two harmonize? They could not, and a time of trial came. We +knew, before it came, why Doctor Percival's little white office held +Abraham so many hours in the day. It was because the Mountain-Pine found +in the moss of Redleaf the sweet Trailing-Arbutus." + +She asked me if I knew the flower; and when I answered her with my words +of love of it, she said, "she had always thought it was one of Eden's +own bits of blossomry, that, missing man from the hallowed grounds, +crept out to know his fate, and, finding him so forlornly unblest, had +sacrificed its emerald leaves, left in the Garden, and, creeping into +mosses, lived, waiting for man's redemption. We used to call Mary +'The Arbutus,' and it was pleasant to see the great rough branches of +Abraham's nature drooping down, more and more, toward the pink-and-white +pale flower that looked into the sky, from a level as lofty as the +Pine's highest crown. Abraham goes out to search for the type of Mary +every spring"; and rising, she brought to me the waxen buds that were +yet unopened. + +I took them in my hands, with the same feeling that I would have done a +tress of Mary's hair, or a fragment that she had handled. I think Miss +Axtell divined this feeling; for she cautiously opened the door leading +into her brother's room, and finding that he was not there, she bade me +"come and see." It was Mary's portrait that once more I looked upon; +framed in a wreath of the trailing-arbutus, it was hanging just where he +could look at it at night, as I my strange tower-key. + +We went back. Miss Axtell closed the sash; she was looking weary and +pale. I was afraid she would suffer harm from the continued recital. She +said "No," to my fear,--that "it must all be spoken now, once, and that +forever,"--and I listened unto the story's end. + +"One year had passed since Alice's death before Abraham's coming. +Another had almost fled before the eventful time when I began to feel +the weight of my cross. I know not how it came to Abraham's knowledge +that Bernard McKey felt in his soul my presence. I only know that +he came home one night, with a storm of rage whitening his lips and +furrowing his forehead. He came up here, where I was sitting. I had +watched his figure coming through tree-openings from Doctor Percival's +house, and mingled with the memories of the fair young girl whom I had +seen dead by lightning were fears for Mary Percival. For several days +she had been ill, and I knew that Abraham felt anxious; therefore I did +not wonder at his hasty coming in and instant seeking of me. He came +quite close. He wound his face in between me and the darkening sky; he +whispered hoarsely,-- + +"'Do you care for him?' + +"'What is it, Abraham?' I asked, startled by his words and manner, but +with not the faintest idea of the meaning entering in with his words. + +"'Bernard McKey, is he anything to you?' + +"'You've no right to question me thus,' I said. + +"'And you will not answer me?' + +"'I will not, Abraham.' + +"The next morning Abraham was gone. He had not told me of his intended +absence. He had only left a note, stating the time of his return. + +"It was a week ere he came. Mary had not improved in his absence, yet no +one deemed her very ill. + +"I dreaded Abraham's coming home, because he had left me in silent +anger; but how could I have replied to his question otherwise than I +did? No one, not Mr. McKey himself, had asked me; and should I give him, +my brother, my answer first? + +"Lazily the village-clock swung out the hours that summer's afternoon. +The stroke of three awakened me. I had not seen Mary that day. + +"'I would go and see her,' I decided. + +"'She was sleeping, the dear child,' Chloe said. 'She would come and +tell me when she was awake, if I would wait.' + +"I said that I would stay awhile, and I wandered out under the shade of +the great whispering trees, to wait the waking hour. + +"I remember the events of that afternoon, as Mary and Martha must have +remembered the day on which Lazarus came up from the grave unto them. + +"The air was still, save a humming in the very tree-tops that must have +been only echoes tangled there, breezes that once blew past. The long +grape-arbor at the end of the lawn looked viny and cool. I walked up and +down under the green archway, until Chloe's words summoned me. + +"Mary was 'better,' she said; 'a few days, and she should feel quite +strong, she hoped'; but she looked weary, and I only waited a little +while, until her father and mother came in, and then I went. + +"Mr. McKey was sitting in the door of the little white office. He came +out to meet me ere I had reached the street,--asked if I was on my way +home. + +"I said 'Yes,' with the lazy sort of languor born of the indolence of +the hour. + +"'Have you energy enough for a walk to the sea-shore?' he asked. + +"It had been my wish that very day. I had not been there since Mary's +illness. I hesitated in giving an answer. Abraham would be home at +sunset. + +"'Don't go, if it is only to please me,' he said. + +"'I am going to please myself,' I answered; 'only I wish to be at home +on Abraham's coming.' + +"That afternoon, Bernard McKey for the first time told me of himself, +and what the two years in Redleaf had done for him. One month more, and +he should leave it. He put into words the memory of that first look +across the dead. He talked to me, until the sea lost its sunlight +sheen,--until I no longer heard its beat of incoming tide,--until I +forgot the hour for Abraham's coming. It was he who reminded me of it. +Once more we paced the sands, already sown with our many footsteps, +that the advancing waters would soon overwhelm. After that we went +village-ward. The gloaming had come down when we reached home. + +"'Abraham must have been an hour here,' I thought, as alone I went in. + +"He met me in the hall. + +"'Where have you been, Lettie?' was his greeting. + +"'On the sands.' + +"'Not alone?' + +"'No, Abraham; Bernard McKey has been with me.' + +"'By what right?' he demanded, with that mighty power of voice that is +laid up within him for especial occasions. + +"'By the right that I gave him, by the right that is his to walk with +me,' I said; for I grew defiant, and felt a renewal of strength, enough +to tell Abraham the truth. + +"Don't start so, Anemone," she said to me. "You think defiance +unwomanly, and so do I; but it was for once only, and I felt that my +brother had no right to question me. + +"But one word came from his lips, as he confronted me there, with folded +arms; it was,-- + +"'When?' + +"'This very afternoon, Abraham.' + +"Mother came out at the moment. She saw the cloud on Abraham's brow even +in the dim light. She asked, 'What is it?' and Abraham answered us both +at the same time. + +"He had been to the home of Bernard McKey. He proved to my mother's +utmost satisfaction that her daughter had no right to care for one like +Bernard McKey. He did not know the right that came on that night almost +two years before. He saw that his proofs were idle to me; but he said +'he had another, one that I would accept, for I was an Axtell.' + +"'Yes, Abraham, I am an Axtell, and I shall prove my right to the name, +come what will'; and without waiting to hear more, I glided into the +darkness up-stairs. + +"For a long time I heard mother and Abraham talking together; it seemed +as if they would never cease. At last, mother sent up to know if I was +not coming to take my tea. I had forgotten its absence till then. I went +down. A half-hour later, during which time a momentous mist of silence +hung over the house, I heard steps approaching. You know that it was +summer time, and the windows were all thrown open, after the heat of the +day. I had been wondering where every one was gone. I recognized both of +the comers, as their footsteps fell upon the walk, but I heard no words. +Oh, would there had been none to come! I heard Abraham go on up the +stairs, and knew that he was searching for me. I knew who had come in +with him, and I arose from my concealment in the unlighted library, and +went into the parlor. It was Mr. McKey who sat there. + +"'What is it?' I asked,--for a gnome of ill was walking up and down in +my brain, as we had walked on the sands so few hours before. + +"'What is it? I don't know,' he said. 'Your brother asked me to come +over for a few minutes.' + +"Evidently Abraham had not shown him one coal of the fire that burned +under his cool seeming. That is the way with these mountain pine-trees: +one never knows how deep into volcanic fires their roots are plunged. + +"'Something has happened,' I whispered. 'Whatever comes, bear it +bravely.' + +"He laughed, a low, rippling laugh, like the breaking up of ever so many +songs all at once; and the notes had not floated down to rest, when +mother and Abraham came in. Mr. McKey arose to greet my mother. She +stood proudly erect, her regal head unbending, her eyes straight on, +into an endless future, in which he must have no part,--that I saw. +Whatever he discerned there, he, too, stood before her and my brother. +Abraham handed me a letter, saying, 'Read that, for your proof.' + +"And I read. The letter bore the signature of Bernard McKey. The date +was the night of Alice's death. The words descriptive of the scene +chiselled into my brain were on that fair paper-surface; and there were +others, words which only one man may write to one woman. I read it on to +the end. + +"'You are right, Abraham,' I said, 'and I thank you for my proof'; and +without one word for the pale, handsome face that stood beseechingly +between me and the great future, through which I gazed, I went forth +alone into the starry night. Anywhere, to be alone with God, leaving +that trio of souls in there; and as I fled past the windows, I heard my +mother speak terrible words to one that was, yes, even then, myself. +Some angel must have come down the starry way to guide me; for, without +seeking it, without consciousness of whither I fled, I found myself near +the old church, where, from the day of my solemn baptism within its +walls, I had gone up to the weekly worship. I crept up close to the +door. In the shadow there no one would see me; and so, upon the hard +stones, I writhed through the anguish of the fire and iceberg that made +war in my heart. + +"Then came unto me the old inheritance, the gift of towering pride; and +I said unto myself, 'No one shall think I sorrow; no one shall know that +an Axtell has sipped from a poisoned cup; no one shall see a leaf of +myrtle in my garden of life'; and from off the friendly granite steps +that had received me in my hour of bitterness, I went back to my home. + +"What, could have happened there, that I had not been missed? Father was +absent from Redleaf. Bernard McKey was coming down the walk. I hid in +the shrubbery, and let him pass. Oh, would that I had spoken to him, +then, there! It would have saved so much misery on the round globe! + +"But I did not. I stood breathless until he entered Doctor Percival's +house; then I waited a moment to determine my own course; I wanted to +gain my room undiscovered. I saw the same figure come out; I knew it by +the light that the open door threw around it; and a moment later, in the +still air,--I knew the sound, it was the unlocking of the little white +office. Then I stole in, and fled to my refuge. No one had discovered my +absence. + +"The night went by. I did not sleep. I did not weep,--oh, no! it was not +a case for tears; there are some sorrows that cannot be counted out in +drops; a flood comes, a great freshet rises in the soul, and whirls +spirit, mind, and body on, on, until the Mighty Hand comes down and +lifts the poor wreck out of the flood, and dries it in the sun of His +absorption. + +"It was morning at last. Slowly up the ascent, to heights of glory, +walked the stars, waving toward earth, as they went, their wafting of +golden light, and sending messages of love to the dark, round world, +over which they had kept such solemn watch,--sending them down, borne +by rays of early morning; and still I sat beside the window, where all +through the night I had suffered. My mother and Abraham had sought to +see me, but I had answered, with calm words, that I chose to be alone; +and they had left me there, and gone to their nightly rest." + +Miss Axtell hid her face a little while; then, lifting it up, she went +to the window so often mentioned, beckoned me thither, pointed to the +house where my life had commenced, to a door opening out on the eastern +side, and said,-- + +"I wish you to look at that door one moment; out of it came my doom that +midsummer's morning. Light had just gained ascendency over darkness, +when I saw Chloe come out. I knew instantly that something had happened +there. The poor creature crept out of the house,--I saw her go,--and +kneeling down behind that great maple-tree, she lifted up her arms to +heaven, and I heard, or thought I heard her, moaning. Then, whilst I +watched, she got up, looked over at our house, from window to window; +once more she raised her hands, as if invoking some power for help, and +went in. + +"I brushed back the hair that my fingers had idly threaded in unrest, +looked one moment, in the dim twilight of morning, to see what changes +my war-fare had wrought, then, cautiously, breathlessly, for fear of +awakening some one, I went out. The night-dew lay heavy on the lawn. I +heeded it not. I knew that trouble had come to Doctor Percival's house. +I went to the door that Chloe had opened. No one seemed awake; deep +stillness brooded over and in the dwelling. Could I have been mistaken? +Whilst I stood in doubt whether to go or stay, there came a long, +sobbing moan, that peopled the dwelling with woe. + +"It came from Mary's room. Thither I went. There stood Doctor and Mrs. +Percival beside Mary, and she--was dead. + +"I shudder now, as I did then, though eighteen years have rolled their +wheels of misery between,--shudder, as I look in memory into that room +again, and see your father standing in the awful grief that has no +voice, see your mother lifting up her words of moaning, up where I so +late had watched the feet of stars walking into heaven. I don't know how +long it was, I had lost the noting of time, but I remember growing into +rigidness. I remember Bernard McKey's wild, wretched face in the room; I +remember hearing him ask if it was all over. I remember Abraham's coming +in; I _felt_, when through his life the east-wind went, withering it up +within him. I do not know how I went home. I asked no questions. Mary +was dead; she had gone whither Alice went. It seemed little consolation +to me to ask when or how she died. + +"Father came home that day. Mother forgot me for Abraham: love of him +was her life. Father did not know, no one had told him, the events of +the night before; he thought me sorrowing for Mary, and so I was; my +grief seemed weak and small before this reality of sorrow. + +"It was late in the day, and I was trying to get some sleep, when Chloe +sent a request to see me. I had not seen her since I knew why she had +hid her suffering behind the tree in the morning. I saw that she had +something to say beside telling me of Mary; for she looked cautiously +around the room, as if fearing other ears might be there to hear. + +"'Oh! oh! Miss Lettie,' she said, 'I stayed with Miss Mary last night. I +must have gone to sleep when she went away; but I'm afraid, I'm afraid +it wasn't the sickness that killed her.' + +"'What then? what was it, Chloe?' I asked, whilst the tears fell fast +from her eyes. + +"'Doctor Percival gave her some medicine just afore he went to bed, +and she said she was "very sick"; she said so a good many times, Miss +Lettie, afore I went to sleep.' + +"'You don't think it was the medicine that killed her?'--for a horrible +thought had come in to me. + +"'I hope not, but I'm afraid'; and with a still lower, whispering tone, +and another frightened look about the room, Chloe took from under her +shawl a small cup. She held it up close to me, and her voice penetrated +with its meaning all the folds of my thought,--'Chloe's afraid Miss Mary +drank her death in here.' + +"'Give it to me,' I said; and I snatched at the cup. Catching it from +her, I looked into it. The draught had been taken; the sediment only lay +dried upon it. + +"'You think so, Chloe? How could it have been? You say Doctor Percival +gave it to her?' + +"She said that 'Mr. Abraham had been in to see her a little while,--only +a few moments. Something was the matter with him. Miss Mary talked, +just a few words; what they were she did not hear,--she was in the next +room,--only, when he went away, she heard her say, "Don't do it; you may +be wrong, and then you'll be sorry as long as you live"; and then +Mr. Abraham shut the door heavy-like and was gone. Afterwards Doctor +Percival came up,--said Miss Mary must sleep, she had more fever; asked +her so many kind questions, and was just going down to go to the office +for something to give her, when he met Master McKey coming in. I heard +my master ask him to go for it. And I doesn't know anything more, Miss +Lettie. I came to tell you.' + +"I asked her 'if she had told any one else? if any one had seen the +cup?' + +"She said, 'No'; and I made her promise me that she would never mention +it, never speak of it to any living soul. + +"She promised, and she has kept her promise faithfully to this day." + +I thought, at this pause in the story, of Chloe's hiding chloroform from +me. + +"I had myself seen Bernard McKey go out to the office that night. Had +he given poison to Mary Percival? And with the question the hot answer +came, 'Never!--he did not do it!' + +"Chloe went, leaving the cup with me. + +"I knew that I must see Bernard. How? The household were absorbed in +Abraham. His condition perilled his reason. Doctor Percival came over +every hour to see him, and I was sure that his hair whitened from time +to time. It was terrible to hear Abraham declaring that he had killed +Mary,--that he might have granted her request. And as often as his eyes +fell upon me, his words changed to, 'It was for you that I did it,--for +my sister!' And whilst all sorrowed and watched him, I sought my +opportunity. 'It would never come to me,' I thought, 'I must go to it'; +and under cover of looking upon the face of Mary, I went out to seek +Bernard. + +"We met before I reached the house; we should have passed in silence, +had I not spoken. It was the same hour as that in which we had come from +the sands the night before. What a horrible lifetime had intervened! I +said that 'I had some words for him.' He stood still in the air that +throbbed in waves over me. He was speechlessly calm just then. + +"'I expected no words after my judgment,' at length he said,--for I knew +not how to open my terrible theme; 'will you tell me on what evidence +you judge?' + +"What a trifle then seemed any merely human love in the presence of +Death! I was almost angry that he should once think of it. + +"'It is something of more importance than the human affection with which +you play,' I said. 'It is a life, the life of Mary Percival, that last +night went out,--and how? Was it by this cup?'--and I handed the cup to +him. + +"He looked simple amazement, as he would have done, had it been a rock +or flower; he did not offer to take it,--still I held it out. + +"'Will you examine the contents,' I asked, 'and report to me the +result?' + +"'Certainly I will, Miss Axtell,' he said; and with it he walked to the +office. + +"I watched him through the window. I saw him coolly apply various tests. +The third one seemed satisfactory. + +"He came to the door. I was very near, and went in + +"'This is nothing Miss Mary had,--it is poison,' he said. + +"He was innocent; I knew it in the very depth of my soul. How could I +tell him the deed his hand had done? But I must, and I did. I told him +how Chloe had brought the cup to me. When I had done, he said,-- + +"'You believe this of me?' + +"I answered,-- + +"'The cup is now in your hand; judge you of its work'; and I told him +how I had seen him come out the night before,--that I was in the +shrubbery when he went to the office. + +"The words of his answer came; they were iron in my heart, though spoken +not to me. + +"'O my God, why hast Thou let me do this?' he cried, and went past me +out of the little white office,--out, as I had done, into the open air, +in my sorrow, the night before. + +"I would not lose sight of him; I followed on; and, as I went, I thought +I heard a rustling in the leaves. A momentary horror swept past me, lest +some one had been watching,--listening, perhaps,--but I did not pause. +I must know how, where, Bernard would hide his misery. It was not quite +dark; I could not run through the night, as I had done before; I must +follow on at a respectable pace, stop to greet the village-people who +were come out in the cool of the evening, and all the while keep in view +that figure, hastening, for what I knew not, but on to the sands, whilst +those whom I met stayed me to ask how Mary Percival died. I passed the +last of the village-houses. There was nothing before me now but Nature +and this unhappy soul. I lost sight of him; I came to the sands; I saw +only long, low flats stretching far out,--beyond them the line of foam. +The moon was not yet gone; but its crescent momently lessened its light. +I went up and down the shore two or three times, going on a little +farther each time, meeting nothing,--nothing but the fear that stood on +the sands before me, whichever way I turned. It bent down from the sky +to tell me of its presence; it came surging up behind me; and one awful +word was on its face and in its voice. I remember shutting my eyes to +keep it out; I remember putting my fingers into my ears to still its +voice. I was so helpless, so alone to do, so threadless of action, +that--_I prayed_. + +"People pray in this world from so many causes,--it matters not what +or how; the hour for prayer comes into every life at some time of its +earthly course, whether softly falling and refreshing as the early rain, +or by the north-wind's icy path. Mine came then, on the sands; my spirit +went out of my mortality unto God for help,--solely because that which I +wanted was not in me, not in all the earth. + +"I stooped down to see if the figure I sought was outlined on the rim of +sky that brightened at the sea's edge: it was not there, not seaward. +I tried to call: the air refused the weight of my voice; it went no +farther than the lips, out of which it quivered and fell: I could not +call. I took the dark tide-mark for my guide, and began searching +landward. I went a little way, then stopped to look and listen: no +sight, no sound. The long sedge-grass gave rustling sighs of motion, as +I passed near, and disturbed the air for a moment. A night-bird uttered +its cry out of the tall reeds. The moon went down. The tide began to +come in; with it came up the wind. The memory of Alice, of Mary, walked +with and did not leave me, until I gained the little cove wherein Mary's +boat lay secure. The tide had not reached it. Mary's boat! I remember +thinking--a mere drop of thought it was, as I hurried on, but it held +all the animalcules of emotion that round out a lifetime--that Mary +never more would come to unloose the bound boat, never more in it go +forth to meet the joys that wander in from unknown shores. I saw the +boat lying dark along the water's edge. 'I would run down a moment,' I +thought, 'run down to speak a word of comfort, as if it were a living +thing.' + +"Mary's boat was not alone; it had a companion. I thought it was +Bernard. I drew near and spoke his name. Doctor Percival answered me. +I do not think that he recognized my voice. He turned around with a +startled movement, for I was quite close, and asked, 'Who is it?' + +"I did not answer. I turned and fled away into the darkness, across the +sands, that answer no footsteps with echoes. It was a comfort to feel +that he was out there, between me and the boundless space of sea. + +"When I draw near the confines of Hereafter's shore, I think I shall +feel the same kind of comfort, if some soul that I knew has gone out +just before me; it will cape the boundary-line of 'all-aloneness.'" + +Miss Axtell must have forgotten that she was talking to me, as she +retraced her steps and thoughts of that night, for, with this thought, +she seemed to "wander out into silence." + +Katie brought her back by coming up to say that "Mr. Abraham was waiting +to know if she would go out a little while, it was so fine." + +Miss Axtell said that "she would not go,--she would wait." + +Katie went to carry the message. Miss Axtell wandered a little. Between +her words and memories I picked up the thread for her, and she went on +before me. + +"I took the direction of the village-pier, when I fled from Doctor +Percival. An unusual number of boats had come in. I heard noises amid +the shipping. At any other time I should have avoided the place. Now I +drew near. + +"Two men were slowly walking down the way. I heard one of them ask, 'Do +you know who it is?' + +"The other replied, 'No, I never saw him before; we had better watch +him; he went on in a desperate way. I've seen it before, and it ended +in'---- + +"He did not finish, although I was thirsting for the words; they both +seemed arrested suddenly, then started on, and I watched whither they +went. + +"There was now no light, save that of the stars. I could scarcely keep +them in sight. I went nearer,--hid myself behind one of the posts on the +pier. They had gone upon one of the boats,--that which lay farthest down +the stream. It was Bernard that they watched. I found him with my eyes +before they reached where he stood. A boy came singing from his daily +work; he passed close beside me, and, as he went, he beat upon the post +with a boat's oar. I waited until I could come from my hiding-place +without his seeing; then I went after him. I sent him for 'the gentleman +that had gone down there,' telling him to say that 'a lady wished to see +him.' + +"Bernard came. I told him that I had been searching for him on the +sands,--that I wanted to talk to him; and he and I walked on again, +village-ward, as we had done on the last night. It was very hard to +begin, to open the cruel theme,--to say to this person, who walked with +folded arms, and eyes that I knew had no external sight, what I thought; +but I must. When I had said all that I would have said to any other +human soul, under like darkness, he lighted up the night of his sin with +strange fires. He poured upon his family's past the light hereditary. +Abraham had been true in his statements. Bernard McKey was not +well-born. He told me this: that his father had been a destroyer of +life; that God had been his Judge, and had now set the seal of the +father's sin into the son's heart. Oh, it was fearful, this tide of +agony with which that soul was overwhelmed! He pictured his deed. +Abraham had found out the crime of his father, had cruelly sent it home +on his own head, had said that a murderer's son could never find rest in +the family of Axtell, had sent him forth, with hatred in his heart, to +work out in shadow the very deed his father had wrought in substance, to +destroy Mary Percival, the child of his best friend, and to strike from +off the earth Abraham's arch of light. It was wonderful: a chance, a +change, had killed Mary. + +"Doctor Percival had that very afternoon, while we were gone, wrought +changes in the little white office; hence the fatal mistake. Bernard had +gone in, taken up a bottle from the very place where the article wanted +had stood for two years, poured its contents into the cup, carried it +in, and no hand stayed him. He was too blinded by suffering to see for +himself. Doctor Percival's hand gave the draught, and Mary was dead. +What should be done? + +"'What shall I do? What would you have me to do?' asked Bernard. + +"We were come to the church on our way. I stayed my steps, and thought +of the letter that Abraham had given me; it came up for the first time +since I knew of Mary's death. But I did not allude to it. I could not +acknowledge, even to him, that I knew another had received the words +that should have been spoken only to me; and sincerely I told him that +he must go away, at once and for always,--that the deed his hand had +unknowingly done must be borne in swift, solemn current through his +life,--that he must live beside it until it reached the ocean to come: +it could do no good to reveal it; it could arouse only new misery; it +seemed better that it should be written on marble and in memory that +'God took her.' + +"He took up the silence that came after my words, and filled it with an +echoing question:-- + +"'If I go out, and bear this deed, as you say bear it, in silence and in +suffering, will you,--you, to whom God has given a good inheritance, who +know not the rush and roar of any evil in your soul, whose spring rises +far back in ancestral natures,--will you stand between me and all this +that I must bear? Will you be my rock, set here, in this village? May I +come back at times, and tell you how I endure? If you will promise me +this, I will go.' + +"Why should he come to me? why not to the other one, to whom he told of +Alice's death two years ago? He did not know that pride was the ever +vernal sin of _my_ race, that I had it to battle with. But I conquered, +and promised I would help him, since it was all I had to do. A few more +words were spoken; he was to write to me when he would come; and we +parted, there, at the old church-door,--he promising to live, to try and +make atonement for his sin,--I to hold his deed in keeping, alone of all +the world, save Chloe, and in her I had trust. I did not see him again: +he left the following day. + +"You remember that I heard a rustling in the shrubbery, when Bernard +fled from the office. It was my mother, watching me. She had seen and +heard sufficient to convince her of what had been done. Mothers are +endowed with wonderful intuitive perception. Abraham had been her one +love from his childhood. Now came a strife in her nature. Bernard McKey +had wronged Abraham, had taken the light out of his life, and a great +longing for his punishment came up. How should it be effected? She +believed that open judgment would awaken resistance in me,--that I would +stand beside him then, in the face of all the world, and recompense him +for his punishment,--I, an Axtell, her daughter. So she came to me with +a compromise. She told me that she had heard what had been said,--that +she knew the deed, had seen the cup,--that Abraham, knowing the act, +would never forgive it, though done, as she acknowledged, in error; +and she, my mother, to save the family, made conditions. Her knowledge +should remain hers only, if Bernard McKey should remain such as he now +was to me,--never to be more. + +"'An easy condition,' I thought, 'since the letter Abraham gave'; and I +said the two words to my mother,-- + +"'I promise.' + +"'My daughter,' was her only answer; and she touched her child's +forehead with two burning lips, and went away to watch Abraham through +the night,--watch him tread the dark way, without Mary. + +"Where now was the Mountain-Pine? higher than the Arbutus? + +"Our mother had her trial. When she heard Abraham reproaching himself +with having brought on a return of fever by refusing Mary's wish, of +having been the means of her death, I know her heart ached to say, 'It +was not you, Abraham, it was Bernard McKey who killed her.' But no, she +did not; family pride towered above affection, and she was true to her +promise, true to the last. She died with the secret hers. + +"Bernard McKey's absence was much wondered at, although it began only +one month earlier than the appointed time. Doctor Percival mourned his +going as if he had been his son; he spoke to me of it. Mary was buried. +I remember your little face on her burial-day; it was bright, and +unconscious of the sad scene"; and Miss Axtell now sought to look into +it, but it was not to be seen. I think she must have forgotten, at +times, that it was to Mary's sister that she was telling her story. She +waited a little, until I asked her to "tell me more." + +"The face of that Autumn grew rosy, wrinkled, and died upon Winter's +snowy bed; and yet I lived, and Abraham, and Bernard McKey perhaps,--I +knew not. The year was nearly gone since Mary died, and no ray of +knowledge had come from him. Every day I re-read those words written to +some fair woman-soul, until after so many readings they began to take +root in my heart. I found it out one day, and I began vigorously to tear +them up. It was on the evening of the same day that Abraham came home: +he had been away for several weeks. He left, with intentional seeming, a +paper where I should see it; he had read with almost careless eyes what +mine fell upon, for he believed that Bernard McKey was forgotten by me; +he had kindly forborne to mention his name, since that one night wherein +all our misery grew. I found there what I believed to be his death: +the name and age were his own; the place was nothing,--_he_ might be +anywhere. My mother saw it, and a gladness, yes, a gladness came into +her face: I watched its coming up. She thought she might now tell +Abraham; but no, I held her to the promise. It had but two conditions: +mine was to be perpetual; hers must be so. + +"After that I grew pitiful for the poor heart that must have been made +sorrowful by these words that never more would come into it, and so I +picked up the trembling little roots that had been cast out, put them +back into the warm soil, and let them grow: they might join hers now, +for together they could twine around immortal bowers; and, as they grew, +a great longing came up to go out and find this woman-soul who had drawn +out such words from lips sealed forever. But no chance happened: no one +came to our quiet village from the remote town in which she was when +these words, that now were become mine, were penned." + + + + +MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." + + +In the dead of the night which closed upon the bloody field of Antietam, +my household was startled from its slumbers by the loud summons of a +telegraphic messenger. The air had been heavy all day with rumors of +battle, and thousands and tens of thousands had walked the streets with +throbbing hearts, in dread anticipation of the tidings any hour might +bring. + +We rose hastily, and presently the messenger was admitted. I took the +envelope from his hand, opened it, and read:-- + +Hagerstown 17th + +To---- H---- + +Capt. H---- wounded shot through the neck thought not mortal at +Keedysville + +WILLIAM G LEDUC + +_Through_ the neck,--no bullet left in wound. Windpipe, food-pipe, +carotid, jugular, half a dozen smaller, but still formidable, vessels, a +great braid of nerves, each as big as a lamp-wick, spinal cord,--ought +to kill at once, if at all. _Thought not_ mortal, or _not thought_ +mortal,--which was it? The first; that is better than the second would +be.--"Keedysville, a post-office, Washington Co., Maryland." Leduc? +Leduc? Don't remember that name.--The boy is waiting for his money. A +dollar and thirteen cents. Has nobody got thirteen cents? Don't keep +that boy waiting,--how do we know what messages he has got to carry? + +The boy _had_ another message to carry. It was to the father of +Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder Dwight, informing him that his son was +grievously wounded in the same battle, and was lying at Boonsborough, +a town a few miles this side of Keedysville. This I learned the +next morning from the civil and attentive officials at the Central +Telegraph-Office. + +Calling upon this gentleman, I found that he meant to leave in the +quarter past two o'clock train, taking with him Dr. George H. Gay, an +accomplished and energetic surgeon, equal to any difficult question or +pressing emergency. I agreed to accompany them, and we met in the cars. +I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in having companions whose society +would be a pleasure, whose feelings would harmonize with my own, and +whose assistance I might, in case of need, be glad to claim. + +It is of the journey which we began together, and which I finished +apart, that I mean to give my "Atlantic" readers an account. They must +let me tell my story in my own way, speaking of many little matters that +interested or amused me, and which a certain leisurely class of elderly +persons, who sit at their firesides and never travel, will, I hope, +follow with a kind of interest. For, besides the main object of my +excursion, I could not help being excited by the incidental sights +and occurrences of a trip which to a commercial traveller or a +newspaper-reporter would seem quite commonplace and undeserving of +record. There are periods in which all places and people seem to be in +a conspiracy to impress us with their individuality,--in which every +ordinary locality seems to assume a special significance and to claim +a particular notice,--in which every person we meet is either an old +acquaintance or a character; days in which the strangest coincidences +are continually happening, so that they get to be the rule, and not the +exception. Some might naturally think that anxiety and the weariness of +a prolonged search after a near relative would have prevented my taking +any interest in or paying any regard to the little matters around me. +Perhaps it had just the contrary effect, and acted like a diffused +stimulus upon the attention. When all the faculties are wide-awake +in pursuit of a single object, or fixed in the spasm of an absorbing +emotion, they are often-times clairvoyant in a marvellous degree in +respect to many collateral things, as Wordsworth has so forcibly +illustrated in his sonnet on the Boy of Windermere, and as Hawthorne +has developed with such metaphysical accuracy in that chapter of his +wondrous story where Hester walks forth to meet her punishment. + +Be that as it may,--though I set out with a full and heavy heart, though +many times my blood chilled with what were perhaps needless and unwise +fears, though I broke through all my habits without thinking about them, +which is almost as hard in certain circumstances as for one of our young +fellows to leave his sweet-heart and go into a Peninsular campaign, +though I did not always know when I was hungry nor discover that I was +thirsting, though I had a worrying ache and inward tremor underlying all +the outward play of the senses and the mind, yet it is the simple truth +that I did look out of the car-windows with an eye for all that passed, +that I did take cognizance of strange sights and singular people, that I +did act much as persons act from the ordinary promptings of curiosity, +and from time to time even laugh very nearly as those do who are +attacked with a convulsive sense of the ridiculous, the epilepsy of the +diaphragm. + +By a mutual compact, we talked little in the cars. A communicative +friend is the greatest nuisance to have at one's side during a +railroad-journey, especially if his conversation is stimulating and in. +itself agreeable. "A fast train and a 'slow' neighbor," is my motto. +Many times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized +into an hour or two of blissful reverie, my thoughts shaken up by the +vibrations into all sorts of new and pleasing patterns, arranging +themselves in curves and nodal points, like the grains of sand in +Chladni's famous experiment,--fresh ideas coming up to the surface, +as the kernels do when a measure of corn is jolted in a farmer's +wagon,--all this without volition, the mechanical impulse alone keeping +the thoughts in motion, as the mere act of carrying certain watches in +the pocket keeps them wound up,--many times, I say, just as my brain was +beginning to creep and hum with this delicious locomotive intoxication, +some dear detestable friend, cordial, intelligent, social, radiant, has +come up and sat down by me and opened a conversation which has broken +my day-dream, unharnessed the flying horses that were whirling along +my fancies and hitched on the old weary omnibus-team of every-day +associations, fatigued my hearing and attention, exhausted my voice, and +milked the breasts of my thought dry during the hour when they should +have been filling themselves full of fresh juices. My friends spared me +this trial. + +So, then, I sat by the window and enjoyed the slight tipsiness +produced by short, limited, rapid oscillations, which I take to be the +exhilarating stage of that condition which reaches hopeless inebriety +in what we know as sea-sickness. Where the horizon opened widely, it +pleased me to watch the curious effect of the rapid movement of near +objects contrasted with the slow motion of distant ones. Looking from +a right-hand window, for instance, the fences close by glide swiftly +backward, or to the right, while the distant hills not only do not +appear to move backward, but look by contrast with the fences near at +hand as if they were moving forward, or to the left; and thus the whole +landscape becomes a mighty wheel revolving about an imaginary axis +somewhere in the middle-distance. + +My companions proposed to stay at one of the best-known and +longest-established of the New-York caravansaries, and I accompanied +them. We were particularly well lodged, and not uncivilly treated. The +traveller who supposes that he is to repeat the melancholy experience of +Shenstone, and have to sigh over the reflection that he has found "his +warmest welcome at an inn," has something to learn at the offices of +the great city-hotels. The unheralded guest who is honored by mere +indifference may think himself blest with singular good-fortune. + +If the despot of the Patent Annunciator is only mildly contemptuous in +his manner, let the victim look upon it as a personal favor. The coldest +welcome that a threadbare curate ever got at the door of a bishop's +palace, the most icy reception that a country-cousin ever received +at the city-mansion of a mushroom millionnaire, is agreeably tepid, +compared to that which the Rhadamanthus who dooms you to the more or +less elevated circle of his inverted Inferno vouchsafes, as you step up +to enter your name on his dog's-eared register. I have less hesitation +in unburdening myself of this uncomfortable statement, as on this +particular trip I met with more than one exception to the rule. +Officials become brutalized, I suppose, as a matter of course. One +cannot expect an office-clerk to embrace tenderly every stranger who +comes in with a carpet-bag, or a telegraph-operator to burst into tears +over every unpleasant message he receives for transmission. Still, +humanity is not always totally extinguished in these persons. I +discovered a youth in the telegraph-office of the Continental Hotel, in +Philadelphia, who was as pleasant in conversation, and as graciously +responsive to inoffensive questions, as if I had been his childless +opulent uncle, and my will not made. + +On the road again the next morning, over the ferry, into the cars with +sliding panels and fixed windows, so that in summer the whole side of +the car may be made transparent. New Jersey is, to the apprehension of a +traveller, a double-headed suburb rather than a State. Its dull red dust +looks like the dried and powdered mud of a battle-field. Peach-trees are +common, and champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, drawn by mules, swim by, +feeling their way along like blind men led by dogs. I had a mighty +passion come over me to be the captain of one,--to glide back and +forward upon a sea never roughened by storms,--to float where I could +not sink,--to navigate where there is no shipwreck,--to lie languidly +on the deck and govern the huge craft by a word or the movement of a +finger: there was something of railroad intoxication in the fancy, but +who has not often envied a cobbler in his stall? + +The boys cry the "N'-York _Heddle_," instead of "Herald"; I remember +that years ago in Philadelphia; we must be getting near the farther end +of the dumb-bell suburb. A bridge has been swept away by a rise of the +waters, so we must approach Philadelphia by the river. Her physiognomy +is not distinguished; _nez camus_, as a Frenchman would say; no +illustrious steeple, no imposing tower; the water-edge of the town +looking bedraggled, like the flounce of a vulgar rich woman's dress that +trails on the sidewalk. The New Ironsides lies at one of the wharves, +elephantine in bulk and color, her sides narrowing as they rise, like +the walls of a hock-glass. + +I went straight to the house in Walnut Street where the Captain would be +heard of, if anywhere in this region. His lieutenant-colonel was there, +gravely wounded; his college-friend and comrade in arms, a son of the +house, was there, injured in a similar way; another soldier, brother +of the last, was there, prostrate with fever. A fourth bed was waiting +ready for the Captain, but not one word had been heard of him, though +inquiries had been made in the towns from and through which the father +had brought his two sons and the lieutenant-colonel. And so my search +is, like a "Ledger" story, to be continued. + +I rejoined my companions in time to take the noon-train for Baltimore. +Our company was gaining in number as it moved onwards. We had found upon +the train from New York a lovely, lonely lady, the wife of one of our +most spirited Massachusetts officers, the brave Colonel of the ----th +Regiment, going to seek her wounded husband at Middletown, a place lying +directly in our track. She was the light of our party while we were +together on our pilgrimage, a fair, gracious woman, gentle, but +courageous, + + --"ful plesant and amiable of port, + --estatelich of manere, + And to ben holden digne of reverence." + +On the road from Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party +Dr. William Hunt, of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully +attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at +Ball's Bluff, which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an +errand of mercy to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book +the name of our lady-companion's husband, who had been commended to his +particular attention. + +Not long after leaving Philadelphia, we passed a solitary sentry keeping +guard over a short railroad-bridge. It was the first evidence that we +were approaching the perilous borders, the marches where the North and +the South mingle their angry hosts, where the extremes of our so-called +civilization meet in conflict, and the fierce slave-driver of the Lower +Mississippi stares into the stern eyes of the forest-feller from the +banks of the Aroostook. All the way along, the bridges were guarded more +or less strongly. In a vast country like ours, communications play a far +more complex part than in Europe, where the whole territory available +for strategic purposes is so comparatively limited. Belgium, for +instance, has long been the bowling-alley where kings roll cannon-balls +at each other's armies; but here we are playing the game of live +ninepins _without any alley_. + +We were obliged to stay in Baltimore over-night, as we were too late for +the train to Frederick. At the Eutaw House, where we found both comfort +and courtesy, we met a number of friends, who beguiled the evening hours +for us in the most agreeable manner. We devoted some time to procuring +surgical and other articles, such as might be useful to our friends, or +to others, if our friends should not need them. In the morning, I found +myself seated at the breakfast-table next to General Wool. It did not +surprise me to find the General very far from expansive. With Fort +McHenry on his shoulders and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, and the +weight of a military department loading down his social safety-valves, I +thought it a great deal for an officer in his trying position to select +so very obliging and affable an aid as the gentleman who relieved him of +the burden of attending to strangers. + +We left the Eutaw House, to take the cars for Frederick. As we stood +waiting on the platform, a telegraphic message was handed in silence to +my companion. Sad news: the lifeless body of the son he was hastening +to see was even now on its way to him in Baltimore. It was no time for +empty words of consolation: I knew what he had lost, and that now was +not the time to intrude upon a grief borne as men bear it, felt as women +feel it. + +Colonel Wilder Dwight was first made known to me as the friend of a +beloved relative of my own, who was with him during a severe illness in +Switzerland, and for whom while living, and for whose memory when dead, +he retained the warmest affection. Since that, the story of his noble +deeds of daring, of his capture and escape, and a brief visit home +before he was able to rejoin his regiment, had made his name familiar to +many among us, myself among the number. His memory has been honored by +those who had the largest opportunity of knowing his rare promise, as a +man of talents and energy of nature. His abounding vitality must have +produced its impression on all who met him; there was a still fire about +him which any one could see would blaze up to melt all difficulties and +recast obstacles into implements in the mould of an heroic will. These +elements of his character many had the chance of knowing; but I shall +always associate him with the memory of that pure and noble friendship +which made me feel that I knew him before I looked upon his face, and +added a personal tenderness to the sense of loss which I share with the +whole community. + +Here, then, I parted, sorrowfully, from the companions with whom I set +out on my journey. + +In one of the cars, at the same station, we met General Shriver, of +Frederick, a most loyal Unionist, whose name is synonymous with a hearty +welcome to all whom he can aid by his counsel and his hospitality. He +took great pains to give us all the information we needed, and expressed +the hope, which was afterwards fulfilled, to the great gratification +of some of us, that we should meet again, when he should return to his +home. + +There was nothing worthy of special note in the trip to Frederick, +except our passing a squad of Rebel prisoners, whom I missed seeing, as +they flashed by, but who were said to be a most forlorn-looking crowd of +scarecrows. Arrived at the Monocacy River, about three miles this side +of Frederick, we came to a halt, for the railroad-bridge had been blown +up by the Rebels, and its iron pillars and arches were lying in the bed +of the river. The unfortunate wretch who fired the train was killed by +the explosion, and lay buried hard by, his hands sticking out of the +shallow grave into which he had been huddled. This was the story they +told us, but whether true or no I must leave to the correspondents of +"Notes and Queries" to settle. + +There was a great confusion of carriages and wagons at the +stopping-place of the train, so that it was a long time before I could +get anything that would carry us. At last I was lucky enough to light on +a sturdy wagon, drawn by a pair of serviceable bays, and driven by +James Grayden, with whom I was destined to have a somewhat continued +acquaintance. We took up a little girl who had been in Baltimore during +the late Rebel inroad. It made me think of the time when my own mother, +at that time six years old, was hurried off from Boston, then occupied +by the British soldiers, to Newburyport, and heard the people saying +that "the red-coats were coming, killing and murdering everybody as they +went along." Frederick looked cheerful for a place that had so recently +been in an enemy's hands. Here and there a house or shop was shut up, +but the national colors were waving in all directions, and the general +aspect was peaceful and contented. I saw no bullet-marks or other sign +of the fighting which had gone on in the streets. My lady-companion was +taken in charge by a daughter of that hospitable family to which we +had been commended by its head, and I proceeded to inquire for wounded +officers at the various temporary hospitals. + +At the United States Hotel, where many were lying, I heard mention of an +officer in an upper chamber, and, going there, found Lieutenant Abbott, +of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers, lying ill with what looked +like typhoid fever. While there, who should come in but the ubiquitous +Lieutenant Wilkins, of the same Twentieth, often confounded with his +namesake who visited the Flying Island, and with some reason, for he +must have a pair of wings under his military upper garment, or he could +never be in so many places at once. He was going to Boston in charge of +the lamented Dr. Revere's body. From his lips I learned something of the +mishaps of the regiment. My Captain's wound he spoke of as less grave +than at first thought; but he mentioned incidentally having heard +a story recently that he was _killed_,--a fiction, doubtless,--a +mistake,--a palpable absurdity,--not to be remembered or made any +account of. Oh, no! but what dull ache is this in that obscurely +sensitive region, somewhere below the heart, where the nervous centre +called the _semilunar ganglion_ lies unconscious of itself until a great +grief or a mastering anxiety reaches it through all the non-conductors +which isolate it from ordinary impressions? I talked awhile with +Lieutenant Abbott, who lay prostrate, feeble, but soldier-like and +uncomplaining, carefully waited upon by a most excellent lady, a +captain's wife, New-England-born, loyal as the Liberty on a golden +ten-dollar piece, and of lofty bearing enough to have sat for that +goddess's portrait. She had stayed in Frederick through the Rebel +inroad, and kept the star-spangled banner where it would be safe, to +unroll it as the last Rebel hoofs clattered off from the pavement of the +town. + +Near by Lieutenant Abbott was an unhappy gentleman, occupying a small +chamber, and filling it with his troubles. When he gets well and plump, +I know he will forgive me, if I confess that I could not help smiling +in the midst of my sympathy for him. He had been a well-favored man, +he said, sweeping his hand in a semicircle, which implied that his +acute-angled countenance had once filled the goodly curve he described. +He was now a perfect Don Quixote to look upon. Weakness had made him +querulous, as it does all of us, and he piped his grievances to me in a +thin voice with that finish of detail which chronic invalidism alone can +command. He was starving,--he could not get what he wanted to eat. He +was in need of stimulants, and he held up a pitiful two-ounce phial +containing three thimblefuls of brandy,--his whole stock of that +encouraging article. Him I consoled to the best of my ability, and +afterwards, in some slight measure, supplied his wants. Feed this poor +gentleman up, as these good people soon will, and I should not know him, +nor he himself. We are all egotists in sickness and debility. An animal +has been defined as "a stomach ministered to by organs"; and the +greatest man comes very near this simple formula after a month or two of +fever and starvation. + +James Grayden and his team pleased me well enough, and so I made a +bargain with him to take us, the lady and myself, on our further journey +as far as Middletown. As we were about starting from the front of the +United States Hotel, two gentlemen presented themselves and expressed +a wish to be allowed to share our conveyance. I looked at them and +convinced myself that they were neither Rebels in disguise, nor +deserters, nor camp-followers, nor miscreants, but plain, honest men on +a proper errand. The first of them I will pass over briefly. He was +a young man, of mild and modest demeanor, chaplain to a Pennsylvania +regiment, which he was going to rejoin. He belonged to the Moravian +Church, of which I had the misfortune to know little more than what I +had learned from Southey's "Life of Wesley," and from the exquisite +hymns we have borrowed from its rhapsodists. The other stranger was a +New-Englander of respectable appearance, with a grave, hard, honest, +hay-bearded face, who had come to serve the sick and wounded on the +battle-field and in its immediate neighborhood. There is no reason why I +should not mention his name, but I shall content myself with calling him +the Philanthropist. + +So we set forth, the sturdy wagon, the serviceable bays, with James +Grayden their driver, the gentle lady, whose serene patience bore up +through all delays and discomforts, the Chaplain, the Philanthropist, +and myself, the teller of this story. + +And now, as we emerged from Frederick, we struck at once upon the trail +from the great battle-field. The road was filled with straggling and +wounded soldiers. All who could travel on foot--multitudes with slight +wounds of the upper limbs, the head or face--were told to take up their +beds--a light burden, or none at all--and walk. Just as the battle-field +sucks everything into its red vortex for the conflict, so does it drive +everything off in long, diverging rays after the fierce centripetal +forces have met and neutralized each other. For more than a week there +had been sharp fighting all along this road. Through the streets of +Frederick, through Crampton's Gap, over South Mountain, sweeping at last +the hills and the woods that skirt the windings of the Antietam, the +long battle had travelled, like one of those tornadoes which tear their +path through our fields and villages. The slain of higher condition, +"embalmed" and iron-cased, were sliding off on the railways to their +far homes; the dead of the rank-and-file were being gathered up and +committed hastily to the earth; the gravely wounded were cared for +hard by the scene of conflict, or pushed a little way along to the +neighboring villages; while those who could walk were meeting us, as I +have said, at every step in the road. It was a pitiable sight, truly +pitiable, yet so vast, so far beyond the possibility of relief, that +many single sorrows of small dimensions have wrought upon my feelings +more than the sight of this great caravan of maimed pilgrims. The +companionship of so many seemed to make a joint-stock of their +suffering; it was next to impossible to individualize it, and so bring +it home as one can do with a single broken limb or aching wound. Then +they were all of the male sex, and in the freshness or the prime of +their strength. Though they tramped so wearily along, yet there was rest +and kind nursing in store for them. These wounds they bore would be the +medals they would show their children and grandchildren by-and-by. Who +would not rather wear his decorations beneath his uniform than on it? + +Yet among them were figures which arrested our attention and sympathy. +Delicate boys, with more spirit than strength, flushed with fever or +pale with exhaustion or haggard with suffering, dragged their weary +limbs along as if each step would exhaust their slender store of +strength. At the road-side sat or lay others, quite spent with their +journey. Here and there was a house at which the wayfarers would stop, +in the hope, I fear often vain, of getting refreshment; and in one place +was a clear, cool spring, where the little bands of the long procession +halted for a few moments, as the trains that traverse the desert rest by +its fountains. My companions had brought a few peaches along with them, +which the Philanthropist bestowed upon the tired and thirsty soldiers +with a satisfaction which we all shared. I had with me a small flask of +strong waters, to be used as a medicine in case of inward grief. From +this, also, he dispensed relief, without hesitation, to a poor fellow +who looked as if he needed it. I rather admired the simplicity with +which he applied my limited means of solace to the first-comer who +wanted it more than I; a genuine benevolent impulse does not stand on +ceremony, and had I perished of colic for want of a stimulus that night, +I should not have reproached my friend the Philanthropist any more than +I grudged my other ardent friend the two dollars and more which it cost +me to send the charitable message he left in my hands. + +It was a lovely country through which we were riding. The hill-sides +rolled away into the distance, slanting up fair and broad to the sun, +as one sees them in the open parts of the Berkshire valley, at +Lanesborough, for instance, or in the many-hued mountain-chalice at the +bottom of which the Shaker houses of Lebanon have shaped themselves like +a sediment of cubical crystals. The wheat was all garnered, and the land +ploughed for a new crop. There was Indian-corn standing, but I saw no +pumpkins warming their yellow carapaces in the sunshine like so many +turtles; only in a single instance did I notice some wretched little +miniature specimens in form and hue not unlike those colossal oranges of +our cornfields. The rail-fences were somewhat disturbed, and the cinders +of extinguished fires showed the use to which they had been applied. +The houses along the road were not for the most part neatly kept; the +garden-fences were poorly built of laths or long slats, and very rarely +of trim aspect. The men of this region seemed to ride in the saddle very +generally, rather than drive. They looked sober and stern, less curious +and lively than Yankees, and I fancied that a type of features familiar +to us in the countenance of the late John Tyler, our accidental +President, was frequently met with. The women were still more +distinguishable from our New-England pattern. Soft, sallow, succulent, +delicately finished about the mouth and firmly shaped about the chin, +dark-eyed, full-throated, they looked as if they had been grown in a +land of olives. There was a little toss in their movement, full of +muliebrity. I fancied there was something more of the duck and less of +the chicken about them, as compared with the daughters of our leaner +soil; but these are mere impressions caught from stray glances, and if +there is any offence in them, my fair readers may consider them all +retracted. + +At intervals, a dead horse lay by the road-side, or in the fields, +unburied, not grateful to gods or men, I saw no bird of prey, no +ill-omened fowl, on my way to the carnival of death, or at the place +where it was held. The vulture of story, the crow of Talavera, the "twa +corbies" of the ghastly ballad, are all from Nature, doubtless; but +no black wing was spread over these animal ruins, and no call to the +banquet pierced through the heavy-laden and sickening air. + +Full in the middle of the road, caring little for whom or what they met, +came long strings of army-wagons, returning empty from the front after +supplies. James Grayden stated it as his conviction that they had a +little rather run into a fellow than not. I liked the looks of these +equipages and their drivers; they meant business. Drawn by mules mostly, +six, I think, to a wagon, powdered well with dust, wagon, beast, and +driver, they came jogging along the road, turning neither to right nor +left,--some driven by bearded, solemn white men, some by careless, +saucy-looking negroes, of a blackness like that of anthracite or +obsidian. There seemed to be nothing about them, dead or alive, that was +not serviceable. Sometimes a mule would give out on the road; then he +was left where he lay, until by-and-by he would think better of it, and +get up, when the first public wagon that came along would hitch him on, +and restore him to the sphere of duty. + +It was evening when we got to Middletown. The gentle lady--who had +graced our homely conveyance with her company here left us. She found +her husband, the gallant Colonel, in very comfortable quarters, well +cared for, very weak from the effects of the fearful operation he had +been compelled to undergo, but showing the same calm courage to endure +as he had shown manly energy to act. It was a meeting full of heroism +and tenderness, of which I heard more than there is need to tell. Health +to the brave soldier, and peace to the household over which go fair a +spirit presides! + +Dr. Thompson, the very active and intelligent surgical director of the +hospitals of the place, took me in charge. He carried me to the house of +a worthy and benevolent clergyman of the German Reformed Church, where I +was to take tea and pass the night. What became of the Moravian chaplain +I did not know; but my friend the Philanthropist had evidently made up +his mind to adhere to my fortunes. He followed me, therefore, to the +house of the "Dominic," as a newspaper-correspondent calls my kind host, +and partook of the fare there furnished me. He withdrew with me to the +apartment assigned for my slumbers, and slept sweetly on the same pillow +where I waked and tossed. Nay, I do affirm that he did, unconsciously, +I believe, encroach on that moiety of the couch which I had flattered +myself was to be my own through the watches of the night, and that I +was in serious doubt at one time whether I should not be gradually, but +irresistibly, expelled from the bed which I had supposed destined for +my sole possession. As Ruth clave unto Naomi, so my friend the +Philanthropist clave unto me. "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where +thou lodgest, I will lodge." A really kind, good man, full of zeal, +determined to help somebody, and absorbed in his one thought, he doubted +nobody's willingness to serve him, going, as he was, on a purely +benevolent errand. When he reads this, as I hope he will, let him be +assured of my esteem and respect; and if he gained any accommodation +from being in my company, let me tell him that I learned a lesson from +his active benevolence. I could, however, have wished to hear him laugh +once before we parted, perhaps forever. He did not, to the best of +my recollection, even smile during the whole period that we were in +company. I am afraid that a lightsome disposition and a relish for humor +are not so common in those whose benevolence takes an active turn as in +people of sentiment who are always ready with their tears and abounding +in passionate expressions of sympathy. Working philanthropy is a +practical specialty, requiring not a mere impulse, but a talent, with +its peculiar sagacity for finding its objects, a tact for selecting its +agencies, an organizing and arranging faculty, a steady set of nerves, +and a constitution such as Sallust describes in Catiline, patient of +cold, of hunger, and of watching. Philanthropists are commonly grave, +occasionally grim, and not very rarely morose. Their expansive social +force is imprisoned as a working power, to show itself only through +its legitimate pistons and cranks. The tighter the boiler, the less it +whistles and sings at its work. When Dr. Waterhouse, in 1780, travelled +with Howard, on his tour among the Dutch prisons and hospitals, he +found his temper and manners very different from what would have been +expected. My benevolent companion having already made a preliminary +exploration of the hospitals of the place, before sharing my bed with +him, as above mentioned, I joined him in a second tour through them. The +authorities of Middletown are evidently leagued with the surgeons of +that place, for such a break-neck succession of pitfalls and chasms I +have never seen in the streets of a civilized town. It was getting late +in the evening when we began our rounds. The principal collections of +the wounded were in the churches. Boards were laid over the tops of the +pews, on these some straw was spread, and on this the wounded lay, with +little or no covering other than such scanty clothes as they had on. +There were wounds of all degrees of severity, but I heard no groans +or murmurs. Most of the sufferers were hurt in the limbs, some had +undergone amputation, and all had, I presume, received such attention as +was required. Still, it was but a rough and dreary kind of comfort that +the extemporized hospitals suggested. I could not help thinking the +patients must be cold; but they were used to camp-life, and did not +complain. The men who watched were not of the soft-handed variety of the +race. One of them was smoking his pipe as he went from bed to bed. I saw +one poor fellow who had been shot through the breast; his breathing was +labored, and he was tossing, anxious and restless. The men were debating +about the opiate he was to take, and I was thankful that I happened +there at the right moment to see that he was well narcotized for the +night. Was it possible that my Captain could be lying on the straw in +one of these places? Certainly _possible_, but not probable; but as the +lantern was held over each bed, it was with a kind of thrill that I +looked upon the features it illuminated. Many times, as I went from +hospital to hospital in my wanderings, I started as some faint +resemblance--the shade of a young man's hair, the outline of his +half-turned face-recalled the presence I was in search of. The face +would turn towards me and the momentary illusion would pass away, but +still the fancy clung to me. There was no figure huddled up on its rude +couch, none stretched at the road-side, none toiling languidly along +the dusty pike, none passing in car or in ambulance, that I did not +scrutinize, as if it might be that for which I was making my pilgrimage +to the battle-field. + +"There are two wounded Secesh," said my companion. I walked to the +bedside of the first, who was an officer, a lieutenant, if I remember +right, from North Carolina. He was of good family, son of a judge in +one of the higher courts of his State, educated, pleasant, gentle, +intelligent. One moment's intercourse with such an enemy, lying helpless +and wounded among strangers, takes away all personal bitterness towards +those with whom we or our children have been but a few hours before in +deadly strife. The basest lie which the murderous contrivers of this +Rebellion have told is that which tries to make out a difference of race +in the men of the North and South, It would be worth a year of battles +to abolish this delusion, though the great sponge of war that wiped it +out were moistened with the best blood of the land. My Rebel was of +slight, scholastic habit, and spoke as one accustomed to tread carefully +among the parts of speech. It made my heart ache to see him, a man +finished in the humanities and Christian culture, whom the sin of his +forefathers and the crime of his rulers had set in barbarous conflict +against others of like training with his own,--a man who, but for the +curse that it is laid on our generation to expiate, would have been +a fellow-worker with them in the beneficent task of shaping the +intelligence and lifting the moral standard of a peaceful and united +people. + +On Sunday morning, the twenty-first, having engaged James Grayden +and his team, I set out with the Chaplain and the Philanthropist for +Keedysville. Our track lay through the South Mountain Gap and led us +first to the town of Boonsborough, where, it will be remembered, Colonel +Dwight had been brought after the battle. We saw the positions occupied +in the Battle of South Mountain, and many traces of the conflict. In one +situation a group of young trees was marked with shot, hardly one having +escaped. As we walked by the side of the wagon, the Philanthropist left +us for a while and climbed a hill, where along the line of a fence he +found traces of the most desperate fighting. A ride of some three hours +brought us to Boonsborough, where I roused the unfortunate army-surgeon +who had charge of the hospitals, and who was trying to get a little +sleep after his fatigues and watchings. He bore this cross very +creditably, and helped me to explore all places where my soldier might +be lying among the crowds of wounded. After the useless search, I +resumed my journey, fortified with a note of introduction to Dr. +Letterman, also with a bale of oakum which I was to carry to that +gentleman, this substance being employed as a substitute for lint. +We were obliged also to procure a pass to Keedysville from the +Provost-Marshal of Boonsborough. As we came near the place, we learned +that General McClellan's headquarters had been removed from this village +some miles farther to the front. + +On entering the small settlement of Keedysville, a familiar face and +figure blocked the way, like one of Bunyan's giants. The tall form and +benevolent countenance, set off by long, flowing hair, belonged to the +excellent Mayor Frank B. Fay, of Chelsea, who, like my Philanthropist, +only still more promptly, had come to succor the wounded of the great +battle. It was wonderful to see how his single personality pervaded this +torpid little village; he seemed to be the centre of all its activities. +All my questions he answered clearly and decisively, as one who knew +everything that was going on in the place. But the one question I had +come five hundred miles to ask,--_Where is Captain H.?_--he could not +answer. There were some thousands of wounded in the place, he told +me, scattered about everywhere. It would be a long job to hunt up my +Captain; the only way would be to go to every house and ask for him. +Just then, a medical officer came up. + +"Do you know anything of Captain H., of the Massachusetts Twentieth?" + +"Oh, yes; he is staying in that house. I saw him there, doing very +well." + +A chorus of hallelujahs arose in my soul, but I kept them to myself. +Now, then, for our twice-wounded volunteer, our young centurion whose +double-barred shoulder-straps we have never yet looked upon. Let us +observe the proprieties, however; no swelling upward of the mother,--no +_hysterica passio,_--we do not like scenes. A calm salutation,--then +swallow and bold hard. That is about the programme. + +A cottage of squared logs, filled in with plaster, and white-washed. A +little yard before it, with a gate swinging. The door of the cottage +ajar,--no one visible as yet. I push open the door and enter. An old +woman, _Margaret Kitzmuller_ her name proves to be, is the first person +I see. + +"Captain H. here?" + +"Oh, no, Sir,--left yesterday morning for Hagerstown--in a milk-cart." + +The Kitzmuller is a beady-eyed, cheery-looking ancient woman, answers +questions with a rising inflection, and gives a good account of the +Captain, who got into the vehicle without assistance, and was in +excellent spirits.--Of course he had struck for Hagerstown as the +terminus of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and was on his way to +Philadelphia _via_ Chambersburg and Harrisburg, if he were not already +in the hospitable home of Walnut Street, where his friends were +expecting him. + +I might follow on his track or return upon my own; the distance was die +same to Philadelphia through Harrisburg as through Baltimore. But it was +very difficult, Mr. Fay told me, to procure any kind of conveyance to +Hagerstown, and on the other hand I had James Grayden and his wagon to +carry me back to Frederick. It was not likely that I should overtake the +object of my pursuit with nearly thirty-six hours start, even if I +could procure a conveyance that day, In the mean time James was getting +impatient to be on his return, according to the direction of his +employers. So I decided to go back with him. + +But there was the great battle-field only about three miles from +Keedysville, and it was impossible to go without seeing that. James +Grayden's directions were peremptory, but it was a case for the higher +law. I must make a good offer for an extra couple of hours, such as +would satisfy the owners of the wagon, and enforce it by a personal +motive. I did this handsomely, and succeeded without difficulty. To +add brilliancy to my enterprise, I invited the Chaplain and the +Philanthropist to take a free passage with me. + +We followed the road through the village for a space, then turned off +to the right, and wandered somewhat vaguely, for want of precise +directions, over the hills. Inquiring as we went, we forded a wide creek +in which soldiers were washing their clothes, the name of which we did +not then know, but which must have been the Antietam. At one point we +met a party, women among them, bringing off various trophies they had +picked up on the battle-field. Still wandering along, we were at last +pointed to a hill in the distance, a part of the summit of which was +covered with Indian-corn. There, we were told, some of the fiercest +fighting of the day had been done. The fences were taken down so as to +make a passage across the fields, and the tracks worn within the last +few days looked like old roads. We passed a fresh grave under a tree +near the road. A board was nailed to the tree, bearing the name, as well +as I could make it out, of Gardiner, of a New-Hampshire regiment. + +On coming near the brow of the hill, we met a party carrying picks and +spades. "How many?" "Only one." The dead were nearly all buried, then, +in this region of the field of strife. We stopped the wagon, and, +getting out, began to look around us. Hard by was a large pile of +muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which had been picked up and were +guarded for the Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose before us. +A board stuck up in front of it bore this inscription, the first part of +which was, I believe, not correct:--"The Rebel General Anderson and 80 +Rebels are buried in this hole." Other smaller ridges were marked with +the number of dead lying under them. The whole ground was strewed +with fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, cap-boxes, bullets, +cartridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and +meat. I saw two soldiers' caps that looked as though their owners had +been shot through the head. In several places I noticed dark red patches +where a pool of blood had curdled and caked, as some poor fellow poured +his life out on the sod. I then wandered about in the cornfield. It +surprised me to notice, that, though there was every mark of hard +fighting having taken place here, the Indian-corn was not generally +trodden down. One of our cornfields is a kind of forest, and even when +fighting, men avoid the tall stalks as if they were trees. At the edge +of this cornfield lay a gray horse, said to have belonged to a Rebel +colonel, who was killed near the same place. Not far off were two dead +artillery-horses in their harness. Another had been attended to by +a burying-party, who had thrown some earth over him; but his last +bed-clothes were too short, and his legs stuck out stark and stiff +from beneath the gravel coverlet. It was a great pity that we had no +intelligent guide to explain to us the position of that portion of the +two armies which fought over this ground. There was a shallow trench +before we came to the cornfield, too narrow for a road, as I should +think, too elevated for a water-course, and which seemed to have been +used as a rifle-pit; at any rate, there had been hard fighting in and +about it. This and the cornfield may serve to identify the part of the +ground we visited, if any who fought there should ever look over this +paper. The opposing tides of battle must have blended their waves at +this point, for portions of gray uniform were mingled with the "garments +rolled in blood" torn from our own dead and wounded soldiers. I picked +up a Rebel canteen, and one of our own,--but there was something +repulsive about the trodden and stained relics of the stale +battle-field. It was like the table of some hideous orgy left uncleared, +and one turned away disgusted from its broken fragments and muddy +heel-taps. A bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a soldier's +belt, served well enough for mementos of my visit, with a letter which +I picked up, directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal unbroken. "N.C. +Cleaveland County. E. Wright to J. Wright." On the other side, "A few +lines from W.L. Vaughn," who has just been writing for the wife to her +husband, and continues on his own account. The postscript, "tell John +that nancy's folks are all well and has a verry good Little Crop of corn +a growing." I wonder, if, by one of those strange chances of which I +have seen so many, this number or leaf of the "Atlantic" will not sooner +or later find its way to Cleveland County, North Carolina, and E. +Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy's folks get from these +sentences the last glimpse of husband and friend as he threw up his arms +and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam? I will keep this stained +letter for them until peace comes back, if it comes in my time, and my +pleasant North-Carolina Rebel of the Middletown Hospital will, perhaps, +look these poor people up, and tell them where to send for it. + +On the battle-field I parted with my two companions, the Chaplain and +the Philanthropist. They were going to the front, the one to find his +regiment, the other to look for those who needed his assistance. We +exchanged cards and farewells, I mounted the wagon, the horses' heads +were turned homewards, my two companions went their way, and I saw them +no more. On my way back, I fell into talk with James Grayden. Born in +England, Lancashire; in this country since he was four years old. Had +nothing to care for but an old mother; didn't know what he should do, if +he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity +and childlike light-heartedness which belong to the Old World's people. +He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white +English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he +had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small +store of information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me. +His quiet animal nature acted as a pleasing anodyne to my recurring fits +of anxiety, and I liked his frequent "'Deed I don' know, Sir," better +than I have sometimes relished the large discourse of professors and +other very wise men. + +I have not much to say of the road which we were travelling for the +second time. Reaching Middletown, my first call was on the wounded +Colonel and his lady. She gave me a most touching account of all +the suffering he had gone through with his shattered limb before he +succeeded in finding a shelter, showing the terrible want of proper +means of transportation of the wounded after the battle. It occurred to +me, while at this house, that I was more or less famished, and for the +first time in my life I begged for a meal, which the kind family with +whom the Colonel was staying most graciously furnished me. + +After tea, there came in a stout army-surgeon, a Highlander by birth, +educated in Edinburgh, with whom I had pleasant, not unstimulating +talk. He had been brought very close to that immane and nefandous +Burke-and-Hare business which made the blood of civilization run cold in +the year 1828, and told me, in a very calm way, with an occasional pinch +from the mull, to refresh his memory, some of the details of those +frightful murders, never rivalled in horror until the wretch Dumollard, +who kept a private cemetery for his victims, was dragged into the light +of day. He had a good deal to say, too, about the Royal College of +Surgeons in Edinburgh, and the famous preparations, mercurial and +the rest, which I remember well having seen there,--the "_sudabit +muitura_,--" and others,--also of our New-York Professor Carnochan's +handiwork, a specimen of which I once admired at the New York College. +But the Doctor was not in a happy frame of mind, and seemed willing to +forget the present in the past: things went wrong, somehow, and the time +was out of joint with him. + +Dr. Thompson, kind, cheerful, companionable, offered me half his own +wide bed, in the house of Dr. Baer, for my second night in Middletown. +Here I lay awake again another night. Close to the house stood an +ambulance in which was a wounded Rebel officer, attended by one of their +own surgeons. He was calling out in a loud voice, all night long, as +it seemed to me, "Doctor! Doctor! Driver! Water!" in loud, complaining +tones, I have no doubt of real suffering, but in strange contrast with +the silent patience which was the almost universal rule. + +The courteous Dr. Thompson will let me tell here an odd coincidence, +trivial, but having its interest as one of a series. The Doctor and +myself lay in the bed, and a lieutenant, a friend of his, slept on +the sofa. At night, I placed my match-box, a Scotch one, of the +Macpherson-plaid pattern, which I bought years ago, on the bureau, just +where I could put my hand upon it. I was the last of the three to rise +in the morning, and on looking for my pretty match-box, I found it was +gone. This was rather awkward,--not on account of the loss, but of the +unavoidable fact that one of my fellow-lodgers must have taken it. I +must try to find out what it meant. + +"By the way, Doctor, have you seen anything of a little plaid-pattern +matchbox?" + +The Doctor put his hand to his pocket, and, to his own huge surprise and +my great gratification, pulled out _two_ matchboxes exactly alike, both +printed with the Macpherson plaid. One was his, the other mine, which he +had seen lying round, and naturally took for his own, thrusting it into +his pocket, where it found its twin-brother from the same workshop. In +memory of which event we exchanged boxes, like two Homeric heroes. + +This curious coincidence illustrates well enough some supposed cases of +_plagiarism_, of which I will mention one where my name figured. When a +little poem called "The Two Streams" was first printed, a writer in the +New York "Evening Post" virtually accused the author of it of borrowing +the thought from a baccalaureate sermon of President Hopkins, of +Williamstown, and printed a quotation from that discourse, which, as I +thought, a thief or catchpoll might well consider as establishing a +fair presumption that it was so borrowed. I was at the same time wholly +unconscious of ever having met with the discourse or the sentence which +the verses were most like, nor do I believe I ever had seen or heard +either. Some time after this, happening to meet my eloquent cousin, +Wendell Phillips, I mentioned the fact to him, and he told me that _he_ +had once used the special image said to be borrowed, in a discourse +delivered at Williamstown. On relating this to my friend Mr. Buchanan +Read, he informed me that _he_, too, had used the image, perhaps +referring to his poem called "The Twins." He thought Tennyson had used +it also. The parting of the streams on the Alps is poetically elaborated +in a passage attributed to "M. Loisne," printed in the Boston "Evening +Transcript" for October 23d, 1859. Captain, afterwards Sir Francis Head, +speaks of the showers parting on the Cordilleras, one portion going to +the Atlantic, one to the Pacific. I found the image running loose in my +mind, without a halter. It suggested itself as an illustration of +the will, and I worked the poem out by the aid of Mitchell's School +Atlas.--The spores of a great many ideas are floating about in the +atmosphere. We no more know where all the growths of our mind came from +than where the lichens which eat the names off from the gravestones +borrowed the germs that gave them birth. The two match-boxes were just +alike, but neither was a plagiarism. + +In the morning I took to the same wagon once more, but, instead of James +Grayden, I was to have for my driver a young man who spelt his name +"Phillip Ottenheimer," and whose features at once showed him to be an +Israelite. I found him agreeable enough, and disposed to talk. So I +asked him many questions about his religion, and got some answers that +sound strangely in Christian ears. He was from Wittenberg, and had +been educated in strict Jewish fashion. From his childhood he had read +Hebrew, but was not much of a scholar otherwise. A young person of his +race lost caste utterly by marrying a Christian. The Founder of our +religion was considered by the Israelites to have been "a right smart +man, and a great doctor," But the horror with which the reading of the +New Testament by any young person of their faith would be regarded was +as great, I judged by his language, as that of one of our straitest +sectaries would be, if he found his son or daughter perusing the "Age of +Reason." + +In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty of its clustered spires +struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find "Fair-View" +laid down about this point on a railroad-map. I wish some wandering +photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if +possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples +nestles among the Maryland hills. The town had a poetical look from a +distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there. The first sign +I read, on entering its long street, might perhaps be considered as +confirming my remote impression. It bore these words: "Miss Ogle, Past, +Present, and Future." On arriving, I visited Lieutenant Abbott, and the +attenuated unhappy gentleman, his neighbor, sharing between them as my +parting gift what I had left of the balsam known to the Pharmacopoeia as +_Spiritus Vini Gallici_. I took advantage of General Shriver's always +open door to write a letter home, but had not time to partake of his +offered hospitality. The railroad-bridge over the Monocacy had been +rebuilt since I passed through Frederick, and we trundled along over the +track toward Baltimore. + +It was a disappointment, on reaching the Eutaw House, where I had +ordered all communications to be addressed, to find no telegraphic +message from Philadelphia or Boston, stating that Captain H. had arrived +at the former place, "wound doing well in good spirits expects to leave +soon for Boston," After all, it was no great matter; the Captain was, no +doubt, snugly lodged before this in the house called Beautiful, at ---- +Walnut Street, where that "grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion" +had already welcomed him, smiling, though "the water stood in her eyes," +and had "called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little +more discourse with him, had him into the family." + +The friends I had met at the Eutaw House had all gone but one, the lady +of an officer from Boston, who was most amiable and agreeable, and whose +benevolence, as I afterwards learned, soon reached the invalids I had +left suffering at Frederick. General Wool still walked the corridors, +inexpansive, with Fort McHenry on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his +breeches-pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed upon me his kind +offices. About the doors of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers in +plaintive, wailing tones, as different from the sharp accents of their +Boston counterparts as a sigh from the southwest is from a northeastern +breeze. To understand what they said was, of course, impossible to any +but an educated ear, and if I made out "Stoarr" and "Clipper," it was +because I knew beforehand what must be the burden of their advertising +coranach. + +I set out for Philadelphia on the morrow, Tuesday the twenty-third, +there beyond question to meet my Captain, once more united to his brave +wounded companions under that roof which covers a household of as noble +hearts as ever throbbed with human sympathies. Back River, Bush River, +Gunpowder Creek,--lives there the man with soul so dead that his memory +has cerements to wrap up these senseless names in the same envelopes +with their meaningless localities? But the Susquehanna,--the broad, +the beautiful, the historical, the poetical Susquehanna,--the river of +Wyoming and of Gertrude, dividing the shores where + + "aye these sunny mountains half-way down + Would echo flageolet from some romantic town,"-- + +did not my heart renew its allegiance to the poet who has made it lovely +to the imagination as well as to the eye, and so identified his fame +with the noble stream that it "rolls mingling with his fame forever"? +The prosaic traveller perhaps remembers it better from the fact that a +great sea-monster, in the shape of a steamboat, takes him, sitting +in the car, on its back, and swims across with him like Arion's +dolphin,--also that mercenary men on board offer him canvas-backs in the +season, and ducks of lower degree at other periods. + +At Philadelphia again at last! Drive fast, O colored man and brother, to +the house called Beautiful, where my Captain lies sore wounded, waiting +for the sound of the chariot-wheels which bring to his bedside the face +and the voice nearer than any save one to his heart in this his hour of +pain and weakness! Up a long street with white shutters and white steps +to all the houses. Off at right angles into another long street with +white shutters and white steps to all the houses. Off again at another +right angle into still another long street with white shutters and white +steps to all the houses. The natives of this city pretend to know one +street from another by some individual differences of aspect; but the +best way for a stranger to distinguish the streets he has been in from +others is to make a cross or other mark on the white shutters. + +This corner-house is the one. Ring softly,--for the Lieutenant-Colonel +lies there with a dreadfully wounded arm, and two sons of the family, +one wounded like the Colonel, one fighting with death in the fog of a +typhoid fever, will start with fresh pangs at the least sound you can +make. I entered the house, but no cheerful smile met me. The sufferers +were each of them thought to be in a critical condition. The fourth bed, +waiting its tenant day after day, was still empty. _Not a word from my +Captain._ + +Then, foolish, fond body that I was, my heart sank within me. Had he +been taken ill on the road, perhaps been attacked with those formidable +symptoms which sometimes come on suddenly after wounds that seemed to be +doing well enough, and was his life ebbing away in some lonely cottage, +nay, in some cold barn or shed, or at the way-side, unknown, uncared +for? Somewhere between Philadelphia and Hagerstown, if not at the latter +town, he must be, at any rate. I must sweep the hundred and eighty miles +between these places as one would sweep a chamber where a precious pearl +had been dropped. I must have a companion in my search, partly to help +me look about, and partly because I was getting nervous and felt lonely. +_Charley_ said he would go with me,--Charley, my Captain's beloved +friend, gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, cultivated, social, +affectionate, a good talker, a most agreeable letter-writer, observing, +with large relish of life, and keen sense of humor. + +He was not well enough to go, some of the timid ones said; but he +answered by packing his carpet-bag, and in an hour or two we were on the +Pennsylvania Central Railroad in full blast for Harrisburg. + +I should have been a forlorn creature but for the presence of my +companion. In his delightful company I half forgot my anxieties, which, +exaggerated as they may seem now, ware not unnatural after what I had +seen of the confusion and distress that had followed the great battle, +nay, which seem almost justified by the recent statement that "high +officers" were buried after that battle whose names were never +ascertained. I noticed little matters, as usual. The road was filled in +between the rails with cracked stones, such as are used for Macadamizing +streets. They keep the dust down, I suppose, for I could not think of +any other use for them. By-and-by the glorious valley which stretches +along through Chester and Lancaster Counties opened upon us. Much as I +had heard of the fertile regions of Pennsylvania, the vast scale and the +uniform luxuriance of this region astonished me. The grazing pastures +were so green, the fields were under such perfect culture, the cattle +looked so sleek, the houses were so comfortable, the barns so ample, the +fences so well kept, that I did not wonder, when I was told that this +region was called the England of Pennsylvania. The people whom we saw +were, like the cattle, well-nourished; the young women looked round and +wholesome. + +"_Grass makes girls_," I said to my companion, and left him to work out +my Orphic saying, thinking to myself, that, as guano makes grass, it +was a legitimate conclusion that Jehaboe must be a nursery of female +loveliness. + +As the train stopped at the different stations, I inquired at each +if they had any wounded officers. None as yet; the red rays of the +battle-field had not streamed off so far as this. Evening found us in +the cars; they lighted candles in spring-candlesticks; odd enough I +thought it in the land of oil-wells and unmeasured floods of kerosene. +Some fellows turned up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, +and began gambling or pretending to gamble; it looked as if they were +trying to pluck a young countryman; but appearances are deceptive, +and no deeper stake than "drinks for the crowd" seemed at last to +be involved. But remembering that murder has tried of late years to +establish itself as an institution in the cars, I was less tolerant of +the doings of these "sportsmen" who tried to turn our public conveyance +into a travelling Frascali. They acted as if they were used to it, and +nobody seemed to pay much attention to their manoeuvres. + +We arrived at Harrisburg in the course of the evening, and attempted to +find our way to the Jones House, to which we had been commended. By some +mistake, intentional on the part of somebody, as it may have been, or +purely accidental, we went to the Herr House instead. I entered my name +in the book, with that of my companion. A plain, middle-aged man stepped +up, read it to himself in low tones, and coupled to it a literary title +by which I have been sometimes known. He proved to be a graduate of +Brown University, and had heard a certain Phi Beta Kappa poem delivered +there a good many years ago. I remembered it, too; Professor Goddard, +whose sudden and singular death left such lasting regret, was the +Orator. I recollect that while I was speaking a drum went by the church, +and how I was disgusted to see all the heads near the windows thrust out +of them, as if the building were on fire. _Cedat armis toga._ The clerk +in the office, a mild, pensive, unassuming young man, was very polite in +his manners, and did all he could to make us comfortable. He was of a +literary turn, and knew one of his guests in his character of author. At +tea, a mild old gentleman, with white hair and beard, sat next us. He, +too, had come hunting after his son, a lieutenant in a Pennsylvania +regiment. Of these, father and son, more presently. + +After tea we went to look up Dr. Wilson, chief medical officer of +the hospitals in the place, who was staying at the Brady House. A +magnificent old toddy-mixer, Bardolphian in hue and stern of aspect, as +all grog-dispensers must be, accustomed as they are to dive through the +features of men to the bottom of their souls and pockets to see whether +they are solvent to the amount of sixpence, answered my question by a +wave of one hand, the other being engaged in carrying a dram to his +lips. His superb indifference gratified my artistic feeling more than it +wounded my personal sensibilities. Anything really superior in its line +claims my homage, and this man was the ideal bar-tender, above all +vulgar passions, untouched by commonplace sympathies, himself a lover of +the liquid happiness he dispenses, and filled with a fine scorn of all +those lesser felicities conferred by love or fame or wealth or any +of the roundabout agencies for which his fiery elixir is the cheap, +all-powerful substitute. + +Dr. Wilson was in bed, though it was early in the evening, not having +slept for I don't know how many nights. + +"Take my card up to him, if you please." + +"This way, Sir." + +A man who has not slept for a fortnight or so is not expected to be as +affable, when attacked in his bed, as a French princess of old time +at her morning-receptions. Dr. Wilson turned toward me, as I entered, +without effusion, but without rudeness. His thick, dark moustache was +chopped off square at the lower edge of the upper lip, which implied a +decisive, if not a peremptory, style of character. + +I am Doctor So-and-So. of Hub-town, looking after my wounded son. (I +gave my name and said _Boston_, of course, in reality.) + +Dr. Wilson leaned on his elbow and looked up in my face, his features +growing cordial. Then he put out his hand, and good-humoredly excused +his reception of me. The day before, as he told me, he had dismissed +from the service a medical man hailing from ----, Pennsylvania, bearing +my last name, preceded by the same two initials; and he supposed, when +my card came up, it was this individual who was disturbing his slumbers. +The coincidence was so unlikely _a priori_, unless some forlorn parent +without antecedents had named a child after me, that I could not help +cross-questioning the Doctor, who assured me deliberately that the fact +was just as he had said, even to the somewhat unusual initials. Dr. +Wilson very kindly furnished me all the information in his power, +gave me directions for telegraphing to Chambersburg, and showed every +disposition to serve me. + +On returning to the Herr House, we found the mild, white-haired old +gentleman in a very happy state. He had just discovered his son, in a +comfortable condition, at the United States Hotel. He thought that he +could probably give us some information which would prove interesting. +To the United States Hotel we repaired, then, in company with our +kind-hearted old friend, who evidently wanted to see me as happy as +himself. He went up-stairs to his son's chamber, and presently came down +to conduct us there. + +Lieutenant P----, of the Pennsylvania ----th, was a very fresh, +bright-looking young man, lying in bed from the effects of a recent +injury received in action. A grape-shot, after passing through a post +and a board, had struck him in the hip, bruising, but not penetrating or +breaking. He had good news for me. + +That very afternoon, a party of wounded officers had passed through +Harrisburg, going East. He had conversed in the bar-room of this hotel +with one of them, who was wounded about the shoulder, (it might be the +lower part of the neck,) and had his arm in a sling. He belonged to the +Twentieth Massachusetts; the Lieutenant saw that he was a Captain, by +the two bars on his shoulder-strap. His name was my family-name; he was +tall and youthful, like my Captain. At four o'clock he left in the train +for Philadelphia. Closely questioned, the Lieutenant's evidence was as +round, complete, and lucid as a Japanese sphere of rock-crystal. + +TE DEUM LAUDAMUS! The Lord's name be praised! The dead pain in the +semilunar ganglion (which I must remind my reader is a kind of stupid, +unreasoning brain, beneath the pit of the stomach, common to man and +beast, which aches in the supreme moments of life, as when the dam loses +her young ones, or the wild horse is lassoed) stopped short. There was +a feeling as if I had slipped off a tight boot, or cut a strangling +garter,--only it was all over my system. What more could I ask to assure +me of the Captain's safety? As soon as the telegraph-office opens +to-morrow morning, we will send a message to our friends in Philadelphia, +and get a reply, doubtless, which will settle the whole matter. + +The hopeful morrow dawned at last, and the message was sent accordingly. +In due time, the following reply was received:-- + +"Phil Sept 24 I think the report you have heard that W [the Captain] has +gone East must be an error we have not seen or heard of him here M L H" + +DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI! He _could_ not have passed through Philadelphia +without visiting the house called Beautiful, where he had been so +tenderly cared for after his wound at Ball's Bluff, and where those whom +he loved were lying in grave peril of life or limb. Yet he _did_ pass +through Harrisburg, going East, going to Philadelphia, on his way +home. Ah, this is it! He must have taken the late night-train from +Philadelphia for New York, in his impatience to reach home. There is +such a train, not down in the guide-book, but we were assured of the +fact at the Harrisburg depot. By-and-by came the reply from Dr. +Wilson's telegraphic message: nothing had been heard of the Captain at +Chambersburg. Still later, another message came from our Philadelphia +friend, saying that he was seen on Friday last at the house of Mrs. K--, +a well-known Union lady, in Hagerstown. Now this could not be true, for +he did not leave Keedysville until Saturday; but the name of the lady +furnished a clue by which we could probably track him. A telegram was +at once sent to Mrs. K--, asking information. It was transmitted +immediately, but when the answer would be received was uncertain, as the +Government almost monopolized the line. I was, on the whole, so well +satisfied that the Captain had gone East, that, unless something were +heard to the contrary, I proposed following him in the late train, +leaving a little after midnight for Philadelphia. + +This same morning we visited several of the temporary hospitals, +churches and school-houses, where the wounded were lying. In one of +these, after looking round as usual, I asked aloud, "Any Massachusetts +men here?" Two bright faces lifted themselves from their pillows and +welcomed me by name. The one nearest me was private John B. Noyes, of +Company B, Massachusetts Thirteenth, son of my old college class-tutor, +now the reverend and learned Professor of Hebrew, etc., in Harvard +University. His neighbor was Corporal Armstrong, of the same Company. +Both were slightly wounded, doing well. I learned then and since from +Mr. Noyes that they and their comrades were completely overwhelmed +by the attentions of the good people of Harrisburg,--that the ladies +brought them fruits and flowers, and smiles, better than either,--and +that the little boys of the place were almost fighting for the privilege +of doing their errands. I am afraid there will be a good many hearts +pierced in this war that will have no bullet-mark to show. + +There were some heavy hours to get rid of, and we thought a visit to +Camp Curtin might lighten some of them. A rickety wagon carried us to +the camp, in company with a young woman from Troy, who had a basket of +good things with her for a sick brother, "Poor boy! he will be sure to +die," she said. The rustic sentries uncrossed their muskets and let +us in. The camp was on a fair plain, girdled with hills, spacious, +well-kept apparently, but did not present any peculiar attraction for +us. The visit would have been a dull one, had we not happened to get +sight of a singular-looking set of human beings in the distance. They +were clad in stuff of different hues, gray and brown being the leading +shades, but both subdued by a neutral tint, such as is wont to harmonize +the variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, +listless, torpid,--an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of +such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a +broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given +our generals so much trouble,--"Secesh prisoners," as a by-stander told +us. A talk with them might be profitable and entertaining. But they were +tabooed to the common visitor, and it was necessary to get inside of the +line which separated us from them. + +A solid, square captain was standing near by, to whom we were referred. +Look a man calmly through the very centre of his pupils and ask him for +anything with a tone implying entire conviction that he will grant it, +and he will very commonly consent to the thing asked, were it to commit +_hari-kari_. The Captain acceded to my postulate, and accepted my friend +as a corollary. As one string of my own ancestors was of Batavian +origin, I may be permitted to say that my new friend was of the Dutch +type, like the Amsterdam galiots, broad in the beam, capacious in the +hold, and calculated to carry a heavy cargo rather than to make fast +time. He must have been in politics at some time or other, for he made +orations to all the "Secesh," in which he explained to them that the +United States considered and treated them like children, and enforced +upon them the ridiculous impossibility of the Rebels' attempting to do +anything against such a power as that of the National Government. + +Much as his discourse edified them and enlightened me, it interfered +somewhat with my little plans of entering into frank and friendly talk +with some of these poor fellows, for whom I could not help feeling a +kind of human sympathy, though I am as venomous a hater of the Rebellion +as one is like to find under the stars and stripes. It is fair to take +a man prisoner. It is fair to make speeches to a man. But to take a man +prisoner and then make speeches to him while in durance is _not_ fair. + +I began a few pleasant conversations, which would have come to something +but for the reason assigned. + +One old fellow had a long beard, a drooping eyelid, and a black clay +pipe in his mouth. He was a Scotchman from Ayr, _dour_ enough, and +little disposed to be communicative, though I tried him with the "Twa +Briggs," and, like all Scotchmen, he was a reader of "Burrns." He +professed to feel no interest in the cause for which he was fighting, +and was in the army, I judged, only from compulsion. There was a +wild-haired, unsoaped boy, with pretty, foolish features enough, who +looked as if he might be about seventeen, as he said he was. I give my +questions and his answers literally. + +"What State do you come from?" + +"Georgy." + +"What part of Georgia?" + +"_Midway_." + +--[How odd that is! My father was settled for seven years as pastor +over the church at Midway, Georgia, and this youth is very probably a +grandson or great-grandson of one of his parishioners.]-- + +"Where did you go to church, when you were at home?" + +"Never went inside 'f a church b't once in m' life." + +"What did you do before you became a soldier?" + +"Nothin'." + +"What do you mean to do when you get back?" + +"Nothin'." + +Who could have any other feeling than pity for this poor human weed, +this dwarfed and etiolated soul, doomed by neglect to an existence but +one degree above that of the idiot? + +With the group was a lieutenant, buttoned close in his gray coat,--one +button gone, perhaps to make a breastpin for some fair traitorous bosom. +A short, stocky man, undistinguishable from one of the "subject race" by +any obvious meanderings of the _sangre azul_ on his exposed surfaces. He +did not say much, possibly because he was convinced by the statements +and arguments of the Dutch captain. He had on strong, iron-heeled shoes, +of English make, which he said cost him seventeen dollars in Richmond. + +I put the question, in a quiet, friendly way, to several of the +prisoners, what they were fighting for. One answered, "For our homes." +Two or three others said they did not know, and manifested great +indifference to the whole matter, at which another of their number, a +sturdy fellow, took offence, and muttered opinions strongly derogatory +to those who would not stand up for the cause they had been fighting +for. A feeble, attenuated old man, who wore the Rebel uniform, if such +it could be called, stood by without showing any sign of intelligence. +It was cutting very close to the bone to carve such a shred of humanity +from the body-politic to make a soldier of. + +We were just leaving, when a face attracted me, and I stopped the party. +"That is the true Southern type," I said to my companion. A young +fellow, a little over twenty, rather tall, slight, with a perfectly +smooth, boyish cheek, delicate, somewhat high features, and a fine, +almost feminine mouth, stood at the opening of his tent, and as we +turned towards him fidgeted a little nervously with one hand at the +loose canvas, while he seemed at the same time not unwilling to talk. He +was from Mississippi, he said, had been, at Georgetown College, and was +so far imbued with letters that even the name of the literary humility +before him was not new to his ears. Of course I found it easy to come +into magnetic relation with him, and to ask him without incivility +what _he_ was fighting for. "Because I like the excitement of it," he +answered.--I know those fighters with women's mouths and boys' cheeks; +one such from the circle of my own friends, sixteen years old, slipped +away from his nursery and dashed in under an assumed name among the +red-legged Zouaves, in whose company he got an ornamental bullet-mark in +one of the earliest conflicts of the war. + +"Did you ever see a genuine Yankee?" said my Philadelphia friend to the +young Mississippian. + +"I have shot at a good many of them," he replied, modestly, his woman's +mouth stirring a little, with a pleasant, dangerous smile. + +The Dutch captain here put his foot into the conversation, as his +ancestors used to put theirs into the scale, when they were buying furs +of the Indians by weight,--so much for the weight of a hand, so much for +the weight of a foot. It deranged the balance of our intercourse; there +was no use in throwing a fly where a paving-stone had just splashed into +the water, and I nodded a good-bye to the boy-fighter, thinking how +much pleasanter it was for my friend the Captain to address him with +unanswerable arguments and crushing statements in his own tent than +it would be to meet him on some remote picket and offer his fair +proportions to the quick eye of a youngster who would draw a bead on him +before he had time to say _dunder and blixum_. + +We drove back to the town. No message. After dinner still no message. +Dr. Cuyler, Chief Army-Hospital Inspector, is in town, they say. Let us +hunt him up,--perhaps he can help us. + +We found him at the Jones House. A gentleman of large proportions, but +of lively temperament, his frame knit in the North, I think, but +ripened in Georgia, incisive, prompt, but good-humored, wearing his +broad-brimmed, steeple-crowned felt hat with the least possible tilt on +one side,--a sure sign of exuberant vitality in a mature and dignified +person like him,--business-like in his ways, and not to be interrupted +while occupied with another, but giving himself up heartily to the +claimant who held him for the time. He was so genial, so cordial, so +encouraging, that it seemed as if the clouds, which had been thick all +the morning, broke away as we came into his presence, and the sunshine +of his large nature filled the air all around us. He took the matter in +hand at once, as if it were his own private affair. In ten minutes he +had a second telegraphic message on its way to Mrs. K--at Hagerstown, +sent through the Government channel from the State Capitol,--one so +direct and urgent that I should be sure of an answer to it, whatever +became of the one I had sent in the morning. + +While this was going on, we hired a dilapidated barouche, driven by an +odd young native, neither boy nor man, "as a codling when 'tis almost an +apple," who said _wery_ for very, simple and sincere, who smiled faintly +at our pleasantries, always with a certain reserve of suspicion, and a +gleam of the shrewdness that all men get who live in the atmosphere of +horses. He drove us round by the Capitol grounds, white with tents, +which were disgraced in my eyes by unsoldierly scrawls in huge letters, +thus: THE SEVEN BLOOMSBURY BROTHERS, DEVIL'S HOLE, and similar +inscriptions. Then to the Beacon Street of Harrisburg, which looks +upon the Susquehanna instead of the Common, and shows a long front of +handsome houses with fair gardens. The river is pretty nearly a mile +across here, but very shallow now. The codling told us that a Rebel spy +had been caught trying its fords a little while ago, and was now at Camp +Curtin with a heavy ball chained to his leg,--a popular story, but a +lie, Dr. Wilson said. A little farther along we came to the barkless +stump of the tree to which Mr. Harris, the Cecrops of the city named +after him, was tied by the Indians for some unpleasant operation of +scalping or roasting, when he was rescued by friendly savages, who +paddled across the stream to save him. Our youngling pointed out a very +respectable-looking stone house as having been "built by the Indians" +about those times. Guides have queer notions occasionally. + +I was at Niagara just when Dr. Rae arrived there with his companions and +dogs and things from his Arctic search after the lost navigator. + +"Who are those?" I said to my conductor. + +"Them?" he answered. "Them's the men that's been out West, out to +Michig'n, aft' _Sir Ben Franklin_." + +Of the other sights of Harrisburg the Brant House or Hotel, or whatever +it is called, seems most worth notice. Its _facade_ is imposing, with a +row of stately columns, high above which a broad sign impends, like a +crag over the brow of a lofty precipice. The lower floor only appeared +to be open to the public. Its tessellated pavement and ample courts +suggested the idea of a temple where great multitudes might kneel +uncrowded at their devotions; but, from appearances about the place +where the altar should be, I judged, that, if one asked the officiating +priest for the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, his prayer +would not be unanswered. The edifice recalled to me a similar phenomenon +I had once looked upon,--the famous Caffe Pedrocchi at Padua. It was the +same thing in Italy and America: a rich man builds himself a mausoleum, +and calls it a place of entertainment. The fragrance of innumerable +libations and the smoke of incense-breathing cigars and pipes shall +ascend day and night through the arches of his funeral monument. What +are the poor dips which flare and flicker on the crowns of spikes that +stand at the corners of St. Genevieve's filigree-cased sarcophagus to +this perpetual offering of sacrifice? + +Ten o'clock in the evening was approaching. The telegraph-office would +presently close, and as yet there were no tidings from Hagerstown. Let +us step over and see for ourselves. A message! A message! + +"_Captain H still here leaves seven to-morrow for Harrisburg Penna Is +doing well + +Mrs H K_ ----." + +A note from Dr. Cuyler to the same effect came soon afterwards to the +hotel. + +We shall sleep well to-night; but let us sit awhile with nubiferous, or, +if we may coin a word, nepheligenous accompaniment, such as shall gently +narcotize the over-wearied brain and fold its convolutions for slumber +like the leaves of a lily at nightfall. For now the over-tense nerves +are all unstraining themselves, and a buzz, like that which comes over +one who stops after being long jolted upon an uneasy pavement, makes +the whole frame alive with a luxurious languid sense of all its inmost +fibres. Our cheerfulness ran over, and the mild, pensive clerk was +so magnetized by it that he came and sat down with us. He presently +confided to me, with infinite _naivete_ and ingenuousness, that, judging +from my personal appearance, he should not have thought me the writer +that he in his generosity reckoned me to be. His conception, so far as +I could reach it, involved a huge, uplifted forehead, embossed with +protuberant organs of the intellectual faculties, such as all writers +are supposed to possess in abounding measure. While I fell short of his +ideal in this respect, he was pleased to say that he found me by no +means the remote and inaccessible personage he had imagined, and that I +had nothing of the dandy about me, which last compliment I had a modest +consciousness of most abundantly deserving. + +Sweet slumbers brought us to the morning of Thursday. The train from +Hagerstown was due at 11.15 A.M. We took another ride behind the +codling, who showed us the sights of yesterday over again. Being in +a gracious mood of mind, I enlarged on the varying aspects of the +town-pumps and other striking objects which we had once inspected, as +seen by the different lights of evening and morning. After this, we +visited the school-house hospital. A fine young fellow, whose arm had +been shattered, was just falling into the spasms of lockjaw. The beads +of sweat stood large and round on his flushed and contracted features. +He was under the effect of opiates,--why not (if his case was desperate, +as it seemed to be considered) stop his sufferings with chloroform? It +was suggested that it might _shorten life_. "What then?" I said. "Are a +dozen additional spasms worth living for?" + +The time approached for the train to arrive from Hagerstown, and we went +to the station. I was struck, while waiting there, with what seemed to +me a great want of care for the safety of the people standing round. +Just after my companion and myself had stepped off the track, I noticed +a car coming quietly along at a walk, as one may say, without engine, +without visible conductor, without any person heralding its approach, so +silently, so insidiously, that I could not help thinking how very near +it came to flattening out me and my match-box worse than the Ravel +pantomimist and his snuff-box were flattened out in the play. The train +was late,--fifteen minutes, half an hour late,--and I began to get +nervous, lest something had happened. While I was looking for it, +out started a freight-train, as if on purpose to meet the cars I was +expecting, for a grand smash-up. I shivered at the thought, and asked +an _employe_ of the road, with whom I had formed an acquaintance a few +minutes old, why there should not be a collision of the expected train +with this which was just going out. He smiled an official smile, and +answered that they arranged to prevent that, or words to that effect. + +Twenty-four hours had not passed from that moment when a collision did +occur, just out of the city, where I feared it, by which at least eleven +persons were killed, and from forty to sixty more were maimed and +crippled! + +To-day there was the delay spoken of, but nothing worse. The expected +train came in so quietly that I was almost startled to see it on the +track. Let us walk calmly through the cars, and look around us. + +In the first car, on the fourth seat to the right, I saw my Captain; +there saw I him, even my first-born, whom I had sought through many +cities. + +"How are you, Boy?" + +"How are you, Dad?" + + * * * * * + +Such are the proprieties of life, as they are observed among us +Anglo-Saxons of the nineteenth century, decently disguising those +natural impulses that made Joseph, the Prime-Minister of Egypt, weep +aloud so that the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard,--nay, which +had once overcome his shaggy old uncle Esau so entirely that he fell +on his brother's neck and cried like a baby in the presence of all the +women. But the hidden cisterns of the soul may be filling fast with +sweet tears, while the windows through which it looks are undimmed by a +drop or a film of moisture. + +These are times in which we cannot live solely for selfish joys or +griefs. I had not let fall the hand I held, when a sad, calm voice +addressed me by name. I fear that at the moment I was too much absorbed +in my own feelings; for certainly at any other time I should have +yielded myself without stint to the sympathy which this meeting might +well call forth. + +"You remember my son, Cortland Saunders, whom I brought to see you once +in Boston?" + +"I do remember him well." + +"He was killed on Monday, at Shepherdstown. I am carrying his body back +with me on this train. He was my only child. If you could come to my +house,--I can hardly call it my home now,--it would be a pleasure to +me." + +This young man, belonging in Philadelphia, was the author of a "New +System of Latin Paradigms," a work showing extraordinary scholarship and +capacity. It was this book which first made me acquainted with him, and +I kept him in my memory, for there was genius in the youth. Some time +afterwards he came to me with a modest request to be introduced to +President Felton, and one or two others, who would aid him in a course +of independent study he was proposing to himself. I was most happy to +smooth the way for him, and he came repeatedly after this to see me and +express his satisfaction in the opportunities for study he enjoyed +at Cambridge. He was a dark, still, slender person, always with a +trance-like remoteness, a mystic dreaminess of manner, such as I never +saw in any other youth. Whether he heard with difficulty, or whether his +mind reacted slowly on an alien thought, I could not say; but his answer +would often be behind time, and then a vague, sweet smile, or a few +words spoken under his breath, as if he had been trained in sick men's +chambers. For such a youth, seemingly destined for the inner life of +contemplation, to be a soldier seemed almost unnatural. Yet he spoke to +me of his intention to offer himself to his country, and his blood must +now be reckoned among the precious sacrifices which will make her soil +sacred forever. Had he lived, I doubt not that he would have redeemed +the rare promise of his earlier years. He has done better, for he has +died that unborn generations may attain the hopes held out to our nation +and to mankind. + +So, then, I had been within ten miles of the place where my wounded +soldier was lying, and then calmly turned my back upon him to come once +more round by a journey of three or four hundred miles to the same +region I had left! No mysterious attraction warned me that the heart +warm with the same blood as mine was throbbing so near my own. I thought +of that lovely, tender passage where Gabriel glides unconsciously by +Evangeline upon the great river. Ah, me! if that railroad-crash had been +a few hours earlier, we two should never have met again, after coming so +close to each other! + +The source of my repeated disappointments was soon made clear enough. +The Captain had gone to Hagerstown, intending to take the cars at once +for Philadelphia, as his three friends actually did do, and as I took it +for granted he certainly would. But as he walked languidly along, some +ladies saw him across the street, and seeing, were moved with pity, +and pitying, spoke such soft words that he was tempted to accept their +invitation and rest awhile beneath their hospitable roof. The mansion +was old, as the dwellings of gentlefolks should be; the ladies were some +of them young, and all were full of kindness; there were gentle cares, +and unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music-sprinklings from the +piano, with a sweet voice to keep them company,--and all this after the +swamps of the Chickahominy, the mud and flies of Harrison's Landing, the +dragging marches, the desperate battles, the fretting wound, the jolting +ambulance, the log-house, and the rickety milk--cart! Thanks, uncounted +thanks to the angelic ladies whose charming attentions detained him +from Saturday to Thursday, to his great advantage and my infinite +bewilderment! As for his wound, how could it do otherwise than well +under such hands? The bullet had gone smoothly through, dodging +everything but a few nervous branches, which would come right in time +and leave him as well as ever. + +At ten that evening we were in Philadelphia, the Captain at the house of +the friends so often referred to, and I the guest of Charley, my kind +companion. The Quaker element gives an irresistible attraction to these +benignant Philadelphia households. Many things reminded me that I was no +longer in the land of the Pilgrims. On the table were _Kool Slaa_ and +_Schmeer Kase_, but the good grandmother who dispensed with such quiet, +simple grace these and more familiar delicacies was literally ignorant +of _Baked Beans_, and asked if it was the Lima bean which was employed +in that marvellous dish of animalized leguminous farina! + +Charley was pleased with my comparing the face of the small Ethiop known +to his household as "Tines" to a huckleberry with features. He also +approved my parallel between a certain German blonde young maiden whom, +we passed in the street and the "Morris White" peach. But he was so +good-humored at times, that, if one scratched a lucifer, he accepted it +as an illumination. + +A day in Philadelphia left a very agreeable impression of the outside of +that great city, which has endeared itself so much of late to all the +country by its most noble and generous care of our soldiers. Measured by +its sovereign hotel, the Continental, it would stand at the head of our +economic civilization. It provides for the comforts and conveniences, +and many of the elegances of life, more satisfactorily than any American +city, perhaps than any other city anywhere. It is not a breeding-place +of ideas, which makes it a more agreeable residence for average people. +It is the great neutral centre of the Continent, where the fiery +enthusiasms of the South and the keen fanaticisms of the North meet at +their outer limits, and result in a compound that turns neither litmus +red nor turmeric brown. It lives largely on its traditions, of which, +leaving out Franklin and Independence Hall, the most imposing must +be considered its famous water-works. In my younger days I visited +Fairmount, and it was with a pious reverence that I renewed my +pilgrimage to that perennial fountain. Its watery ventricles were +throbbing with the same systole and diastole as when, the blood of +twenty years bounding in my own heart, I looked upon their giant +mechanism. But in the place of "Pratt's Garden" was an open park, and +the old house where Robert Morris held his court in a former generation +was changing to a public restaurant. A suspension-bridge cobwebbed +itself across the Schuylkill where that audacious arch used to leap the +river at a single bound,--an arch of greater span, as they loved to tell +us, than was ever before constructed. The Upper Ferry Bridge was to the +Schuylkill what the Colossus was to the harbor of Rhodes. It had an air +of dash about it which went far towards redeeming the dead level of +respectable average which flattens the physiognomy of the rectangular +city. Philadelphia will never be herself again until another Robert +Mills and another Lewis Wernwag have shaped her a new palladium. She +must leap the Schuylkill again, or old men will sadly shake their heads, +like the Jews at the sight of the second temple, remembering the glories +of that which it replaced. + +There are times when Ethiopian minstrelsy can amuse, if it does not +charm, a weary soul,--and such a vacant hour there was on this same +Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. +As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to +cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window +a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange +intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. +I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was +irresistibly droll, and Areturus, or Aldebaran, or whatever the +blazing luminary may have been, with all his revolving worlds, sailed +uncared-for down the firmament. + +On Saturday morning we took up our line of march for New York. Mr. +Felton, President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore +Railroad, had already called upon me, with a benevolent and sagacious +look on his face which implied that he knew how to do me a service and +meant to do it. Sure enough, when we got to the depot, we found a couch +spread for the Captain, and both of us were passed on to New York with +no visits, but those of civility, from the conductor. The best thing I +saw on the route was a rustic fence, near Elizabethtown, I think, but I +am not quite sure. There was more genius in it than in any structure of +the kind I have ever seen,--each length being of a special pattern, +ramified, reticulated, contorted, as the limbs of the trees had grown. I +trust some friend will photograph or stereograph this fence for me, to +go with the view of the spires of Frederick already referred to, as +mementos of my journey. + +I had come to feeling that I know most of the respectably dressed people +whom I met in the cars, and had been in contact with them at some time +or other. Three or four ladies and gentlemen were near us, forming +a group by themselves. Presently one addressed me by name, and, on +inquiry, I found him to be the gentleman who was with me in the pulpit +as Orator on the occasion of another Phi Beta Kappa poem, one delivered +at New Haven. The party were very courteous and friendly, and +contributed in various ways to our comfort. + +It sometimes seems to me as if there were only about a thousand people +in the world, who keep going round and round behind the scenes and then +before them, like the "army" in a beggarly stage-show. Suppose I should +really wish, some time or other, to get away from this everlasting +circle of revolving supernumeraries, where should I buy a ticket the +like of which was not in some of their pockets, or find a seat to which +some one of them was not a neighbor? + +A little less than a year before, after the Ball's-Bluff accident, the +Captain, then the Lieutenant, and myself had reposed for a night on our +homeward journey at the Fifth-Avenue Hotel, where we were lodged on the +ground-floor, and fared sumptuously. We were not so peculiarly fortunate +this time, the house being really very full. Farther from the flowers +and nearer to the stars,--to reach the neighborhood of which last the +_per ardua_ of three or four flights of stairs was formidable for any +mortal, wounded or well. The "vertical railway" settled that for us, +however. It is a giant corkscrew forever pulling a mammoth cork, which, +by some divine judgment, is no sooner drawn than it is replaced in its +position. This ascending and descending stopper is hollow, carpeted, +with cushioned seats, and is watched over by two condemned souls, +called conductors, one of whom is said to be named Ixion, and the other +Sisyphus. + +I love New York, because, as in Paris, everybody that lives in it feels +that it is his property,--at least, as much as it is anybody's. My +Broadway, in particular, I love almost as I used to love my Boulevards. + +I went, therefore, with peculiar interest, on the day that we rested at +our grand hotel, to visit some new pleasure-grounds the citizens had +been arranging for us, and which I had not yet seen. The Central Park +is an expanse of wild country, well crumpled so as to form ridges which +will give views and hollows that will hold water. The hips and elbows +and other bones of Nature stick out here and there in the shape of rocks +which give character to the scenery, and an unchangeable, unpurchasable +look to a landscape that without them would have been in danger of being +fattened by art and money out of all its native features. The roads were +fine, the sheets of water beautiful, the bridges handsome, the swans +elegant in their deportment, the grass green and as short as a fast +horse's winter coat. I could not learn whether it was kept so by +clipping or singeing. I was delighted with my new property,--but it +cost me four dollars to get there, so far was it beyond the Pillars of +Hercules of the fashionable quarter. What it will be by-and-by depends +on circumstances; but at present it is as much central to New York +as Brookline is central to Boston. The question is not between Mr. +Olmsted's admirably arranged, but remote pleasure-ground and our Common, +with its batrachian pool, but between his Eccentric Park and our finest +suburban scenery, between its artificial reservoirs and the broad +natural sheet of Jamaica Pond, I say this not invidiously, but in +justice to the beauties which surround our own metropolis. To compare +the situations of any dwellings in either of the great cities with those +which look upon the Common, the Public Garden, the waters of the Back +Bay, would be to take an unfair advantage of Fifth Avenue and Walnut +Street. St. Botolph's daughter dresses in plainer clothes than her +more stately sisters, but she wears an emerald on her right hand and a +diamond on her left that Cybele herself need not be ashamed of. + +On Monday morning, the twenty-ninth of September, we took the cars for +_Home_. Vacant lots, with Irish and pigs; vegetable-gardens; straggling +houses; the high bridge; villages, not enchanting; then Stamford; then +NORWALK. Here, on the 6th of May, 1853, I passed close on the heels of +the great disaster. But that my lids were heavy on that morning, my +readers would probably have had no further trouble with me. Two of my +friends saw the car in which they rode break in the middle and leave +them hanging over the abyss. From Norwalk to Boston, that day's journey +of two hundred miles was a long funeral-procession. + +Bridgeport, waiting for Iranistan to rise from its ashes with all its +phoenix-egg domes,--bubbles of wealth that broke, ready to be blown +again, iridescent as ever, which is pleasant, for the world likes +cheerful Mr. Barnum's success; New Haven, girt with flat marshes that +look like monstrous billiard-tables, with haycocks lying about for +balls,--romantic with West Rock and its legends,--cursed with a +detestable depot, whose niggardly arrangements crowd the track so +murderously close to the wall that the _peine forte et dure_ must be the +frequent penalty of an innocent walk on its platform,--with its neat +carriages, metropolitan hotels, precious old college-dormitories, +its vistas of elms and its dishevelled weeping-willows; Hartford, +substantial, well-bridged, many-steepled city,--every conical spire an +extinguisher of some nineteenth-century heresy; so onward, by and across +the broad, shallow Connecticut,--dull red road and dark river woven +in like warp and woof by the shuttle of the darting engine; then +Springfield, the wide-meadowed, well-feeding, horse-loving, +hot-summered, giant-treed town,--city among villages, village +among cities; Worcester, with its Diedalian labyrinth of crossing +railroad-bars, where the snorting Minotaurs, breathing fire and smoke +and hot vapors, are stabled in their dens; Framingham, fair cup-bearer, +leaf-cinctured Hebe of the deep-bosomed Queen sitting by the sea-side on +the throne of the Six Nations. And now I begin to know the road, not by +towns, but by single dwellings, not by miles, but by rods. The poles of +the great magnet that draws in all the iron tracks through the grooves +of all the mountains must be near at hand, for here are crossings, and +sudden stops, and screams of alarmed engines heard all around. The tall +granite obelisk comes into view far away on the left, its bevelled +capstone sharp against the sky; the lofty chimneys of Charlestown and +East Cambridge flaunt their smoky banners up in the thin air; and now +one fair bosom of the three-hilled city, with its dome-crowned summit, +reveals itself, as when many-breasted Ephesian Artemis appeared with +half-open _chlamys_ before her worshippers. + +Fling open the window-blinds of the chamber that looks out on the waters +and towards the western sun! Let the joyous light shine in upon the +pictures that hang upon its walls and the shelves thick-set with the +names of poets and philosophers and sacred teachers, in whose pages our +boys learn that life is noble only when it is held cheap by the side of +honor and of duty. Lay him in his own bed, and let him sleep off his +aches and weariness. So comes down another night over this household, +unbroken by any messenger of evil tidings,--a night of peaceful rest and +grateful thoughts; for this our son and brother was dead and is alive +again, and was lost and is found. + + + + +WAITING. + + + Drop, falling fruits and crisped leaves! + Ye tone a note of joy to me; + Through the rough wind my soul sails free, + nigh over waves that Autumn heaves. + + Such quickening is in Nature's death, + Such life in every dying day,-- + The glowing year hath lost her sway, + Since Freedom waits her parting breath. + + I watch the crimson maple-boughs, + I know by heart each burning leaf, + Yet would that like a barren reef + Stripped to the breeze those arms uprose! + + Under the flowers my soldier lies! + But come, thou chilling pall of snow, + Lest he should hear who sleeps below + The yet unended captive cries! + + Fade swiftly, then, thou lingering year! + Test with the storms our eager powers; + For chains are broken with the hours, + And Freedom walks upon thy bier. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Eyes and Ears_. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, pp. +419. + +There is perhaps no man in America more widely known, more deeply loved, +and more heartily hated than the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. This +little book, fragmentary and desultory as it is, gives us a key +wherewith to unlock the mystery both of the extent of his influence and +the depth of the feelings which he excites. It is but a shower of petals +flung down by a frolicsome May breeze; but the beauty and brilliancy +of their careless profusion furnish a hint of the real strength and +substance and fruitfulness of the tree from which they sprang. + +Within the compass of some four hundred pages we have about one hundred +articles, most of which had previously appeared in weekly newspapers. +They embrace, of course, every variety of subject,--grave and gay, +practical and poetical. They are not such themes as come to a man +in silence and solitude, to be wrought out with deep and deliberate +conscientiousness; they are rather such as He around one in his outgoing +and his incoming, in the field and by the way-side, overlooked by the +preoccupied multitude, but abundantly patent to the few who will not +permit the memories or the hopes of life to thrust away its actualities, +and, once pointed out, full of interest and amusement even to the +absorbed and hitherto unconscious throngs. We have here no pale-browed, +far-sighted philosopher, but a ruddy-faced, high-spirited man, +cheerful-tempered, yet not _equilibrious_, susceptible to annoyance, +capable of wrathful outbursts, with eyes to see all sweet sights, ears +to hear all sweet sounds, and lips to sing their loveliness to others, +and also with eyes and ears and lips just as keen to distinguish and +just as hold to denounce the sights and sounds that are unlovely;--and +this man, with his ringing laugh and his springing step, walks cheerily +to and fro in his daily work, striking the rocks here and there by the +way-side with his bright steel hammer, eliciting a shower of sparks from +each, and then on to the next. It is not the serious business of his +life, but its casual and almost careless experiments. He does not wait +to watch effects. You may gather up the brushwood and build yourself +a fire, if you like. His part of the affair is but a touch and go,-- +partly for love and partly for fun. + +There are places where a severer taste, or perhaps only a more careful +revision, would have changed somewhat. At times an exuberance of spirits +carries him to the very verge of coarseness, but this is rare and +exceptional. The fabric may be slightly ravelled at the ends and +slightly rough at the selvedge, but in the main it is fine and smooth +and lustrous as well as strong. A coarse nature carefully clipped and +sheared and fashioned down to the commonplace of conventionality will +often exhibit a negative refinement, while a mind of real and subtile +delicacy, but of rugged and irrepressible individuality, will +occasionally shoot out irregular and uncouth branches. Yet between the +symmetry of the one and the spontaneity of the other the choice cannot +be doubtful. We are not defending coarseness in any guise. It is always +to be assailed, and never to be defended. It is always a detriment, +and never an ornament. No excellence can justify it. No occasion can +palliate it. But coarseness is of two kinds,--one of the surface, and +one in the grain. The latter is pervading and irremediable. It touches +nothing which it does not deface. It makes all things common and +unclean. It grows more repulsive as the roundness of youth falls away +and leaves its harsh features more sharply outlined. But the other +coarseness is only the overgrowth of excellence,--the rankness of lusty +life. It is vigor run wild. It is a fault, but it is local and temporal. +Culture corrects it. As the mind matures, as experience accumulates, +as the vision enlarges, the coarseness disappears, and the rich and +healthful juices nourish instead a playful and cheerful serenity that +illumines strength with a softened light, that disarms opposition and +delights sympathy, that shines without dazzling and attracts without +offending. + +Here arises a fear lest the apologetic nature of our remarks may seem to +indicate a much greater need of apology than actually exists. We have +been led into this line of remark, not so much by a perusal of the +book under consideration, in which, indeed, there is very little, if +anything, to offend, as by the nature of the objections which we have +most frequently heard against this author's productions, both written +and spoken. We do not even confine ourselves to defence, but go farther, +and question whether the allegations of coarseness may not oftener +be the fault of the plaintiff than of the defendant. Is there not a +conventional standard of refinement which measures things by its own +arbitrary self, and finds material for displeasure in what is really +but a sincere and almost unconscious rendering of things as they exist? +There are facts which modern fastidiousness justly enough commands to he +wrapped around with graceful drapery before they shall have audience. +But do we not commit a trespass against virtue, when we demand the same +soft disguises to drape facts whose disguise is the worst immorality, +whose naked hideousness is the only decency, which must be seen +disgusting to warrant their being seen at all? So Mr. Beecher has been +censured for irreverence, when what was called his irreverence has +seemed to us but the tenderness engendered of close connection. Cannot +one live so near to God as that His greatness shall he merged in His +goodness? What would be irreverence, if it came from the head, may be +but love springing up warm from the heart. + +One of the strongest characteristics of Mr. Beecher's mind, the one that +has, perhaps, the strongest influence in producing his power over men, +is his quick insight into common things, his quick sympathy with common +minds. He knows common dangers. He understands common interests. He +is sensitive to common sorrows. He appreciates common joys. Without +necessarily being practical himself, he is full of practical +suggestions. He is a leveller; but he levels up, not down. He +continually seeks to lift men from the plane of mere toil and thrift to +the loftier levels of aspiration. He would disinthrall them from what is +low, and introduce them to the freedom of the heights. He would bring +them out of the dungeons of the senses into the domains of taste and +principles. He believes in man, and he battles for men. With him, +humanity is chief: science, art, wealth are its handmaidens. Yet, +writing for ordinary people, he never falls into the sin of declaiming +against extraordinary ones. No part of his power over the poor is +obtained by inveighing against the rich, as no part of his power over +the rich is obtained by pandering to their prejudices or their passions. +He builds up no influence for himself on the ruins of another man's +influence. The elevation which he aims to produce is real, not +factitious,--absolute, not relative. It is the elevation to be obtained +by ascending the mountain, not by digging it away so that the valley +seems no longer low by contrast. + +For the manner of his teaching, he is not always gentle, but he is +always sincere. He speaks soft words to persuade; but if that is not +enough, he does not scruple to knock the muck-rake out of sordid hands +with a fine, sudden stroke, if so he may make men look up from the +rubbish under their feet to the flowers that bloom around them and the +stars that glow above and the God that reigns over all. + +Thinking of the multitudes of hard-working, weary-hearted people whom he +weekly met with these words of cheer: sometimes homely advice on homely +things; sometimes wise counsels in art; sometimes tender lessons from +Nature; sometimes noble words from his own earnest soul; sometimes +sympathy in sorrow; sometimes strength in weakness; sometimes only the +indirect, but real help that comes from the mere distraction wrought +by his sportiveness, and wild, winsome mirth; but all kindly, hearty, +honest, sympathetic,--indignation softening, even while it surges, +into pity and love, and itself finding or framing excuses for the very +outrage which it lashes: thinking of this, we do not marvel that he has +furrowed for himself so deep a groove in so many hearts. Nor, on the +other hand, is it difficult to see, even from so genial a book as this, +whence polemics are not so much banished as where there is no niche for +them, should they apply, why it is that he is so fiercely opposed. +When a man like Mr. Beecher encounters that which excites his moral +disapprobation, there is no possibility of mistaking him. He flings +himself against it with all the strength and might of his manly, +uncompromising nature. There is no coquetting with the proprieties, no +toning down of objurgation to meet the requirements of personal dignity, +but an audacious and aggressive repugnance of the whole man to the +meanness or malignity. And the very clearness of his vision gives +terrible power to his vituperation. With his keen, bright eye he sees +just where the vulnerable spot is, and with his firm, strong hand he +sends the arrow in. The victim writhes and reels and--does not love the +marksman. And as the victim has a large circle of relatives by birth and +marriage, he inoculates them with his own animosity; and so, at a safe +distance, Mr. Beecher is sometimes considerably torn in pieces. Yet we +have no doubt that by far the greater number of these opponents would, +if once fairly brought within the circle of his influence, acknowledge +the truth as well as the force of his principles; and certainly it is a +matter of surprise that a man with such a magnificent mastery of all the +weapons of attack and defence should be so sparing and discreet in their +use as is Mr. Beecher. In this book, compiled of articles thrown off +upon the spur of the moment, with so much to amuse, to awaken, to +suggest, and to inspire, there is hardly a sentence which can arouse +antagonism or inflict pain. You may not agree with his conclusions, but +you cannot resist his good nature. + +Long may he live to do yeoman's service in the cause of the beautiful +and the true! + + +_History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France from +A.D. 1807 to A.D. 1814._ By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W.F.P. NAPIER, K.C.B., +etc. In Five Volumes, with Portraits and Plans. New York: W.J. +Widdleton. + +A new edition of the great military history of Sir William Napier, +printed in the approved luxurious style which the good examples of the +Cambridge University Press have made a necessity with all intelligent +book-purchasers, calls at the present time for a special word of +recognition. Of the merits and character of the work itself it is +scarcely required that we should speak. An observer of, and participant +in, the deeds which he describes, cautious, deliberate, keen-sighted, +candid, and unsparing, General Napier's book has qualities seldom united +in a single production. Southey wrote an eloquent history of the War in +the Peninsula, perhaps as good a history as an author well-trained in +compositions of the kind could be expected to produce at a distance. +But that was its defect. It lacked that knowledge and judgment of a +complicated series of events which could be acquired only on the field +and by one possessed of consummate military training. On the other hand, +we can seldom look for any laborious work of authorship from a general +in active service. Men of action exhaust their energies in doing, and +are usually impatient of the slow process of unwinding the tangled skein +of events which at the moment they had been compelled to cut with the +sword. It is by no means every campaign which furnishes the Commentaries +of its Caesar. To Sir William Napier, however, we are indebted for a +work which has taken its place as a model history of modern campaigning. +The protracted struggle of the Peninsular War through six full years +of skilful operations, conducted by the greatest masters of military +science, in a country whose topographical features called out the rarest +resources of the art of war, at a time when the military system of +Napoleon was at its height, summing up the experience of a quarter of +a century in France of active military pursuits,--the story of sieges, +marches, countermarches, lines of retreat and defence, followed by the +most energetic assaults, blended with the disturbing political elements +of the day at home and the contrarieties of the battle-field amidst a +population foreign to both armies,--certainly presented a subject or +series of subjects calculated to tax the powers of a conscientious +writer to the uttermost. To furnish such a narrative was the work +undertaken by General Napier. Sixteen years of unintermitted toil were +given by him to the task. He spared no labor of research. Materials were +placed at his disposal by the generals of both armies, by Soult and +Wellington. The correspondence left behind in Spain by Joseph Bonaparte, +written in three languages and partly in cipher of which the key had +to be discovered, was patiently arranged, translated, and at length +deciphered by Lady Napier, who also greatly assisted her husband in +copying his manuscript, which, from the frequent changes made, was in +effect transcribed three times. By such labors was the immense mass +of contemporary evidence brought into order, clearly narrated, and +submitted to exact scientific criticism. For it is the distinguishing +characteristic of the book, that it is a critical history, constantly +illuminating facts by principles and deducing the most important maxims +of political and military science from the abundant material lavishly +contributed by the virtues, follies, and superabundant exertions of +three great nations in the heart of Europe, in the midst of the complex +civilization of the nineteenth century. The ever earnest, animated style +in which all this is written grows out of the subject and is supported +by it, always rising naturally with the requirements of the occasion. If +our officers in the field would learn how despatches should be written +and a record of their exploits be prepared to catch the ear of +posterity, let them give their leisure hours of the camp to the study +of Napier. The public also may learn many lessons of patience and +philosophy from these pages, when they turn from the book to the actual +warfare writing its ineffaceable characters on so many fair fields of +our own land. + + +_The Patience of Hope_. By the Author of "A Present Heaven." With an +Introduction by JOHN G. WHITTIER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. + +As the method by which an individual soul reaches conclusions with +regard to the Saviour and the conditions of salvation, "The Patience of +Hope" is worthy of particular attention. It does not, however, stand +alone, but belongs to a class. Its peculiarity is that it proceeds +by apposite text and inference, more than by the illumination of +feeling,--aiming to convince rather than to reveal, as is the manner of +those whose convictions have not quite become as a star in a firmament +where neither eclipse nor cloud ever comes. Evidently there was a most +searching examination of the Scriptures preparatory to the work; and yet +the ample quotation, often fresh and felicitous, appears to be made to +sustain a preconceived opinion, or, more strictly, an emotion. This +emotion is so single and absorbing that there is some gleam of it in +each varying view, and every sentiment is warm with it, however the +flame may lurk as beneath a crust of lava. Only from a richly gifted +mind, and a heart whose longings no fullness of mortal affection has +power to permanently appease, could these aspirations issue. It is the +tender complaint and patient hope of one whom the earth, and all that +is therein, cannot satisfy. Moreover, so pure and irrepressible is the +natural desire of the heart, so does it color and constitute all +the dream of Paradise, that the divinest Hope not only thrills and +palpitates with Love's ripest imaginings, but puts on nuptial robes. +Touchingly she pictures herself as "The Mystic Spouse,--her that cometh +up from the wilderness, leaning upon the arm of her Beloved,--and we +shall see that she, like her Lord, is wounded in her heart, her hands, +and her feet." Though sowing in such still remembered pain, she yet +reaps with unspeakable joy. She has now the full assurance that the +mystic and immortal embrace is for her, and in the fulness of her heart +cries, "When were Love's arms stretched so wide as upon the Cross?" + +It is in keeping with such an aspiration that this and kindred natures +should perceive in Christianity the sacred mystery from which is to be +drawn, in the world to come, the full fruition of the tenderest and +most vital impulse of the human heart, and therefore to be most fitly +meditated and vividly anticipated in cloistered seclusion. Throughout +their revelations there is a yearning for Infinite Love; and ardent +receptivity is regarded as the true condition for the conception and +enjoyment of religion. It is clear that they have a passion, sublimated +and glorified indeed, but still a passion, for Christ. This is the +mightiest impulse to that exaltation of His person against which the +calm and consummate reasoner contends in vain. Truly we are fearfully +and wonderfully made! The soul is touched with the strong necessity of +loving; and its power becomes intense and inappeasable in proportion to +the capacity of the heart; and yet some of the greatest of those have +reposed so supremely in the innate and ineffable Ideal that to the +uninitiated they have seemed in their serenity as pulseless as pearls. +Through this sublime influence lovely women have become nuns, and +have lived and died saints, that they might continually indulge and +constantly cherish the blissful hope of being, in some spiritual form, +the brides of Jesus. A long line of these, coeval with the Crucifixion, +have passed on in maiden meditation, and so were fancy-free from all of +mortal mould. This ecstatic dreaming is so charming, and so insatiable +withal, that it seems to those who entertain it a divine vision. It is +an enchantment so complete that Reason cannot penetrate its circle, and +Logic has never approached it. Doubtless this fond aspiration finds +freest and fairest expression in the Roman Church,--a communion that not +only encourages, but enjoins, the adoration of the Virgin, in order that +certain enthusiasts among men may also aspire to the skies on the wings +of pure, yet passionate love. + +The ready objection to this course of life is that it leads to solitude. +It wins the devotee apart, and away from the influences to that +universal brotherhood whereto Philanthropy fondly turns as the finest +manifestation of the spirit of the Redeemer. And yet they are equally +the fruits of His coming. Without the perfect Man the sublimest +endurance and most marvellous aspiration of Hope would never have found +development below. Now it has become a power that so pervades the bosoms +of sects that they accept its soaring wing as one to which the heaven +of heavens is open. This, certainly, is the greatest triumph that human +nature has achieved over those who have systematically depreciated it; +inasmuch as it is a heightening, not a change of heart. Verily, Love is +stronger than Death; and in its complete presence or utter absence, +here or hereafter, there is and will be the extreme of bliss or bale. +Therefore it is in the affections to lead those sweetly and swiftly +heavenward who singly seek the immortal way. So guided and inspired, it +cannot but be a charming path; for those who perpetually walk therein +come to look as though they were entranced with the perfume that +floats from fields of asphodel. Characters so developed are beautiful +exceedingly, and seem of a far higher strain than those who most +generously and effectively labor for the amelioration and moral +advancement of the race. They, more than any others who have riches +there, illumine the grand, yet gloomy arches of the Christian Church +with their ineffable whiteness. No preacher therein is so eloquent as +their marble silence; for they reveal in their countenances the mystery +of Redemption. Even while among the living, men looked upon them with +awe,--feeling, that, though coeval in time, infinite space rolled +between. They teach as no other order of teachers can, that the days and +duties of life may be so cast under foot as to exalt one to be only a +little lower than the angels. In fine, through them is made visible the +value of the individual soul; and thus we see, as in the central idea of +our author, that "that which moulds itself from within is free." + + +_Jenkins's Vest-Pocket Lexicon_. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. + +Compared with "Webster's Unabridged" or "Worcester's Quarto," this +little pinch of words would make "small show." It is, however, a very +valuable pocket-companion; for, to use the author's own phrase, it +"omits what everybody knows, contains what everybody wants to know and +cannot readily find." It is really a _vade-mecum_, small, cheap, and +useful to a degree no one can fully appreciate until it has been +thoroughly tried. Mr. Jabex Jenkins may claim younger-brotherhood with +the men who have done service in the important department of education +he has chosen to enter. + + +_A Practical Guide to the Study of the Diseases of the Eye; their +Medical and Surgical Treatment_. By HENRY W. WILLIAMS, M.D. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 317. + +If we readily accord our gratitude to those whose skilful hands and +well-instructed judgment render us physical service in our frequent +need, ought we not to offer additional thanks to such as by the +high tribute of their mental efforts confirm and elucidate the more +mechanical processes required in doing their beneficent work? + +Do those who enjoy unimpaired vision, and who have not yet experienced +the sufferings arising from any of the varied forms of ocular disease, +appreciate the magnitude of the blessing vouchsafed to them? We venture +to answer in the negative. + +Occasionally, the traveller by railway has a more or less severe hint +as to what an inflamed and painful eye may bring him to endure: those +countless flying cinders which blacken his garments and draw unsightly +lines upon his face with their slender charcoal-pencils do not always +leave him thus comparatively unharmed. Suppose one unluckily reaches the +eyeball just as the redness has faded from its sharp angles,--do we not +all know how the rest of that journey is one intolerable agony, unless +some fellow-traveller knows how to remove the offending substance? And +even then how the blistered, delicate surface yearns for a soothing +_douche_ of warm water,--perhaps not to be enjoyed for hours! + +From slighter troubles, through all the more serious and dangerous +states arising from injury or produced by spontaneous or specifically +aroused inflammation, to the wonderful operations devised to give sight, +when the clear and beautiful lens has become clouded, or the delicate +muscular meshes of the iris are bound down or drawn together so as to +close the pupil and shut out the visible world, the learned and skilful +operator comes to our aid, a veritable messenger of mercy. To be +deprived of sight,--who can fully appreciate this melancholy condition, +save those who have been in danger of such a fate, or have had actual +experience of it, though only temporarily? Such a misfortune is +universally allowed to be worse, by far, than congenital blindness. And +this is not difficult to understand. The eyes that have been permitted +to drink in the varied hues of the landscape, and to gaze with such +delight upon the celestial revelations spread out nightly above and +around them, are indeed in double darkness when all this power and +privilege are swept away, it may be forever. The astronomer can truly +estimate the value of healthy eyes. + +In looking over again, after a thorough perusal some time since, the +admirable work which forms the theme of this notice, we could not +resist the impulse to call attention to the infinite uses, unbounded +importance, and inestimable value of the organs of vision; and we have +no fear but our postulate in regard to the manner in which we should all +prize their conservators will be heartily acceded to. + +This is hardly the place in which to enter into a minute professional +examination of this new volume. If we advert generally to its purpose, +and point out the undoubted benefits its recommendations and teaching +are destined to confer, both upon those who are sufferers,--or who will +be, unless they heed its warnings,--and upon the practitioners who +devote either an exclusive or a general attention to the diseases of the +eye, the end we have in view will be partially attained,--and fully so, +if the author's convincing instructions are brought into that universal +adoption which they not only eminently deserve, but must command. Let us +hope that the clear style, sensible advice, and valuable information, +derived from so varied an experience as that which has been enjoyed by +our author, will have a wide and growing influence in the extensive +field of professional ministrations demanded by this class of +cases,--for, let it be remembered, and reverently be it written, "THE +LIGHT OF THE BODY IS THE EYE." + +The distinctive aim of the author--and which is kept constantly in +view--is the simplifying both of the classification and the treatment +of the diseases of the eye. We know of no volume which could more +appropriately and beneficially be put into the hands of the medical +student, nor any which could meet a more appreciative welcome from +the busy practitioner. The former cannot, at the tender age of his +professional life, digest the ponderous masses of ocular lore which +adorn the shelves of the maturer student's library; and the latter, +while he is glad to have these elaborate works at his command for +reference, is refreshed by a perusal of a few pages of the more +unpretending, but not less valuable _vade-mecum_. + +While the professional reader will peruse this book with pleasure as +well as profit, there are many points and paragraphs of great value to +everybody. We advise every one to look over these pages, and we promise +that many valuable hints will be gained in reference to the various +ailments and casualties which are constantly befalling the eye. It is +well in this world to become members of a Mutual-Assistance Society, and +help one another out of trouble as often as we can. In order to do this, +we must know how; and, in many cases, a little aid in mishaps such as +are likely to occur to the eye may prevent a vast deal of subsequent +injury and pain. + +We cannot but refer to the singular good sense of the author in +pressing upon his reader's attention the mischief so often wrought, +hitherto,--and we fear still frequently brought about,--by +_over-activity_ of treatment. Especially does this find its +exemplification in the care of traumatic injuries of the eye. Rashness +and heroic measures in these cases are as unfortunate for the patient as +are the well-meant efforts of friends, when a foreign substance has been +inserted into the ear or nose, or a needle broken off in the flesh: what +was at first an easily remedied matter becomes exceedingly difficult, +tedious, and painful, after various pokings, pushings, and squeezings. + +The author's experience in cases of cataract makes his observations upon +that affection as valuable as they are clear and to the purpose. The +same is true with regard to the use and abuse of spectacles. + +A short account of that interesting and most important instrument, the +Opthalmoscope, will command the attention of the general reader. + +Finally, we notice with peculiar satisfaction the elegant dress in which +the volume appears. A very marked feature of this is the agreeable tint +given to the paper, so much to be preferred to the glaring snowy white +which has been so long the rule with publishers everywhere. This is +especially befitting a volume whose object is the alleviation of ocular +distress, and we venture to say will meet with the commendation of every +reader. A similar shade was adopted, some time since, by the publishers +of "The Ophthalmic Hospital Reports," London, at the suggestion, we +think, of its accomplished editor, Mr. Streatfeild. + + +_Country Living and Country Thinking_. By GAIL HAMILTON. Boston: Ticknor +& Fields. 12mo. + +Our impression of this volume is that it contains some of the most +charming essays in American literature. The authoress, who chooses to +conceal her real name under the _alias_ of "Gail Hamilton," is not +only womanly, but a palpable individual among women. Both sex and +individuality are impressed on every page. + +That the hook is written by a woman is apparent by a thousand signs. +That it proceeds from a distinct and peculiar personality, as well as +from a fertile and vigorous intellect, is no less apparent. The writer +has evidently looked at life through her own eyes, and interpreted it +through her own experience. Her independence becomes at times a kind of +humorous tartness, and she finds fault most delightfully. So cant +and pretence, however cunningly disguised by accredited maxims and +accredited sentimentality, can for a moment deceive her sharp insight +or her fresh sensibility. This primitive power and originality are not +purchased by any sacrifice of the knowledge derived at second-hand +through books, for she is evidently a thoughtful and appreciative +student of the best literature; but they proceed from a nature so strong +that it cannot be overcome and submerged by the mental forces and food +it assimilates. + +Individuality implies will, and will always tends to wilfulness. The two +are harmonized in humor. Gail Hamilton is a humorist in her wilfulness, +and flashes suggestive thought and wisdom even in her most daring +caprices and eccentricities of individual whim. She is wild in +sentences, heretical in paragraphs, thoroughly orthodox in essays. +Her mind is really inclosed by the most rigid maxims of Calvinistic +theology, while, within that circle, it frisks and plays in the oddest +and wittiest freaks. A grave and religious earnestness is at the +foundation of her individuality, and she is so assured of this fact that +she can safely indulge in wilful gibes at pretension in all its most +conventionally sacred forms. This bright audacity is the perfection of +moral and intellectual health. No morbid nature, however elevated in +its sentiments, would dare to hazard such keen and free remarks as Gail +Hamilton scatters in careless profusion. + +When this intellectual caprice approaches certain definite limits, it is +edifying to witness the forty-person power of ethics and eloquence she +brings readily up to the rescue of the sentiments she at first seemed +bent on destroying. As her style throughout is that of brilliant, +animated, and cordial conversation, flexible to all the moods of the +quick mind it so easily and aptly expresses, the reader is somewhat +puzzled at times to detect the natural logic which regulates her +transitions from gay to grave, from individual perceptions to general +laws; but the geniality and heartiness which flood the whole book with +life and meaning soon reconcile him to the peculiar processes of the +intellect whose startling originality and freshness give him so much +pleasure. + +It would be unjust not to say that beneath all the fantastic play of her +wit and humor there is constantly discernible an earnest purpose. Sense +and sagacity are everywhere visible. The shrewdest judgments on ordinary +life and character are as abundant as the quaint fancies with which they +are often connected. But in addition to all that charms and informs, the +thoughtful reader will find much that elevates and invigorates. A noble +soul, contemptuous of everything mean and base, loving everything grand +and magnanimous, is the real life and inspiration of the book. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Union Speeches. Second Series. Delivered in England during the Present +American War. By George Francis Train. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & +Brothers. 8vo. paper, pp. 90. 25 cts. + +Out of his Head. A Romance. Edited by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. New York. +G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 226. $1.00. + +A Narrative of the Campaign of the First Rhode Island Regiment, in the +Spring and Summer of 1861. Illustrated with a Portrait and Map. By +Augustus Woodbury, Chaplain of the Regiment. Providence. S.S. Rider. +12mo. pp. 260. $1.00. + +The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. New York. Blakeman & Mason. 12mo. pp. 382. +$1.00. + +An English Grammar. By G.P. Quackenbos, A.M., Author of "Advanced Course +of Composition and Rhetoric," "A Natural Philosophy," etc. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 288. 63 cts. + +Like and Unlike. A Novel. By A.S. Roe, Author of "I've been Thinking," +etc. New York. G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 501. $1.25. + +Les Miserables. Saint Denis. A Novel. By Victor Hugo. Translated from +the Original French, by Charles E. Wilbour. New York. G.W. Carleton. +8vo. paper, pp. 184. 50 cts. + +Les Miserables. Jean Valjean. A Novel. By Victor Hugo. Translated from +the Original French, by Charles E. Wilbour. New York. G.W. Carleton. +8vo. pp. 165. $1.00. + +The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, By his Nephew, Pierre M. +Irving. Vol. II. New York. G.P. Putnam. 12mo. pp. 492. $1.50. + +The Lady's Almanac, for the Year 1863. Boston. George Coolidge. 18mo. +pp. 128. 25 cts. + +The Parish Will Case, in the Court of Appeals. The Statement of Facts, +and the Opinion of the Court. New York. D. 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Peterson & Brothers. +8vo. paper, pp. 152. 50 cts. + +Marrying for Money. A Tale of Real Life. By Mrs. Mackenzie Daniels. +Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 8vo. pp. 243. 50 cts. + +The Slave Power; its Character, Career, and Probable Designs: being an +Attempt to explain the Real Issues involved in the American Contest. By +J.E. Cairnes, M.A. New York. G.W. Carleton. 8vo. pp. 171. $1.00. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, +December, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 62 *** + +***** This file should be named 11159.txt or 11159.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/5/11159/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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