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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49,
+November, 1861, by Various
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2004  [eBook #11415]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 8, ISSUE
+49, NOVEMBER, 1861***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. VIII.--NOVEMBER, 1861.--NO. XLIX.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE SAND.
+
+  "Deduci superbo
+  Non humilis mulier triumpho."
+
+
+These words are applied by Horace to the great Cleopatra, whose heroic
+end he celebrates, even while exulting in her overthrow. We apply them
+to another woman of royal soul, who, capitulating with the world of her
+contemporaries, does not allow them the ignoble triumph of plundering
+the secrets of her life. They have long clamored at its gates, long
+shouted at its windows, in defamation and in glorification. Ready now
+for their admission, she lets the eager public in; but what they were
+most intent to find still eludes them. In the "Histoire de ma Vie" are
+the records of her parentage, birth, education. Here are detailed the
+subtile influences that aided or hindered Nature in one of her most
+lavish pieces of work; here are study, religion, marriage, maternity,
+authorship, friendship, travel, litigation: but the passionate loving
+woman, and whom she loved, are not here. To the world's triumph they
+belong not, and we honor the decency and self-respect which consign them
+to oblivion. Nor shall we endeavor to lift the veil which she has thus
+thrown over the most intimate portion of her private life. We will not
+ask any _Chronique Scandaleuse_, of which there are plenty, to supply
+any hiatus in the _dramatis personae_ of her life. We shall take her as
+she gives herself to us, bringing out the full significance of what she
+says, but not interpolating with it what other people say. For she has
+been generous in telling us all that it imports us most to know.
+The itching curiosity of the spiteful or the vicious must seek its
+gratification at other hands than ours: we will not be its ministers.
+With all this, we are not obliged to shut our eyes to the true
+significance of what she tells us, or to assume that in the account
+she gives us of herself there is necessarily less self-deception than
+self-judgment generally exhibits. If she mistakes the selfish for the
+heroic, exalts a gratification into a duty, and preaches to her sex as
+from the standpoint of a morality superior to theirs, we shall set it
+down as it seems to us. But, for the sake of manhood as well as of
+womanhood, we would not that any mean or malignant hand should endeavor
+to show where she failed, and how.
+
+Was she not to all of us, in our early years, a name of doubt, dread,
+and enchantment? Did not all of us feel, in our young admiration for
+her, something of the world's great struggle between conservative
+discipline and revolutionary inspiration? We knew our parents would not
+have us read her, _if they knew_. We knew they were right. Yet we read
+her at stolen hours, with waning and still entreated light; and as we
+read, in a dreary wintry room, with the flickering candle warning us
+of late hours and confiding expectations, the atmosphere grew warm and
+glorious about us,--a true human company, a living sympathy crept near
+us,--the very world seemed not the same world after as before. She had
+given us a real gift; no criticism could take it away. The hands might
+be sinful, but the box they broke contained an exceeding precious
+ointment.
+
+At a later day we saw these things rather differently. The electric
+intoxication over, which book or being gives but once to the same
+person, its elements were viewed with some distrust. Passing from ideal
+to real life, as all pass, who live on, we shook our heads over the
+books, sighed, ceased to read them. Grown mothers ourselves, we quietly
+removed them as far as possible from the young hands about us, and would
+rather have deprived them of the noble French language altogether than
+have allowed it to bring them such lessons as Jacques and Valentine.
+Yet we retain the old love for her; the world of literature still seems
+brighter for her footsteps; and should we live to learn her death, tears
+must follow it, and the sense of void left by the loss of a true friend,
+noble and loyal-hearted, if mistaken. With this confession of sympathy
+with the woman, we begin the critical consideration of the memoirs of
+herself she has given to the world.
+
+These memoirs begin at the earliest possible period, including the lives
+of her parents and grandparents. The latter were illustrious on
+one side, obscure on the other. She tells us that by her paternal
+grandmother she was allied to the kings of France, and by her maternal
+grandfather to the lowest of the people. The grandmother in question
+was the natural daughter of the famous Maréchal de Saxe, recognized and
+educated, but finally left with slender resources, and married to M.
+Dupin de Francueil, an accomplished person of good family and fortune,
+greatly her senior. To him she bore one child, a son named Maurice,
+after the great soldier. As might have been expected, her widowhood was
+early and long, for her aged partner soon dropped from her side, beloved
+and regretted. George tells us that her grandmother was wont to insist
+that an old man can be more agreeable in the marital relation than a
+young one, and that M. Dupin de Francueil, elegant, accomplished,
+and devoted to her happiness, had in his life left nothing for her
+imagination to desire or her heart to regret.
+
+As this lady is one of the heroines of the "Histoire de ma Vie," we
+cannot do it justice without lingering a little over her portraiture.
+She is described as tall, fair, and of a Saxon type of beauty. Her
+manners would seem to have been _de haute école_, and her culture was
+on a large and noble scale. Austere in her morals, her faith was the
+deistic philosophy of the ante-revolutionary period; but, like other
+people of noble mind, instead of making doubt a pretext for license, she
+brought up virtue to justify the latitude of her creed, that the solid
+results of conscience should entitle her to the free interpretation of
+doctrine. She was chaste, benevolent, and sincere. Her mother had been a
+singer of merit and celebrity, and she, the daughter, had both inherited
+her musical talent, and had received one of those thorough musical
+educations which alone make the possession of the art a pleasure and
+resource. It must often occur to those who hear our young ladies sing
+and play, that the accomplishment is little valued by them, save as an
+outward social adornment.
+
+Hence those ambitious and perfectly uninteresting performances with
+which we are constantly bored in the fashionable musical world. It is
+self-love which gives us those flat, empty _adagios_, those cold,
+keen runs and embellishments. Love of the art has more modesty in the
+undertaking, and more warmth in the execution. George says that she
+has heard all the greatest singers of modern times, but that her
+grandmother, in her old age, singing fragments of the operas of her own
+time in a cracked and trembling voice, and accompanying herself on an
+old harpsichord with three fingers of a palsied hand, always remained to
+her a type of art above all others.
+
+The first volume of these memoirs gives interesting notice of the
+friendships which surrounded Madame Dupin during her married life. These
+embraced various celebrities, historical and literary. Her husband was
+the congenial friend of the best minds of the day, and was able, among
+other things, to procure her the difficult pleasure of an interview
+with Jean Jacques Rousseau, then living near her in great spleen and
+retirement. We cannot do better than to give the relation of this in
+her own words, as preserved by her grand-daughter. It is highly
+characteristic of the parties and of the times.
+
+"Before I had seen Rousseau, I had read the 'Nouvelle Héloïse' in one
+breath, and at the last pages I found myself so overcome that I wept and
+sobbed. My husband gently rallied me for this; but that day I could only
+cry from morning till evening. During this, M. de Francueil, with the
+address and the grace which he knew how to put into everything, ran to
+find Jean Jacques. I do not know how he managed it, but he carried him
+off, he brought him, without having communicated to me his intention.
+
+"I, unconscious of all this, was not hastening my toilet. I was with
+Madame d'Esparbès de Lussan, my friend, the most amiable woman in
+the world, and the prettiest, _though she squinted a little, and was
+slightly deformed._ M. de Francueil had come several times to see if I
+was ready. I did not observe any marks of haste in my husband, and did
+not hurry myself, never suspecting that he was there, the sublime Bear,
+in my parlor. He had entered, looking partly foolish and partly cross,
+and had seated himself in a corner, showing no other impatience than
+that about dinner, in order to get away very soon.
+
+"Finally, my toilet finished, and my eyes still red and swollen, I go
+to the parlor. I see a little man, ill-dressed and scowling, who rose
+clumsily, who _chewed out_ some confused words. I look, and I guess who
+it is,--I try to speak,--I burst into tears. Francueil tries to put
+us in tune by a pleasantry, and bursts into tears. We could not say
+anything to each other. Rousseau pressed my hand without addressing me a
+single word. We tried to dine, to cut short all these sobs. But I could
+eat nothing. M. de Francueil could not be witty that day, and
+Rousseau escaped directly on leaving the table, without having said a
+word,--displeased, perhaps, with having found a new contradiction to
+his claim of being the most persecuted, the most hated, and the most
+calumniated of men."
+
+The simplicity of this narration justifies its quotation here, as
+illustrative of the taste and manners that prevailed a hundred years
+ago. The lively emotion provoked by the "Nouvelle Héloïse" is scarcely
+more foreign to our ideas and experience than the triangular fit of
+weeping in the parlor, and the dinner, silent through excess of feeling,
+that followed it.
+
+M. Dupin de Francueil lived with great, but generous extravagance, and,
+as his widow averred, "ruined himself in the most amiable manner in the
+world." He died, leaving large estates in great confusion, from which
+his widow and young son were compelled to "accept the poverty" of
+seventy-five thousand livres of annual income,--a sum which the
+Revolution, at a later day, greatly reduced. Till its outbreak, Madame
+Dupin lived in peace and affluence, though not on the grand scale of
+earlier days,--devoting herself chiefly to the care and education of her
+son, Maurice, in which latter task she secured the services of a young
+abbé, who afterwards prudently became the _Citizen_ Deschartres, and who
+continued in the service of the family during the rest of a tolerably
+long life. This personage plays too important a part in the memoirs to
+be passed over without special notice. He continued to be the faithful
+teacher and companion of Maurice, until the exigencies of military life
+removed the latter from his control. He was also the man of business of
+Madame Dupin, and, at a later day, the preceptor of George herself, who,
+with childish petulance, bestowed on him the sobriquet of _grand homme_,
+in consequence, she tells us, of his _omnicompétence_ and his air of
+importance. "My grandmother," she says, "had no presentiment, that, in
+confiding to him the education of her son, she was securing the tyrant,
+the saviour, and the friend of her whole remaining life." We would
+gladly give here in full George's portrait of her tutor; but if we
+should stop to sketch all the admirable photography of this work, our
+review would become a volume. We can only borrow a trait or two, and
+pass on to the consideration of other matters.
+
+"He had been good-looking; but I am sure that no one, even in his best
+days, could have looked at him without laughing, so clearly was the word
+_pedant_ written in all the lines of his face and in every movement of
+his person. To be complete, he should have been ignorant, _gourmand_,
+and cowardly. But, far from this, he was very learned, temperate, and
+madly courageous. He had all the great qualities of the soul, joined
+to an insufferable disposition, and a self-satisfaction which amounted
+almost to delirium. But what devotion, what zeal, what a tender and
+generous soul!"
+
+In the intervals of his necessary occupations he studied medicine and
+surgery, in the latter of which he attained considerable skill. In the
+many subsequent years of his country life, he made these accomplishments
+very useful to the village folk. No stress of weather or
+unseasonableness of hours could detain him from attending the sick, when
+summoned; but being obliged, as George says, to be ridiculous as well as
+sublime in all things, he was wont to beat his patients when they were
+bold enough to offer him money for their cure, and even made missile
+weapons of the poultry and game which they brought him in acknowledgment
+of his services, assailing them with blows and harder words, till they
+fled, amused or angry. Maurice, his first pupil, was a delicate and
+indolent child, and showed little robustness of character till his early
+manhood, when the necessity of a career forced him into the ranks of the
+great army.
+
+The first threatenings of the Revolution found in Madame Dupin an
+unalarmed observer. As a disciple of Voltaire and Rousseau, she could
+not but detest the abuses of the Court; she shared, too, the general
+personal alienation of the aristocracy from the _German woman_, as they
+called Marie Antoinette. She admired, in turn, the probity of Necker and
+the genius of Mirabeau; but the current of disorder finally found its
+way to her, and swept away her household peace among the innumerable
+wrecks that marked its passage. Implicated as the depository of some
+papers supposed to be of treasonable character, she was arrested and
+imprisoned in Paris, her son and Deschartres being officially separated
+from her and detained at Passy. The imprisonment lasted some months, and
+its tedium was beguiled by the most fervent love-letters between the boy
+of sixteen and his mother. The sorrow of this separation, George says,
+metamorphosed the sickly, spoiled child into a fervent and resolute
+youth, whose subsequent career was full of courage and self-denial. Of
+the Revolution she writes:--
+
+"In my eyes, it is one of the phases of evangelical life: a tumultuous,
+bloody life, terrible at certain moments, full of convulsions, of
+delirium, and of sobbing. It is the violent contest of the principle of
+equality preached by Jesus, and passing, now like a radiant light, now
+like a burning torch, from hand to hand, to our own days, against the
+old pagan world, which is not destroyed, which will not be for a long
+time yet, in spite of the mission of Christ, and so many other divine
+missions, in spite of so many stakes, scaffolds, and martyrs. What is
+there, then, to astonish us in the vertigo which seized all minds at
+the period of the inextricable _mêlée_ into which France precipitated
+herself in '93? When everything went by retaliation, when every one
+became, by deed or intention, victim and executioner in turn, and when
+between the oppression endured and the oppression exercised there was
+no time for reflection or liberty of choice, how could passion have
+abstracted itself in action, or impartiality have dictated quiet
+judgments? Passionate souls were judged by others as passionate, and the
+human race cried out as in the time of the ancient Hussites,--'This is a
+time of mourning, of zeal, and of fury.'"
+
+The tone of our author concerning this and subsequent revolutions which
+have come within her own observation is throughout temperate, hopeful,
+and charitable. The noblest side of womanhood comes out in this; and
+however her fiery youth might have counselled, in the pages now under
+consideration she appears as the apologist of humankind, the world's
+peacemaker.
+
+George loves to linger over the details of her father's early life.
+They are, indeed, all she possesses of him, as she was still in early
+childhood when he died. So much and such charming narrations has she
+to give us of his military life, his musical ability, his courage and
+disinterestedness, that she herself does not manage to get born until
+nearly the end of the third volume, and that through a series of
+concatenations which we must hastily review.
+
+The imprisonment of Madame Dupin was not long; after some months of
+detention, she was allowed to rejoin her son at Passy, and the whole
+family-party speedily removed to Nohant, in the heart of Berry, which
+henceforth figures as the homestead in the pages of these volumes. But
+Maurice is soon obliged to adopt a profession. His mother's revenues
+have been considerably diminished by the political troubles. He feels in
+himself the power, the determination, to carve out a career for
+himself, and gallantly enters, as a simple soldier, the armies of the
+Republic,--Napoleon Bonaparte being First Consul. Although he soon saw
+service, his promotion seems to have been slow and difficult. He was
+full of military ardor, and laborious in acquiring the science of his
+profession; but there were already so many candidates for every smallest
+distinction, and Maurice was no courtier, to help out his deserts with a
+little fortunate flattery. He complains in his letters that the tide has
+already turned, and that even in the army diplomacy fares better than
+real bravery. Still, he soon rose from the ranks, served with honor on
+the Rhine and in Italy, and became finally attached to the _personnel_
+of Murat, during the occupation of the Peninsula. His title of grandson
+of the Maréchal de Saxe was sometimes helpful, sometimes hurtful. In the
+eyes of his comrades it won him honor; but Napoleon, on hearing his high
+descent urged as a claim to consideration, is said to have replied,
+brusquely,--"I don't want any of those people." In his letters to
+his mother, he recounts his adventures, military and amorous, with
+frankness, but without boasting; but his confidences soon become very
+partial, and before she knows it the poor mother has a dangerous rival.
+We will let him give his own account of the origin of this new relation.
+
+"You know that I was in love in Milan. You guessed it, because I did not
+tell you of it. At times I fancied myself beloved in return, and then I
+saw, or thought I saw, that I was not. I wished to divert my thoughts; I
+went away, desiring to think no more of it.
+
+"This charming woman is here, and we have hardly spoken to each other.
+We scarcely exchanged a look. I felt a little vexation, though that is
+scarcely in my nature. She was proud towards me, although her heart is
+tender and passionate. This morning, during breakfast, we heard distant
+cannon. The General ordered me to mount at once, and go to see what it
+was. I rise, take the staircase in two bounds, and run to the stable.
+At the very moment of mounting my horse I turned and saw behind me this
+dear woman, blushing, embarrassed, and casting on me a lingering look,
+expressive of fear, interest, love."
+
+This fatal look, as the experienced will readily conceive, did the
+business. The young soldier dreamed only of a love affair like twenty
+others which had made the pastime of his oft-changing quarters; but this
+"dear woman," Sophie Victoire Antoinette Delaborde, daughter of an old
+bird-fancier, was destined to become his wife, and the mother of his
+daughter, Aurore Dupin, whom the world knows as George Sand. The
+circumstances of her youth had been untoward. She was at this period
+already the mother of one child, born out of marriage, and seems to have
+been making the campaign of Italy under the so-called protection of some
+rich man, whose name is not given us. This protection she hastened to
+leave, following thenceforward with devotion the precarious fortunes
+of the young soldier, and gaining her own subsistence, until their
+marriage, by the toil of the needle, to which she had been bred. Of
+course, Maurice's confidences to his mother under this head soon cease.
+An amour with a person in Victoire's position could be admitted; but
+a serious, solid affection, leading to marriage, this would break his
+mother's heart, and indeed not without reason. The reader must remember
+that this is a chapter out of French society, on which account we
+suppress all hysterical comment upon a state of things universally
+received and acknowledged therein. Maurice's trivial, and _we_ should
+say, unprincipled pursuit of Victoire would be considered perfectly
+legitimate in the sphere which made the world to him. The sequel,
+perhaps, would not have been considered differently here and there; for,
+however we may recognize the sacredness of true affection, a marriage
+so unequal and with such sinister antecedents would be regarded in all
+society with little approbation, or hope of good. His mother soon grew
+alarmed, as various symptoms of an enduring and carefully concealed
+attachment became evident to her keen observation. In the years that
+followed, she left no means untried to break off this dangerous
+connection;--her remonstrances were by turns tender and violent,--her
+reasonings, no doubt, in great part just; but Maurice defended the woman
+of his choice from all accusations, from every annoyance, on the ground
+of her devoted and honorable attachment to him. After four years of
+continued trouble and irresolution, in which, George tells us, he had
+again and again made the endeavor to sacrifice Victoire to his mother's
+happiness, and after the birth of several children, who soon ceased
+to live, he wedded her by civil rite. The birth of his daughter soon
+followed. "And thus it was," says George, "that I was born legitimate."
+
+"My mother had on a pretty pink dress that day, and my father was
+playing some _contredanses_ on his faithful Cremona (I have it yet, that
+old instrument by the sound of which I first saw the light). My mother
+left the dance and passed into her own room. As she went out very
+quietly, the dance continued. At the last _chassez all round_, my Aunt
+Lucy went into my mother's room, and immediately cried,--
+
+"Come, come here, Maurice! You have a daughter!"
+
+"She shall be named Aurore, for my poor mother, who is not here to bless
+her, but who will bless her one day," said my father, receiving me in
+his arms.
+
+"She was born in music and in pink," said my aunt. "She will be happy."
+
+Not eminent, perhaps, has been the realization of this augury.
+
+The young couple were so poor, at this moment of their marriage, that a
+slender thread of gold was forced to serve for the nuptial ring; it was
+not until some days later that they were able to expend six francs in
+the purchase of that indispensable ornament. The act once consummated,
+Maurice gave himself up to some hours of bitter suffering, made
+inevitable by what he considered a grave act of disobedience against the
+best of mothers. His conscience, however, on the whole, justified
+him. He had obeyed the Scripture precept, forsaking the old for the
+inevitable new relation, and surrounding her who was really his wife
+with the immunities of civil recognition. The marriage was concealed for
+some months from his mother,--who at a subsequent period left no stone
+unturned to prove its nullity. The religious ceremony, which Catholicism
+considers as the indissoluble tie, had not yet been performed, and
+Mme. Dupin hoped to prove some informality in the civil rite. In
+this, however, she did not succeed, and after long resistance, and
+ill-concealed displeasure, she concluded by acknowledging the unwelcome
+alliance. It was the little Aurore herself whose unconscious hand
+severed the Gordian knot of the family difficulties. Introduced by a
+stratagem into her grandmother's presence, and seated in her lap as the
+child of a stranger, the family traits were suddenly recognized, and the
+little one (eight months old) effected a change of heart which neither
+lawyer nor priest could have induced. St. Childhood is fortunately
+always in the world, working ever these miracles of reconciliation.
+
+George speaks with admirable candor of the inevitable relations between
+these two women. She does full justice to the legitimacy of the
+grandmother's objections to the marriage, and her fears for its result,
+which were founded much more on moral than on social considerations. At
+the same time she nobly asserts her mother's claim to rehabilitation
+through a passionate and disinterested attachment, a faithful devotion
+to the duties of marriage and maternity, and a widowhood whose sorrow
+ended only with her life. She says,--"The doctrine of redemption is the
+symbol of the principle of expiation and of rehabilitation"; but she
+adds,--"Our society recognizes this principle in religious theory,
+but not in practice; it is too great, too beautiful for us." She says
+farther,--"There still exists a pretended aristocracy of virtue, which,
+proud of its privileges, does not admit that the errors of youth are
+susceptible of atonement. This condemnation is the more absurd, because,
+for what is called the World, it is hypocritical. It is not only women
+of really irreproachable life, nor matrons truly respected, who are
+called upon to decide upon the merits of their misled sisters. It is not
+the company of the excellent of the earth who make opinion. That is all
+a dream. The great majority of women of the world is really a majority
+of _lost women_." We must understand these remarks as applying to French
+society, in respect even of which we are not inclined to admit their
+truth. Yet there is a certain justice in the inference that women
+are often most severely condemned by those who are no better than
+themselves; and this insincerity of uncharity is far more to be dreaded
+than the over-zeal of virtuous hearts, which oftenest helps and heals
+where it has been obliged to wound.
+
+At the risk of unduly multiplying quotations, we will quote here what
+George says of her mother in this, the flower of her days. At a later
+day, the ill-regulated character suffered and made others suffer with
+its own discords, which education and moral training had done nothing to
+reconcile. The manly support, too, of the nobler nature was wanting,
+and the best half of her future and its possibilities was buried in the
+untimely grave of her husband. Here is what she was when she was at her
+best:--
+
+"My mother never felt herself either humiliated or honored by the
+company of people who might have considered themselves her superiors.
+She ridiculed keenly the pride of fools, the vanity of _parvenus_, and,
+feeling herself of the people to her very finger-ends, she thought
+herself more noble than all the patricians and aristocrats of the earth.
+She was wont to say that those of her race had redder blood and larger
+veins than others,--which I incline to believe; for, if moral and
+physical energy constitute in reality the excellence of races, we cannot
+deny that this energy is compelled to diminish in those who lose the
+habit of labor and the courage of endurance. This aphorism is certainly
+not without exception, and we may add that excess of labor and of
+endurance enervates the organization as much as the excess of luxury and
+idleness. But it is certain, in general, that life rises from the bottom
+of society, and loses itself in measure as it rises to the top, like the
+sap in plants.
+
+"My mother was not one of those bold _intrigantes_ whose secret passion
+is to struggle against the prejudices of their time, and who think to
+make themselves greater by clinging, at the risk of a thousand affronts,
+to the false greatness of the world. She was far too proud to expose
+herself even to coldness. Her attitude was so reserved that she passed
+for a timid person; but if one attempted to encourage her by airs of
+protection, she became more than reserved, she showed herself cold and
+taciturn. With people who inspired her with respect, she was amiable and
+charming; but her real disposition was gay, petulant, active, and, above
+all, opposed to constraint. Great dinners, long _soirées_, commonplace
+visits, balls themselves, were odious to her. She was the woman of the
+fireside or of the rapid and frolicking walk; but in her interior, as in
+her goings abroad, intimacy, confidence, relations of entire sincerity,
+absolute freedom in her habits and the employment of her time, were
+indispensable to her. She, therefore, always lived in a retired manner,
+more anxious to avoid unpleasant acquaintances than eager to make
+advantageous ones. Such, too, was the foundation of my father's
+character, and in this respect never was couple better assorted. They
+were never happy out of their little household. And they have bequeathed
+me this secret _sauvagerie_, which has always rendered the [fashionable]
+world insupportable to me, and home indispensable."
+
+In referring back to these volumes, we are led into continual loiterings
+by the way. The style of our heroine is so magical, that we are
+constantly tempted to let her tell her own story, and to give to the
+gems of hers which we insert in these pages the slightest possible
+setting of our own. But it is not our business to anticipate for any one
+a reading from which no student of modern literature, or, indeed, of
+modern mind, will excuse himself. We must give only so much as shall
+make it sure that others will seek more at the fountain-head; but for
+this purpose we must turn less to the book, and trust for our narration
+to a sufficiently recent perusal still vividly remembered.
+
+Aurore could scarcely have passed out of her third year when she
+accompanied her mother to Madrid, where her father was already in
+attendance upon Murat. She remembers their quarters in the palace,
+magnificently furnished, and the half-broken toys of the royal
+children, whose destruction she was allowed to complete. To please his
+commander-in-chief, her father caused her to assume a miniature uniform,
+like those of the Prince's aide-de-camps, whose splendid discomfort she
+still recalls. This would seem a sort of prophecy of that assuming
+of male attire in later years which was to constitute a capital
+circumstance in her life. The return from the Peninsula was weary and
+painful to the mother and child, and made more so by the disgust with
+which the Spanish roadside bill-of-fare inspired the more civilized
+French stomach. They were forced to make a part of the journey in wagons
+with the common soldiery and camp-retainers, and Aurore in this manner
+took the itch, to her mother's great mortification. Arrived at Nohant,
+however, the care of Deschartres, joined to a self-imposed _régime_ of
+green lemons, which the little girl devoured, skins, seeds, and all,
+soon healed the ignominious eruption. Here the whole family passed some
+months of happy repose, too soon interrupted by the tragical death of
+Maurice. He had brought back from Spain a formidable horse, which he had
+christened the _terrible_ Leopardo, and which, brave cavalier as he was,
+he never mounted without a certain indefinable misgiving. He often said,
+"I ride him badly, because I am afraid of him, and he knows it."
+Dining with some friends in the neighborhood, one day, he was late in
+returning. His wife and mother passed the evening together, the first
+jealous and displeased at his protracted absence, the second occupied in
+calming the irritation and rebuking the suspicions of her companion. The
+wife at last yielded, and retired to rest. But the mother's heart, more
+anxious, watched and watched. Towards midnight, a slight confusion in
+the house augmented her alarm. She started at once, alone and thinly
+dressed, to go and meet her son. The night was dark and rainy; the
+terrible Leopardo had fulfilled the prophetic forebodings of his rider.
+The poor lady, brought up in habits of extreme inactivity, had taken but
+two walks in all her life. The first had been to surprise her son at
+Passy, when released from the Revolutionary prison. The second was to
+meet and escort back his lifeless body, found senseless by the roadside.
+
+We have done now with Aurore's ancestry, and must occupy our remaining
+pages with accounts of herself. Much time is given by her to the record
+of her early childhood, and the explanation of its various phases. She
+loves children; it is perhaps for this reason that she dwells longest on
+this period of her life, describing its minutest incidents with all the
+poetry that is in her. One would think that her childhood seemed to
+her that actual flower of her life which it is to few in their own
+consciousness. Despite the loss of her father, and the vexed relations
+between her mother and grandmother which followed his death, her
+infancy was joyous and companionable, passed mostly with the country
+surroundings and out-door influences which act so magically on the
+young. It soon became evident that she was to be confided chiefly to her
+grandmother's care; and this, which was at first a fear, soon came to be
+a sorrow. Still her mother was often with her, and her time was divided
+between the plays of her village-friends and the dreams of romantic
+incident which early formed the main feature of her inner life. Already
+at a very early age her mother used to say to those who laughed at the
+little romancer,--"Let her alone; it is only when she is making her
+novels between four chairs that I can work in peace." This habit of
+mind grew with her growth. Her very dolls played grandiose parts in her
+child-drama. The paper on the wall became animated to her at night, and
+in her dreams she witnessed strange adventures between its Satyrs and
+Bacchantes. Soon she imagined for herself a sort of angel-companion,
+whose name was Corambé. His presence grew to be more real to her than
+reality itself, and in her quiet moments she wove out the mythology of
+his existence, as Bhavadgheetas and Mahabraatus have been dreamed. In
+process of time, she built, or rather entwisted, for him a little shrine
+in the woods. All pretty things the child could gather were brought
+together there, to give him pleasure. But one day the foot of a little
+playmate profaned this sanctuary, and Aurore sought it no more, while
+still Corambé was with her everywhere.
+
+Although she seems to have always suffered from her mother's
+inequalities of temper, yet for many years she clung to her, and to the
+thought of her, with jealous affection. The great difference of age
+which separated her from her grandmother inspired fear, and the grand
+manners and careful breeding of the elder lady increased this effect.
+When left with her, the child fell into a state of melancholy, with
+passionate reactions against the chilling, penetrating influence,
+which yet, having reason on its side, was destined to subdue her. "Her
+chamber, dark and perfumed, gave me the headache, and fits of spasmodic
+yawning. When she said to me, '_Amuse yourself quietly_,' it seemed
+to me as if she shut me up in a great box with her." What sympathetic
+remembrances must this phrase evoke in all who remember the _gêne_ of
+similar constraints! George draws from this inferences of the wisdom of
+Nature in confiding the duties of maternity to young creatures, whose
+pulses have not yet lost the impatient leap of early pleasure and
+energy, and to whom repose and reflection have not yet become the primal
+necessities of life. This want of the nearness and sympathy of age
+she was to experience more, as, by the consent of both parties,
+her education was to be conducted under the superintendence of her
+grandmother, from whom the mother derived her pension, and whose estate
+the child was to inherit. The separation from her mother, gradually
+effected, was the great sorrow of her childhood. She revolted from it
+sometimes openly, sometimes in secret; and the project of escaping and
+joining her mother in Paris, where, with her half-sister Caroline,
+they would support themselves by needle-work, was soon formed and
+long cherished. For the expenses of this intended journey, the child
+carefully gathered and kept her little treasures, a coral comb, a ring
+with a tiny brilliant, etc., etc. In contemplating these, she consoled
+many a heartache; as who is there of us who has not often effectually
+beguiled _ennui_ and privation by dreams of joys that never were to have
+any other reality? The mother seems to have entered into this plan only
+for the moment; it soon escaped her remembrance altogether, and the
+little girl waited and waited to be sent for, till finally the whole
+vision faded into a dream.
+
+Deschartres, the tutor of Maurice, and of Hippolyte, his illegitimate
+son, became also the instructor of the little Aurore. With all her
+passion for out-door life, she felt always, she tells us, an invincible
+necessity of mental cultivation, and perpetually astonished those
+who had charge of her by her ardor alike in work and in play. Her
+grandmother soon found that the child was never ill, so long as
+sufficient freedom of exercise was permitted; so she was soon allowed to
+run at will, dividing her time pretty equally between the study and the
+fields. Thus she grew in mind and body from seven to twelve, promising
+to be tall and handsome, though not in after-years fulfilling this
+promise; for of her stature she tells us that it did not exceed that of
+her mother, whom she calls a _petite femme_,--and of her appearance
+she simply says that in her youth "with eyes, hair, and a robust
+organization," she was neither handsome nor ugly. At the age of twelve,
+a social necessity compelled her to go through the form of confession
+and the first communion. Her grandmother was divided between the
+convictions of her own liberalism, and the desire not to place her
+cherished charge in direct opposition to the imperious demands of a
+Catholic community. The laxity of the period allowed the compromise to
+be managed in a merely formal and superficial manner. The grandmother
+tried to give the rite a certain significance, at the same time
+imploring the child "not to suppose that she was about to _eat her
+Creator_." The confessor asked none of those questions which our author
+simply qualifies as infamous, and, with a very mild course of catechism
+and slight dose of devotion, that Rubicon of maturity was passed. Not
+far beyond it waited a terrible trial, perhaps as great a sorrow as the
+whole life was to bring. Aurore's diligence in her studies was marred
+by the secret intention, long cherished, of escaping to her mother, and
+adopting with her her former profession of dress-maker. Having one day
+answered reproof with a petulant assertion of her desire to rejoin her
+mother at all hazards, the grandmother determined to put an end to such
+projects by a severe measure. Aurore was banished from her presence
+during a certain number of days. Neither friend nor servant spoke to
+her. She describes naturally enough this lonely, uncomforted condition,
+in which, more than ever, she meditated upon the wished-for return to
+her mother, and the beginning with her of a new life of industry and
+privation. Summoned at last to her grandmother's bedside, and kneeling
+to ask for reconciliation, she is forced to stay there, and to listen
+to the most cruel and literal account of her mother's life, its early
+errors, and their inevitable consequences.
+
+"All that she narrated was true in point of fact, and attested by
+circumstances whose detail admitted of no doubt. But this terrible
+history might have been unveiled to me without injury to my respect
+and love for my mother, and, thus told, it would have been much more
+probable and more true. It would have sufficed to tell all the causes of
+her misfortunes,--loneliness and poverty from the age of fourteen years,
+the corruption of the rich, who are there to lie in wait for hunger and
+to blight the flower of innocence, the pitiless rigorism of opinion,
+which allows no return and accepts no expiation. They should also have
+told me how my mother had redeemed the past, how faithfully she had
+loved my father, how, since his death, she had lived humble, sad, and
+retired. Finally, my poor grandmother let fall the fatal word. My mother
+was a lost woman, and I a blind child rushing towards a precipice."
+
+The horror of this disclosure did not work the miracle anticipated.
+Aurore submitted indeed outwardly, but a spell of hardness and
+hopelessness was drawn around her young heart, which neither tears nor
+tenderness could break. The blow struck at the very roots of life and
+hope in her. Self-respect was wounded in its core. If the mother who
+bore her was vile, then she was vile also. All object in life seemed
+gone. She tried to live from day to day without interest, without hope.
+From her dark thoughts she found refuge only in extravagant gayety,
+which brought physical weariness, but no repose of mind. She, who
+had been on the whole a docile, manageable child, became so riotous,
+unreasonable, and insupportable, that the only alternative of utter
+waste of character seemed to be the discipline and seclusion of
+the convent. She was accordingly taken to Paris, and received as a
+_pensionnaire_ in the Convent des Anglaises, which had been, in the
+Revolution, her grandmother's prison. To Aurore it was rather a place of
+refuge than a place of detention. The chords of life had been cruelly
+jarred in her bosom, and the discords in her character thence resulting
+agonized her more than they displeased others. As for the extraordinary
+communication which had led to this disorder of mind, we do not
+hesitate, under the circumstances, to pronounce it an act of gratuitous
+cruelty. Of all pangs that can assail a human heart, none transcends
+that of learning the worthlessness of those we love; and to lay this
+burden, which has crushed and crazed the strongest natures, upon the
+tender heart of a child, was little less than murderous. Nor can
+the motive assigned justify an act so cruel; since modern morality
+increasingly teaches that the means must justify themselves, as well as
+the end. In spite of these odious revelations, the child felt that her
+love for her mother was undiminished, and a pitying comprehension of the
+natural differences between the two nearest to her on earth slowly arose
+in her mind, allowing her to do justice to the intentions of both.
+
+Aurore wandered at first about the convent with only a vague feeling
+of loneliness. The young girls, French and English, who composed its
+classes, surveyed her in the beginning with distrust. Soon the youngest
+and wildest set, called _Diables_, accorded her affiliation, and in
+their company she managed to increase tolerably the anxieties and
+troubles of the under-mistresses.
+
+She was early initiated into the _great secret_, the traditionary legend
+of the convent. This pointed at the existence, in some subterranean
+dungeon, of a wretched prisoner, or perhaps of several, cut off from
+liberty and light; and to _deliver the victim_ became the object of a
+hundred wild expeditions, by day and by night, through the uninhabited
+rooms and extensive vaults of the ancient edifice. The little ladies
+hoarded with care their candle-ends,--they tumbled up and down ruinous
+staircases, listened for groans and complaints, tried to undermine walls
+and partitions, fortunately with little success. The victim was never
+found, but her story was bequeathed from class to class, and her
+deliverance was always the object and excuse of the _Diables_.
+
+After much time wasted in these pursuits, attended by a mediocre
+progress in the ordinary course of study and what the French call
+_leçons d'agrément_, and we accomplishments, a critical moment came for
+Aurore. She was weary of frolic and mischief,--she had tormented the
+nuns to her heart's content. She knew not what new comedy to invent. She
+thought of putting ink in the holy water,--it had been done already; of
+hanging the parrot of the under-mistress,--but they had given her so
+many frights, there would be nothing new in that. She saw, one
+evening, the door of the little chapel open;--its quiet, its exquisite
+cleanliness and simplicity attracted her. She had followed thither to
+mock at the awkward motions of a little hunch-backed sister at her
+devotions,--but once within she forgot this object. A veiled nun was
+kneeling in her stall at prayer,--a single lamp feebly illuminated the
+white walls,--a star looked in at her through the dim window. The nun
+slowly rose and departed. Aurore was left alone. A calm, such as she had
+never known, took possession of her,--a sudden light seemed to envelop
+her,--she heard the mystical sentence vouchsafed to Saint Augustin:
+"_Toile, lege!_" Turning to see who whispered it, she found herself
+alone.
+
+"I cherished no vain illusion. I did not believe in a miraculous voice.
+I understood perfectly the sort of hallucination into which I had
+fallen. I was neither elated nor frightened at it. Only, I felt that
+Faith was taking possession of me, as I had wished, through the heart. I
+was so grateful, in such delight, that a torrent of tears inundated my
+face. 'Yes, yes, the veil is torn!' I said, 'I see the light of heaven!
+I will go! But, before all, let me render thanks. To whom? how? What is
+thy name?' said I to the unknown God who called me to him. 'How shall I
+pray to thee? What language worthy of thee and capable of expressing
+its love can my soul speak to thee? I know not; but thou readest my
+heart,--thou seest that I love thee!'"
+
+From this moment, Aurore gave herself up to the passion of devotion,
+which, in natures like hers, is often the first to unclose. There are
+all sorts of religious experiences,--some poor and shallow, some rich
+and deep, with every variety of shade between. But wherever Love is
+capable of being heroic, Religion will also find room to work its larger
+miracles. Aurore's devotion was not likely to be a frigid recognition of
+doctrine, nor to consist in the minute care of an infinitesimal soul,
+whose salvation could be of small avail to any save its possessor. Her
+religion could only be a sympathetic and contagious flame, running from
+soul to soul, as beacon-fires catch at night and illuminate a whole
+tract of country. From this time she became patient, thorough, and
+laborious in all the duties of her age and place. A closer sympathy now
+drew her to the nuns, with several of whom she formed happy and intimate
+relations. The convent life became for the time her ideal of existence,
+and she formed the plan, so common among young girls educated in this
+manner, of taking the veil herself, when such a step should become
+possible. This hidden purpose she carried with her, when, at the age of
+sixteen, she quitted the convent with bitter regret, fearing the strange
+world, fearing a conventional marriage, and looking back to the pleasant
+restraints of tutelage, whose thorn hedges are always in blossom when we
+view them from the dusty ways and traffic of real, responsible life.
+
+Aurore exchanged her convent for a life of equal retirement; for her
+grandmother, fearing lest the pietistic influences to which she had been
+subjected should awake too dominant a chord in the passionate nature of
+her pupil, brought her to Nohant at once, where, for a few days, she
+realized the delight of a greater freedom from rule and surveillance. It
+was pleasant for once, she says, to sleep into _la grasse matinée_, to
+wear a bright gingham instead of her dress of purple serge, and to comb
+her hair without being reminded that it was indecent for a young girl to
+uncover her temples. The projects of marriage which had alarmed her were
+abandoned for the present, and she was left to enjoy, unmolested, the
+pleasure of finding again the friends and playmates of her youth. It
+soon appeared, however, that the convent education had left many a
+_lacune_, and the grandmother felt that the result of the three years'
+claustration in nowise corresponded to its expense. Aurore set
+herself to work to fill up, in secret, the many blanks left by her
+preceptresses,--wishing, as she says, to conceal, as far as she could,
+their want of faith or of thoroughness. She sat at her books half the
+night, being gifted, according to her own account, with a marvellous
+power of sacrificing sleep to any other necessity. At this time she
+learned to ride on horseback, her first exploit being to tame a colt of
+four years, the after-companion of many a wild scramble, who grew old
+and died in her service. Her grandmother becoming soon after disabled by
+a paralytic stroke, the alternation of this new exercise enabled Aurore
+to bear the fatigues of the sick-room without serious inconvenience. Of
+this period of her life our heroine speaks as follows:--
+
+"Had my destiny caused me to pass immediately from my grandmother's
+control to that of a husband, or of a convent, it is possible that,
+subjected always to influences already accepted, I should never have
+been myself. But it was decided by Fate that at the age of seventeen
+years I should experience a suspension of external authority, and that I
+should belong wholly to myself for nearly a year, to become, for good or
+evil, what I was to be for nearly all the rest of my life."
+
+Passing much of her time at the bedside of the invalid, now incapable of
+giving any further direction to the young life so dear to her, Aurore
+plunged into many studies which opened to her new worlds of thought
+and observation. She read Châteaubriand with delight. The "Genie du
+Christianisme" proved to her rather an intellectual than a religious
+stimulant, and under its impulse she proceeded, as she says, to
+encounter without ceremony the French and other authors most quoted
+at that time, to wit: Locke, Bacon, Montesquieu, Leibnitz, Pascal, La
+Bruyère, Pope, Milton, Dante, and others not below these in difficulty.
+She studied them in a crude and hurried manner; but that wonderful
+alembic of youth, with its fiery heat of ardor, enabled her to compose
+these far and hastily gathered ingredients into a certain homogeneity of
+knowledge. "The brain was young," she says, "the memory always fugitive;
+but the sentiment was quick, and the will ever tense." From these
+pursuits, interrupted by the cares of nursing, she broke loose only to
+mount her favorite Colette, and accompany Deschartres in his hunting
+expeditions. She attempted also to acquire some knowledge of Natural
+History, Mineralogy, and so on; but science was always less congenial to
+her than literature, and of Leibnitz, the "Théodicée" is the only work
+of which she speaks with any familiarity. For convenience in riding and
+hunting, she adopted, on occasion, the dress of a boy, a blouse,
+cap, and trousers, to the great scandal of the neighborhood, already
+indisposed towards her by reason of her eccentric reputation; since, as
+one can imagine, a small French province is the last place in the world
+where a young girl can display the lone-star banner of individuality
+with impunity.
+
+Aurore had promised her aged relative that she would not read Voltaire
+before the age of thirty; but her literary wanderings soon brought her
+across the path of Rousseau.
+
+The French make the reading of the "Nouvelle Héloïse" one of the epochs
+in the life of woman. According to its motto, "The mother will not
+allow the daughter to read it," this critical act is by common consent
+adjourned till after marriage, when, we suppose, it appears something in
+the light of a Bill of Rights, a coming to the knowledge of what women
+can do, if they will. But as all Julie's _divagations_ occur before
+marriage, and as her subsequent life becomes a model of Puritanic duty
+and piety, one does not understand the applicability of her example to
+French life, in which this progress is reversed. In this, as in all
+works of true genius, people of the most opposite ways of thinking
+take what is congenial to themselves,--the ardent and passionate fling
+themselves on the swollen stream of Saint Preux's stormy love, the
+older and colder justify Julie's repentance, and the slow but certain
+rehabilitation of her character. With all its magnificences, and even
+with the added zest of a forbidden book, the "Nouvelle Héloïse" would be
+very slow reading for our youth of today. Its perpetual balloon voyage
+of sentiment was suited to other times, or finds sympathy to-day
+with other races. With all this, there is a great depth of truth and
+eloquence in its pages,--and its moral, which at first sight would seem
+to be, that the blossom of vice necessarily contains the germ of virtue,
+proves to be this wiser one, that you can tell the tree only by its
+fruits, which slowly ripen with length of life. As a novel, it is out of
+fashion,--for novels have fashion; as a development of the individuality
+of passion, it has perhaps no equal. Be sure that Aurore saw in it its
+fullest significance. It was strange reading for the disciple of the
+convent, but she had laid her bold hand upon the tree of the knowledge
+of good and of evil. She was not to be saved like a woman, through
+ignorance, but like a man, through the wisdom which has its heavenly and
+its earthly side. "Émile," the "Contrat Social," and the rest of the
+series succeeded each other in her studies; but she does not speak of
+the "Confessions," a book most cruel to those who love the merits of the
+author, and to whom the nauseating vulgarity of his personal character
+is a disgust scarcely to be recovered from. Taken at his best, however,
+Rousseau was the Saint John of the Revolutionary Gospel, though the
+bloody complement of its Apocalypse was left for other hands than his to
+trace. To Aurore, stumbling almost unaided through fragmentary studies
+of science and philosophy, his glowing, broad, synthetic statement was
+indeed a revelation. It made an epoch in her life. She compared him to
+Mozart. "In politics," she says, "I became the ardent disciple of this
+master, and I followed him long without restriction. As to religion,
+he seemed to me the most Christian of all the writers of his time. I
+pardoned his abjuration of Catholicism the more easily because its
+sacraments and title had been given to him in an irreligious manner,
+well calculated to disgust him with them." But with Aurore, too, the day
+of Catholicism was over,--its rites were become "heavy and unhealthy" to
+her. Her faith in things divine was unshaken; but the confessional was
+empty, the mass dull, the ceremonial ridiculous to her. She was glad to
+pray alone, and in her own words. Hers was a nature beyond forms. By
+a rapid intuition, she saw and appropriated what is intrinsic in all
+religions,--faith in God and love to man. However wild and volcanic may
+have been her creed in other matters, she has never lost sight of these
+two cardinal points, which have been the consolation of her life and its
+redemption. The year comprising these studies and this new freedom ended
+sadly with the death of her grandmother.
+
+And now, her real protectress being removed, the discords of life broke
+in upon her, and asserted themselves. Scarcely was the beloved form
+cold, when Aurore's mother arrived, to wake the echoes of the chateau
+with wild abuse of its late mistress. By testamentary disposition,
+Madame Dupin had made Aurore her heir, and had named two of her own
+relatives as guardians; but the mother now insisted on her own rights,
+and, after much acrimonious dispute and comment, carried Aurore from her
+beloved solitudes to her own quarters in Paris,--a journey of sorrow,
+and the beginning of sorrows. In her childhood Aurore had often longed
+for this mother's breast as her natural refuge, and the true home of her
+childish affections. But it "was one of those characters of self-will
+and passion which deteriorate in later life, and in which no new moral
+beauties spring up to replace the impulsive graces of youth. Regarding
+Aurore now as the work of another's hands, she made her the victim of
+ceaseless and causeless petulance. Her gross abuse of her mother-in-law
+gave Aurore many tears to shed in private, while her persecution of poor
+Deschartres drove her daughter to the expedient of shielding him--with
+a lie. The poor tutor had administered the affairs of Nohant for some
+time. He was now called to account for every farthing with the most
+malignant accuracy, and a sum of money, lost by ill-management, not
+being satisfactorily accounted for, his new tormentor threatened him
+with prison and trial. As he muttered to his late pupil that he would
+not survive this disgrace, she stepped forward and shielded him after
+the fashion of Consuelo.
+
+"I have received this money," said she.
+
+"You? Impossible! What have you done with it?"
+
+"No matter, I have received it."
+
+Deschartres was saved, and Aurore had only availed herself of the first
+of a Frenchwoman's privileges. Nor will we reckon with her too harshly
+for this lie, so benevolent in intention, so merciful in effect. A lie
+sometimes seems the only refuge of the oppressed; but there is always
+something better than a lie, if we could only find it out. Here is her
+account of the scene itself:--
+
+"To have gone through a series of lies and of false explanations would
+not, perhaps, have been possible for me. But from the moment that it was
+only necessary to persist in a 'yes' to save Deschartres, I thought that
+I ought not to hesitate. My mother insisted:--
+
+"'If M. Deschartres has paid you eighteen thousand francs, we can
+easily find it out. You would not give your word of honor?'
+
+"I felt a shudder, and I saw Deschartres ready to speak out.
+
+"'I would give it!' I cried out
+
+"'Give it, then,' said my aunt.
+
+"'No, Mademoiselle,' said my mother's lawyer, 'don't give it.'
+
+"'She shall give it!' cried my mother, to whom I could scarcely pardon
+this infliction of torture.
+
+"'I give it,' I replied;' and God is with me against you in this
+matter.'
+
+"'She has lied! she lies!' cried my mother. 'A bigot, a
+_philosophailleuse.' She is lying and defrauding herself.'
+
+"'Oh, as to that,' said the lawyer, laughing, 'she has the right to do
+it, since she robs only herself.'
+
+"'I will take her with her Deschartres before the justice of the peace,'
+said my mother. 'I will make her take oath by Christ, by the Gospel!'
+
+"'No, Madame,' said the lawyer, 'you will go no further in this matter;
+and as for you, Mademoiselle, I beg your pardon for the annoyance I have
+given you. Charged with your interests, I felt obliged to do so.'"
+
+Eternal shame to those who make use of any authority to force the
+secrets of a generous heart, cutting off from it every alternative but
+that of a loathed deceit, or still more hateful, and scarcely less
+guilty, betrayal!
+
+Aurore now found herself in the hands of a woman of the people, ennobled
+for a time by beauty and a true affection, but sinking, her good
+inspiration gone, into the bitterest ill-temper and most vulgar
+uncharity. Detesting her superiors in rank and position, she soon
+managed to cut off Aurore from all intercourse with her father's family,
+and thus to frustrate every prospect of her marriage in the sphere for
+which she had been so carefully educated. She was even forbidden to
+visit her old friends at the convent, and was eventually placed by her
+mother with a family nearly unknown to both, whose pity had been excited
+by her friendless condition and unhappy countenance. Aurore's mother
+seems to us, _du reste_, the perfect type of a Parisian lorette, the
+sort of woman so keenly attractive with the bloom of youth and the
+eloquence of passion,--but when these have passed their day, the most
+detestable of mistresses, the most undesirable of companions. Men of all
+ranks and ages acknowledge their attraction, endure their tyranny, and
+curse the misery it inflicts. Marriage and competency had protected this
+one from the deteriorations which almost inevitably await those of
+her class, but they could not save her from the natural process of an
+undisciplined mind, an ungoverned temper, and a caprice verging on
+insanity. This self-torment of caprice could be assuaged only by
+constant change of circumstance and surroundings; her only resource was
+to metamorphose things about her as often and as rapidly as possible.
+She changed her lodgings, her furniture, her clothes, retrimmed her
+bonnets continually, always finding them worse than before. Finally, she
+grew weary of her black hair, and wore a blond periwig, which disgusting
+her in turn, she finished by appearing in a different head of hair every
+day in the week.
+
+Aurore's new friends proved congenial to her, and the influence of their
+happy family-life dispersed, she says, her last dreams of the beatitudes
+of the convent. It was in their company that she first met the man
+destined to become her husband. Most of us would like to know the
+impression he made upon her at first sight. We will give it in her own
+words.
+
+"We were eating ices at Tortoni's, after the theatre, when my mother
+Angèle [her new friend] said to her husband,--'See, there is Casimir.'
+
+"A slender young man, rather elegant, with a gay aspect and military
+bearing, came to shake hands with them. He seated himself by Madame
+Angèle, and asked her in a low voice who I was.
+
+"'It is my daughter,' she replied.
+
+"'Then,' whispered he, 'she is my wife. You know that you have promised
+me the hand of your eldest daughter. I thought it would have been
+Wilfrid; but as this one seems of an age more suitable to mine, I accept
+her, if you will give her to me.'
+
+"Madame Angèle laughed at this, but the pleasantry proved a prediction."
+
+Aurore had given her new protectors the titles of Mother Angèle and
+Father James, and they in turn called her their daughter. The period of
+her residence with them at Plessis appears in her souvenirs as an
+ideal interval of happiness and repose, a renewal of the freedom and
+_insousiance_ of childhood, with the added knowledge of their value, a
+suspension of the terrible demands and interests of life. Would that
+this ideal period could be prolonged for women!--but the exigencies
+of the race, or perhaps the fears of society, do not permit it.
+The two-faced spectre of marriage awaits her, for good or ill. The
+_aphelion_ of a woman's liberty is soon reached, the dark organic forces
+bind her to tread the narrow orbit of her sex, and if, at the farthest
+bound of her individual progress, the attraction could fail, and let her
+slip from the eternal circle, chaos would be the result.
+
+Uninvited, therefore, but unrepulsed, Hymen approached our heroine in
+the form of Casimir Dudevant, the illegitimate, but acknowledged son and
+heir of Colonel Dudevant, an officer of good standing and reasonable
+fortune. The only feeling he seems to have inspired in the bosom of his
+future wife was one of mild good-will. His only recommendation was a
+decent degree of suitableness in outward circumstances. For the true
+wants of her nature he had neither fitness nor sympathy; but she did not
+know herself then,--she was not yet George Sand. From the stand-point of
+her later development, her marriage would seem to us a low one; but we
+must remember that she started only from the plane, and not the highest
+plane, of French society, in which a marriage of some sort is the
+first necessity of a woman's life, and not the crowning point of her
+experience. To compensate the rigor of such a requisition, a French
+marriage, though civilly indissoluble, has yet a hundred modifications
+which remove it far from the Puritan ideal which we of the Protestant
+faith cherish. Hence the French novel, whose strained sentiment and
+deeply logical immorality have wakened strange echoes among us of the
+stricter rule and graver usage.
+
+Without passion, then, or tender affection on either side, but with a
+tolerable harmony of views for the moment, and after long and causeless
+opposition on the part of Aurore's mother, this marriage took place.
+Aurore was but eighteen; her bridegroom was of suitable age. With dreams
+of a peaceful family existence, and looking forward to maternity as the
+great joy and office of the coming years, she brought her husband to
+Nohant, whose inheritance had been settled by contract upon the children
+of this marriage.
+
+But these dreams were not to be realized. Aurore was not born to be the
+companion of a dull, narrow man, nor the Lady Bountiful of a little
+village in the heart of France. Would she not have had it so? She tells
+us that she would; and as honesty is one of her strong points, we may
+believe her. She knew not the stormy ocean of life, nor the precious
+freight she carried, when she committed the vessel of her fortunes to so
+careless a hand as that of M. Dudevant. She throws no special blame or
+odium upon him, nor does he probably deserve any.
+
+The recital of the events spoken of above brings us well into the eighth
+volume of the "Histoire de ma Vie"; and as there are but ten in all, the
+treatment of the things that follow is pursued with much less
+detail, and with many a gap, which the malevolent among our author's
+contemporaries would assure us that they know well how to fill up.
+Between the extreme reserve of the last two volumes and the wild
+assertions of so many we would gladly keep the _juste milieu_, if
+we could; but we wish only truth, and it is not at the hands of the
+scandalmongers of any society--is it?--that we seek that commodity. The
+decree of the court which at a later day gave her the guardianship
+of her children, and the friendship of many illustrious and of some
+irreproachable men, must be accepted in favor of her of whom we
+write,--and the known fanaticism of slander, and the love of the
+marvellous, which craves, in stories of good or evil, such monstrous
+forms for its gratification, cause us, on the other side, to deduct
+a large average from the narrations current against her. But we
+anticipate.
+
+Aurore, at first, was neither happy nor unhappy in her marriage. Her
+surroundings were friendly and pleasant, and the birth of a son, a third
+Maurice, soon brought to her experience the keenest joy of womanhood.
+Before this child numbered two years, however, she began to feel a
+certain blank in her household existence, an emptiness, a discouragement
+as to all things, whose cause she could not understand. In this _ennui_,
+she tells us, her husband sympathized, and by common consent they strove
+to remedy it by frequent changes of abode. They visited Paris, Plessis,
+returned to Nohant, made a journey in the Pyrenees, a visit to Guillery,
+the château of Colonel Dudevant. Still the dark guest pursued them.
+Aurore does not pretend that there was any special cause for her
+suffering. It was but the void which her passionate nature found in a
+conventional and limited existence, and for which as yet she knew no
+remedy. The fervor of Catholic devotion had, as we have seen, long
+forsaken her; her studies did not satisfy her; her children--she had by
+this time a daughter--were yet in infancy; her husband was not unkind,
+but indifferent, and the object of indifference. She occupied herself
+with the business of her estate, and with the wants of the neighboring
+poor; but she was unsuccessful in administering her expenses, and her
+narrow revenue did not allow her to give large satisfaction to her
+charitable impulses. After some years of seclusion and effort, she began
+to dream of liberty, of wealth,--in a word, of trying her fortunes in
+Paris. She felt a power within her for which she had found no adequate
+task. She speaks vaguely, too, of a _Being_ platonically loved, and
+loving in like manner, absent for most of the year, and seen only for
+a few days at long intervals, whose correspondence had added a new
+influence to her life. This attenuated relation was, however, broken
+before she made her essay of a new life. Her half-brother, Hippolyte,
+brought to Nohant a habit of joviality which soon degenerated into
+chronic intemperance; and though she does not accuse her husband of
+participation in this vice, or, indeed, of any wrong towards her, she
+yet makes us understand that an occasional escape from Nohant became to
+her almost a matter of necessity. She, therefore, made arrangements,
+with her husband's free consent, to pass alternately three months in
+Paris and three months at home, for an indefinite period; and leaving
+Maurice in good hands, and the little Solange, her daughter, for a
+short time only, she came to Paris in the winter with the intention of
+writing.
+
+Her hopes and pretensions were at first very modest. It had been agreed
+that her husband should pay her an annual pension of fifteen hundred
+francs. She would have been well satisfied to earn a like sum by her
+literary efforts. She established herself in a small _mansarde_, a sort
+of garret, and managed by great economy to furnish it so that Solange
+could be made comfortable. She washed and ironed her fine linen with
+her own hands. Not finding literary employment at once, and her slender
+salary running very low, she adopted male attire for a while, as she
+says, because she was too poor to dress herself suitably in any other.
+The fashion of the period was favorable to her design. Men wore long
+square-skirted overcoats, down to the heels. With one of these, and
+trousers to match, with a gray hat and large woollen cravat, she might
+easily pass for a young student.
+
+"I cannot express the pleasure my boots gave me. I would gladly have
+slept with them on. With these little iron-shod heels, I stood firm on
+the pavement. I flew from one end of Paris to the other. I could have
+made the circuit of the world, thus attired. Besides, my clothes did not
+fear spoiling. I ran about in all weathers, I came back at all hours,
+I went to the pit of every theatre. No one paid me any attention, or
+suspected my disguise. Besides that, I wore it with ease; the entire
+want of coquetry in my costume and physiognomy disarmed all suspicion.
+I was too ill-dressed, and my manner was too simple, to attract or fix
+attention. Women know little how to disguise themselves, even upon the
+stage. They are unwilling to sacrifice the slenderness of their waists,
+the smallness of their feet, the prettiness of their movements, the
+brilliancy of their eyes; and it is by all these, nevertheless, it is
+especially by the look, that they might avoid easy detection. There is a
+way of gliding in everywhere without causing any one to turn round, and
+of speaking in a low, unmodulated tone which does not sound like a
+flute in the ears which may hear you. For the rest, in order not to
+be remarked _as a man_, you must already have the habit of not making
+yourself remarked _as a woman_."
+
+This travesty, our heroine tells us, was of short duration;--it answered
+the convenience of some months of poverty and obscurity. Its traditions
+did not pass away so soon;--ten years later, her son, in his beardless
+adolescence, was often taken for her, and sometimes amused himself
+by indulging the error in those who accosted him. But in the greatly
+changed circumstances in which she soon found herself, the disguise
+became useless and unavailing. Its economy was no longer needed, and the
+face of its wearer was soon too well known to be concealed by hat or
+coat-collar.
+
+We would not be understood as relaxing in any degree the rigor of
+repudiation which such an act deserved. Yet it is imaginable, even to an
+undepraved mind, that a woman might sometimes like to be on the other
+side of the fence, to view the mad bull of publicity in its own pasture,
+and feel that it cannot gore her. Poor George! running about in the
+little boots, and wearing a great ugly coat and woollen choker,--it was
+not through vanity that you did this. Strange sights you must have seen
+in Paris!--none, perhaps, stranger than yourself! The would-be nun of
+the English convent walking the streets in male attire, and even, as you
+tell us, with your hands in your pockets! Yet when little Solange came
+to live with you, as we understand, you put on your weeds of weakness
+again;--your little daughter made you once more a woman!
+
+For she was George Sand now. Aurore Dupin was civilly dead, Aurore
+Dudevant was uncivilly effaced. She had taken half a name from Jules
+Sandeau,--she had wrought the glory of that name herself. Yes, a glory,
+say what you will. Elizabeth Browning's hands were not too pure to
+soothe that forehead, chiding while they soothed; and these hands,
+not illustrious as hers, shall soil themselves with no mud flung at a
+sister's crowned head.
+
+Every one knows the story of the name: how she and Jules Sandeau wrote a
+novel together, and sought a _nom de plume_ which should represent their
+literary union,--how soon she found that she could do much better alone,
+and the weak work of Carl Sand was forgotten in the strong personality
+of George Sand. Of Jules Sandeau she speaks only as of the associate of
+a literary enterprise;--the world accords him a much nearer relation to
+her; but upon this point she cannot, naturally, be either explicit or
+implicit. One thing is certain: she was a hard worker, and did with
+her might what her hand found to do. She wrote "Indiana," "Lelia,"
+"Valentine," and had fame and money at will. Neither, however, gave
+her unmixed pleasure. The _éclat_ of her reputation soon destroyed her
+_incognito_, while the sums of money she was supposed to receive for her
+works attracted to her innumerable beggars and adventurers of all
+sorts. To ascertain the real wants and character of those who in every
+imaginable way claimed her assistance became one of the added labors of
+her life. She visited wretched garrets or cellars, and saw miserable
+families,--discovering often, too late, that both garret and family had
+been hired for the occasion. It was now that she first saw the real
+plagues and ulcers of society. Her convent had not shown her these, nor
+her life amid the peasantry of Berry. Only great cities produce those
+unhealthy and unnatural human growths whose monstrosities are their
+stock in trade, whose power of life lies in their depravation. She tells
+us that these horrors weighed upon her, and caused her to try various
+solutions of the ills that are, and are permitted to be. She was never
+tempted to become an atheist, never lost sight of the Divine in life,
+yet the necessity of a terrible fatalism seemed to envelop her. With her
+numerous friends, she sought escape from the dilemma through various
+theories of social development; and they often sat or walked half
+through the night, discussing the fortunes of the race, and the
+intentions of God. With her most intimate set, this sometimes led to a
+jest, and "It is time to settle the social question" became the formula
+of announcing dinner. These considerations led the way to her adoption
+of socialistic theories in later years, of which she herself informs
+us, but hints at the same time at many important reservations in her
+acceptance of them.
+
+In process of time she visited Italy with Alfred de Musset. The fever
+seized on her at Genoa, and she saw the wonders of the fair land through
+half-shut eyes, alternately shivering and burning. In the languor of
+disease, she allowed the tossing of a coin to decide whether she should
+visit Rome or Venice. Venice came uppermost ten times, and she chose to
+consider it an affair of destiny. Her long stay in this city suggested
+the themes of several of her romances, and the "Lettres d'un Voyageur"
+might almost be pages from her own journal. Her companion was here
+seized with a terrible illness. She nursed him day and night through all
+its length, being so greatly fatigued at the time of his recovery that
+she saw every object double, through want of sleep. Yet De Musset went
+forth from his sick-room with a heart changed towards her. Hatred
+had taken the place of love. Some say that this cruel change was the
+punishment of as cruel a deception; others call it a mania of the fever,
+perpetuating itself thenceforth in a brain sound as to all else. The
+world does not know about this, and she herself tells us nothing. In
+the "Lettres d'un Voyageur," however, she gives us to understand that
+constancy is not her _forte_, and a sigh escapes with this confession,
+"_Prie pour moi, ô Marguerite Le Conte!_"
+
+George Sand was now launched,--with brilliant success, in the world of
+letters, unheeding the conventional restraints of domestic life. The
+choicest spirits of the day gathered round her. She was the luminous
+centre of a circle of light. She did not hold a _salon_, the mimic court
+of every Frenchwoman of distinction,--nor were the worldly wits of
+fashion her vain and supercilious satellites. But De Lamennais climbed
+to her _mansarde_, and unfolded therein his theories of saintly and
+visionary philosophy. Liszt and Chopin bound her in the enchantment
+of their wonderful melodies. De Balzac feasted her in his fantastic
+lodgings, and lighted her across the square with a silver-gilt flambeau,
+himself attired in a flounced satin dressing-gown, of which he was
+extremely proud. Pierre Leroux instructed her in the old and the new
+religions, and taught her the history of secret societies. Louis Blanc,
+Cavaignac, and Pauline Garcia were bound to her by ties of intimacy.
+She knew Lablache, Quinet, Miekiewiez, whom she calls the equal of Lord
+Byron. Her intimates in her own province were men of high character and
+intelligence, nor were friends wanting among her own sex. Good-will
+and sympathy, therefore, not ill-will and antipathy, inspired her best
+works. Her views of parties were charitable and conciliatory, and her
+revolutionism more reconstructive than destructive. Yet, with all this
+array of good company, we cannot accord her a miraculous immunity from
+the fatalities of her situation. Of the guilt we are not here called
+upon to judge; of the suffering many pages in this record of her
+life bear witness. Little as we know, however, of her own power of
+self-protection against the tyranny of the selfish and the sensual, we
+yet feel as if the really base could never have held her in other than
+the briefest thraldom, and as if her nobler nature must have continually
+asserted and reasserted itself, with a constant tendency towards that
+higher liberty which she had sought in the abandonment of outward
+restraints, but which can never be thus attained. Some great moral
+safeguards she had in her tireless industry, her love of art, her
+honesty and geniality of nature, and, above all, in her passionate love
+for her children. Happily, these deep and solid forces of Nature are
+calculated to outlast the heyday of the blood, and to redeem its errors.
+
+In connection with her domestic life, she gives some explanations which
+must not be overlooked. She did not at first quit her husband's roof
+with an intention of permanent absence, but with the intention of a
+periodical return thither. In time, however, her presence there became
+unwelcome, and she found those arrangements of which, as she says, she
+had no right to complain, but which she could not recognize. Friends
+intervened, advising an effectual reintegration of the broken marriage;
+but against this, she says, her conscience, no less than her heart,
+rebelled. There existed, indeed, no virtual bond between herself and
+her late husband. Whatever may have been the beginning of their
+estrangement, it seems certain that he acquiesced in her independence
+with easy satisfaction. He wrote to her,--"I shall not put up at your
+lodgings when I come to Paris, because I wish as little to be in your
+way as I wish to have you in mine." At the same time, by visiting
+her there, and appearing with her in public, he had given a certain
+recognition to her position. There was, therefore, no room for penitence
+on the one side, for forgiveness on the other, and, through these, for
+a renewable moral relation between the two. The law took cognizance of
+these facts, when, some years later, M. Dudevant brought an action
+for civil divorce, wishing to recover possession of his children. His
+complicity in what had taken place, and the amicable nature of the
+separation, were so fully established, that the court, recognizing in
+the parties neither husband nor wife, followed the pleadings of Nature,
+and bestowed the children where, in the present instance, they were
+likely to find the warmest cherishing. Under this decision, she gave
+up the estate of Nohant to M. Dudevant, who, becoming weary of its
+management, returned it to her, by a later compromise, in exchange for
+other property, and the home of her childhood now shelters her declining
+years.
+
+For the history draws near its close; more travels, more novels, more
+successes, more sorrows, much fond talk of her friends, many of whom
+death has endeared to her, a shadowy sketch of her seven years' intimacy
+with Chopin, a sob over the untimely grave of her married daughter, and
+the wonderful book is ended. Surely, it tells its own moral; and we,
+who have woven into short measure the tissue of its relations, need not
+appear either as the apologist of a very exceptional woman, or as the
+vindicator of laws inevitable and universal, the mischief of whose
+violation no human knowledge can justly fathom. The world knows that the
+life before us is no example for women to follow; but it also knows,
+we think, that she who led it was on the whole an earnest and sincere
+person, of ardent imagination and large heart, loving the good as well
+as the beautiful, even if often mistaken in both,--and above all, honest
+in her errors and their acknowledgment. Gross injustice has, no doubt,
+been done her. The creations of her powerful fancy have been taken for
+images of herself, and the popular mind, delighting to elevate all
+things beyond the bounds of Nature, has made her a monster. It is clear,
+we think, that those who have represented her as plunged headlong in a
+career of vice and dissipation, the companion of all that is low and
+trivial, have slandered alike her acts and her intentions. Like the
+rest of us, she is the child of her antecedents and surroundings. Her
+education was as exceptional as her character. Her marriage brought no
+moral influence to bear upon her. Her separation opened before her a new
+and strange way, never to be trodden by any with impunity. Yet we do not
+believe, that, in the most undesirable circumstances of her life, she
+ever long lost sight of its ideal object. We do not doubt that her zeal
+for human progress, her sympathy for the wrongs of the race, and her
+distrust of existing institutions were deep and sincere. We do not doubt
+that she was devoted in friendship, disinterested in love, ardent in
+philanthropy. She has seen the poverty and insincerity of society; she
+has quarrelled with what she calls the shams of sacred things, the
+merely conventional marriage, the God of bigotry and hypocrisy, the
+government of oppression and fraud; but she ends by recognizing and
+demanding the marriage of heart, the God of enlightened faith, the
+government of order and progress. Responding to the dominant chord
+of the nineteenth century, she strove to exalt individuality above
+sociality, and passion above decorum and usage. Nor would she allow any
+World's Congress of morals to settle the delicate limits between these
+opposing vital forces, between what we owe to ourselves and what we owe
+to others. If there be a divine of passion for which it is noble to
+suffer and sacrifice, there is also a deeper divine of duty, far
+transcending the other both in sacrifice and in reward. To this divine,
+too often obscured to all of us, her later life increasingly renders
+homage; and to its gentle redemption, our loving, pitying hearts--the
+more loving, the more pitying for her story--are glad to leave her.
+
+Ave, thou long laborious! Ave, thou worker of wonders, thou embalmer of
+things most fleeting, most precious, so sealed in thy amber,
+
+  "That Nature yet remembers
+  What was so fugitive!"
+
+Thou hast wrought many a picture of wild and guilty passion,--yet
+methinks thou didst always paint the mean as mean, the generous as
+generous. Nobler stories, too, thou hast told, and thy Consuelo is as
+pure as holy charity and lofty art could make her. They complain, that,
+in the world of thy creations, women are sublime and men weak; may not
+these things, then, be seen and judged for once through woman's eyes?
+Much harm hast thou done? Nay, that can only God know. They misquote
+thee, who veil a life of low intrigue with high-flown _dicta_ borrowed
+from thy works. Thou art not of their sort,--or, if it be indeed _thee_
+they seek to imitate,
+
+  "Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile."
+
+Thy faults have attracted them, not the virtues that redeem them. Shake
+thyself free of such, and with those who have loved much, and to whom
+much has been forgiven, go in peace! The shades of the Poets will greet
+thee as they greeted Dante and Virgil, when, thyself a shade, thou goest
+towards them. The heart that fainted at Francesca's sorrows will not
+refuse a throb to thine. For there is a gallery of great women, great
+with and without sin, where thou must sit, between Sappho and Cleopatra,
+the Magdalen thy neighbor,--nor yet removed wholly out of sight the
+Mother of the Great Forgiveness of God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HAIR-CHAINS.
+
+
+It was really a magnificent ball! The host had determined that his
+entertainment should minister to all the senses of his guests, and had
+succeeded so well that there was only room to regret there were but five
+senses to be gratified. Only five gates in the fortified wall within
+which the shy soul intrenches itself, where an attack may be made. And
+even when these are all carried by storm, there are sometimes inner
+citadels, impregnable to the magic torrent streaming through the
+Beautiful Gates, where she may survey intruders with calm disdain. In
+vain floods of delicious intoxication beat against her lofty retreat:
+she calmly analyzes the sweet poison, (as she thinks it,) separates and
+retains the solid fact whose solution had enriched the otherwise barren
+stream, and indifferently suffers the rest to flow by. These are the
+souls of philosophers and wise men, who never are drowned, never
+surprised. But the bountiful host had not cared only for these grand
+super-sensual people, but had striven perfectly to satisfy the eyes, the
+ears, the noses, the palates of the more numerous throng of weaker folk,
+whose inner fortifications were not so well defended. Hundreds of wax
+candles illuminated the far-reaching saloons with soft lustre. The walls
+were tinted with the most delicate hues, that afforded a pleasant cool
+background to the blazing rooms, and relieved the rich colors of the
+pictures. In all the pictures adorning the walls, the eye revelled in
+the luxurious coloring, careless of the absence of distinctness of form
+and grand pure outline. Scenes in the dark heart of tropical forests,
+the dense green foliage here and there startlingly relieved by a bright
+scarlet flower or the brilliant plumage of a songless bird,--gorgeous
+sunsets on American prairies, where the rolling purple ground contrasted
+with the crimson and golden glories of eventide,--vivid sketches along
+the Mediterranean, the blue sea embracing the twin sky,--vineyards
+ripening under the mellow Italian sun,--fields of yellow wheat bending
+to the sickles of English reapers,--and sometimes, half hidden by the
+folds of a heavy crimson curtain, one was startled to discover the
+solemn icebergs and everlasting snows of the Arctic regions. The
+wood-work of all the rooms was of dark oak, so that each appeared with
+its brilliantly dressed company to be a flashing gem set in a rich
+casket. A shadow of music wandered through the air, sometimes blended
+with the sound of the falling fountain in the green-house, sometimes
+almost absorbed in the fragrance of the flowers.
+
+For two hours the carriages had been steadily streaming under the
+archway, and pouring their fair occupants, gauzy as summer, into the
+blazing saloons. The flashing candelabra drew the poor little moths from
+the outermost corners into the central vortex of light. Dazzled by the
+hot radiance, they strove to retreat again into the cool conservatories
+and side-rooms; but at that moment threads of music that had been
+carelessly winding through the crowd were caught up by an unseen hand
+and knotted,--and behold! already the moths found themselves imprisoned
+in a strong net-work of sound, whose intricate meshes entangled the
+rooms and the company, and the very light itself. The light, however,
+was too subtile for long confinement; it slipped along the melodious
+mazes, and melted into the rich odor that exhaled from the roses and
+jessamines in the conservatory. The light was a welcome visitor to the
+hyacinths and roses, obliged to hide in torturing silence in the still
+green-house, pouring out their passionate dumb life in intensity of
+fragrance. A life just hovering on the borders of the world, and yet
+forbidden to enter! But, bathed in the glowing effulgence of the light,
+this invisible fragrance could be born, and enter the visible world as
+color. For the fragrance is the unborn soul of the flower; color, that
+soul arrested in its restless wanderings,--_embodied_ fragrance. Then
+the colors upon the purple hyacinths and white jessamines, and the
+flashing gems that rested on white bosoms like glittering drops of ice
+upon a snow-wreath, and the sheen of rustling silks, and the gilded
+picture-frames, and the florid carpets, and the twinkling feet on the
+carpets' roses, and the flushing of roses in the dancers' cheeks, and
+the radiant heads of the white-robed girls, ran into one another,
+blending into an intensity of color that dimmed itself. And the music
+still kept spinning and spinning, and finally wove in the color and
+fragrance and light with its subtile self; and the background of the
+woof was the hum and murmur of voices, and the continual rustling of
+feet. No wonder the poor moths were ensnared in such bewilderment!
+
+Do you pity the captives? But it is a delicious imprisonment, and its
+fullest delights cannot be realized except by prisoners. In the vast
+halls of Intellect and Reason one may indeed be master, marching (a
+little chilled perhaps) with firm step and head erect. But on these
+enchanted grounds there is no medium between a wretched clearness of
+insight that reduces every curve to a number of straight lines, all
+clouds to precipitated vapor, all rainbows to an oblique coincidence
+between a sunbeam and a drop of water, and a total surrender of self to
+the influences of the flitting moment.
+
+Away with these fellows, who would force their miserable microscopes
+before the eyes of these happy gauzy moths!--to-night is only the time
+for spinning cobwebs. Hold your breath, philosopher, lest you sweep them
+away too rudely! Alas for the airy cobwebs! In that cool anteroom is a
+philosopher's broom, hard at work, brushing them remorselessly into a
+perplexing dilemma,--the frightful increase of the human race.
+
+"If," said the philosopher, emphatically, "if there were any prospect
+of emigrating to the moon, there would be some hope; but in the present
+state of affairs we shall soon be eating our own heads off, as the
+proverb says. Europe is almost exhausted, the _ultima Thule_ of arable
+territory in America has been reached, Asia barely supports her own
+immense population; nothing is left but Africa, and she presents a
+merely hopeful prospect for the future. In a hundred years, what will
+society do for breadstuffs?"
+
+"Live on rice and potatoes," suggested Anthrops.
+
+"Rash boy, and check the advance of civilization! Have you not reflected
+that the culture of wheat has been an inseparable adjunct to progress
+and refinement? The difficulties required to be overcome in preparing
+the ground and sowing the grain promote prudence, foresight, and care."
+
+"It is certainly hard work enough to dig potatoes," quoth Anthrops.
+
+The philosopher passed over the interruption with a dignified wave of
+the hand, and continued:--
+
+"The watching and waiting, during its progress to maturity, necessarily
+produce that patience which is so essential to all scientific effort;
+and the graceful loveliness of the plant in its various stages of growth
+materially assists in developing that love for the beautiful which is a
+necessary element in all harmonious individual or social character. Now
+what aesthetic culture can you evolve from that stubbed, straggling weed
+you call the potato?"
+
+The discomfited pupil meekly suggested that he had been considering the
+dietetic, not the aesthetic properties of the despised vegetable.
+
+"Impossible to separate them, Sir!" cried the philosopher. "If, indeed,
+you could fill the stomach without the intervention of any process of
+brain or hand, they might be considered apart. But consider the position
+of the stomach. Like a Persian monarch, it occupies the centre of the
+system; despotic from its remote situation and the absolute power it
+exercises, all parts of the external organism are its ministers: the
+feet must run for its daily food, the hands must prepare that food with
+cunning devices, the brain must direct the operations of feet and hands.
+Now, unlearned youth, wilt thou contend that the degree of refinement
+evinced by attention or indifference to the niceties of cooking, and so
+forth, has no bearing upon the character of the man and the race? Take
+as a standard the method of immediately conveying the food to the mouth,
+as it has progressed from barbarism. First, fingers; then, pieces of
+bark; then, rough wooden spoons, knives, two-pronged steel forks;
+and lastly, an epitome of civilization in each one that is used,
+five-pronged silver forks, evincing both the increased complexity of the
+nature that devises the extra prongs, and the refinement of taste that
+insists upon the silver. It is impossible to use wheat in any of its
+preparations," ("With five-pronged forks," murmured his attentive pupil
+parenthetically,) "without at least a piece of bark, for mixing and
+cooking, if not for eating. But in devouring potatoes, we are--I shudder
+to think of it--each moment upon the brink of being reduced to the
+absolute savageness of fingers. No, Sir! the moon and wheat both failing
+us, there is but one method of escaping universal famine,--peremptory
+reduction of the population."
+
+Anthrops started; in that country murder was a capital offence.
+
+"I do not mean," continued the philosopher, serenely, "by any forcible
+diminution of the existing populace: unfortunately, the vulgar
+prejudices in favor of life are so strong, owing to the miserable
+preponderance of the Egoistic over the Altruistic instincts, that such
+an expedient would be unadvisable. I refer to the"--
+
+"What splendid hair!" suddenly exclaimed his young companion, starting
+forward with great animation to gain a nearer glimpse of its beauties.
+The owner had stopped for a moment in passing the secluded couple,
+and the rich chestnut head was presented in clear relief against the
+confused mass of color and light that streamed through the doorway of
+the saloon. The billows of hair rose from purple depths of shadow into
+gleaming crests of golden light, and fell away again in long undulations
+into the whirlpool of the knot.
+
+While Anthrops was feasting his rapt eyes on the lovely picture, some
+treacherous fastening gave way, and the whole wavy mass overflowed upon
+the white shoulders. Then there was bustling and officious assistance,
+then there was flitting of maidens and crowding of men. They did not
+care that the hair of the Naiads in the waterfall outside of the city
+floated all day long over the glittering green waters, or that the
+soughing grass in the marsh stream lazily swayed to and fro always in
+sleepy ripples, or that the waving tresses of the weeping-willows were
+even then sweeping dreamily through the colored air: they cared for none
+of these things; but how eager and anxious were they to gain one glimpse
+of her,--fairer in her blushing confusion than before in her stately
+loveliness! She wound up the long tresses in her hand, and was
+retreating to the dressing-room, when the music, which had paused for a
+moment, renewed itself in an inspiriting waltz. Anthrops, forgetful of
+wheat, potatoes, and universal famine, rushed forward to claim her hand
+for the dance. The lady sighed, the waltz was so lovely, the young
+man so attractive, but--her hair? She really must arrange that before
+anything could be determined in any other direction. And she started
+backwards in her embarrassment to reach the stairs, and slipped into a
+little anteroom by mistake. There was but one door; so, when Anthrops
+followed her in, she could not get out, without at least hearing an
+additional reason for dancing.
+
+"The waltz will be finished," urged Anthrops. "Take this little dagger,
+and wind your hair around that; it will be a fitting ornament for you."
+
+As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a small dagger, a toy, but richly
+carved at the hilt, and offered it to the maiden. He had bought it that
+day for a little nephew, and had happened to leave it in his pocket.
+Doubtless, had the waltz been less enticing, or the youth less handsome,
+or the little anteroom less secluded, Haguna would have rejected the odd
+assistance. But, as it was, she accepted the jewelled toy, and in a few
+minutes had dexterously hidden the tiny blade with the thick coils of
+hair, just leaving the curiously carved face on the hilt to emerge from
+its shadowy nestling-place.
+
+With the readjustment of her tresses, Haguna recovered the marvellously
+defensive self-possession that had been momentarily disturbed. So
+subtile and indefinable was the curious atmosphere that surrounded her,
+that, while it could be almost destroyed by the consciousness of a
+disordered toilet, yet the keenest eye could not penetrate beneath it,
+the most confident demeanor could not impress it, once reestablished.
+
+Anthrops did not notice the change that had taken place in her aspect.
+Was it not enjoyment enough to whirl through the maddening mazes of the
+dance, into still deeper entanglements in the mysterious web that now
+had immeshed the saloons, borne irresistibly along the rapid torrent of
+music, through crowds swept in eddying circles by fresh gusts of sound,
+like leaves blown about by the west wind,--at first in low, wide, slow
+rounds, then whirling faster and faster, higher and higher, until the
+spiral coil suddenly terminated, and the music and motion fell exhausted
+together?
+
+It was quite another thing to return to his friend the philosopher, who
+was now in a very bad humor.
+
+"Such fooling!" he cried, when Anthrops came back much exhilarated.
+"That woman is the plague of my life! See," he continued, sarcastically,
+"I picked up one of the ugly little pins that she fastens her hair with;
+perhaps you might like it for a keepsake."
+
+Anthrops snatched eagerly at the little black thing his old friend held
+contemptuously balanced on his fingers, but dropped it immediately. Such
+a miserable thing to hold those glorious tresses! His dagger was better.
+The recollection that it was his dagger that now confined them dispelled
+the chill which the irate philosopher had thrown over his glowing
+excitement; he submissively proposed a return to potatoes, piling up
+famine and wheat over the one little thought that diffused such a
+delicious warmth through his breast; as charcoal-burners heap dead ashes
+over their fire, to hide it from the rough intrusion of chilling winds.
+
+The nest day Haguna sent back the dagger, with a little note, thanking
+the owner in graceful terms.
+
+"Your graceful politeness last evening, Herr Anthrops, saved me much
+perplexity, and procured me a delightful waltz. One should indeed be
+well protected by fortune, to find so readily such a courteous little
+sword," ("She does not know the difference between a sword and a
+dagger," thought Anthrops, and he was pleased at her ignorance,) "to
+supply one's awkward deficiencies." (Anthrops slightly winced as he
+thought of the little black pins.) "The old man on the hilt is really
+charming. I actually was obliged to kiss him at parting, he looked so
+kindly and pleasantly at me. Besides, he was my true benefactor; and
+my grandmother has often told me, that in her day maidens were very
+properly more expressive in their gratitude than now." (Anthrops
+fervently longed for a retrogression in the calendar.) "And I really
+think my old friend must have been alive then, and have been changed
+into wood, on purpose to preserve his looks till I could see him. It
+would be a right pleasant destiny, when one begins to grow old and ugly,
+to be transformed into wood, and carved as one would wish to appear
+perpetually. And happier fate still, like Philemon and Baucis, to change
+into living trees, and flourish for hundreds of years in youth and
+vigor. There are willow-trees growing on the banks of the river that may
+easily have been girls who wept themselves into trees, because their
+hair would soon be gray, and they have exchanged it for tresses of
+green. Near those willow-trees the princely stranger who has lately
+occupied the castle will next week give a boating _fête_, to which I
+am invited; I suppose you also, courteous Sir, will be present, a
+knight-errant for distressed damsels?
+
+"HAGUNA."
+
+Anthrops kissed the little old man on the dagger's hilt again and again,
+and made two equally firm, but entirely disconnected resolutions,
+simultaneously: namely, never to give his nephew the intended present,
+and by all means to be at the boat-_fête_ the following week.
+
+The day of the _fête_ arrived,--a clear, lovely day in early June. The
+host had provided for the accommodation of his guests a number of boats
+of different sizes, holding two, three, or a dozen people, according to
+the fancy of the voyagers. Anthrops, descending the flight of steps that
+led to the river, came unexpectedly upon his old friend the philosopher,
+apparently emerging from the side of the hill.
+
+"I expected you here," said he; "are you going on the river?"
+
+Anthrops replied in the affirmative.
+
+"Haguna is here, and I have come to exact a promise that you will not
+sail with her. You will repent it, if you do."
+
+"Better than starvation is a feast and repentance," cried the young man,
+gayly. "What harm is there in the girl? Though, to be sure, I had no
+particular intention of sailing with her."
+
+"It would be of no use to warn you explicitly," said his friend; "you
+would not believe me. But you must not go."
+
+"Nay, good father," returned the youth, a little vexed,--"it is
+altogether too unreasonable to expect me to obey like a child; give me
+one good reason why I should avoid her as if she had the plague, and I
+promise to be guided by you."
+
+"All women have some plague-spot," said the philosopher, sententiously.
+
+"Well, then, I may as well be infected by her as by any one," cried
+Anthrops, lightly, and was rushing down the steps again, when the
+philosopher caught him by the arm.
+
+"Follow me," he said; "you will not believe, but still you may see."
+
+He led the way down to the river, and, the youth still following,
+entered one of the gayly trimmed row-boats and pushed from shore. The
+boat seemed possessed by the will of its master, and, needing no other
+guide or impetus, floated swiftly into the centre of the channel.
+Obeying the same invisible helmsman, it there paused and rocked gently
+backwards and forwards as over an unseen anchor. The philosopher drew
+from his pocket a small cup and dipped up a little water. He then
+handed it to the youth, and bade him look at it through a strong
+magnifying-glass, which he also gave him. Anthrops was surprised to find
+a white dust in the bottom of the cup.
+
+"Ah!" said his companion, answering his look of inquiry, "it is
+bone-dust; and now you may see where it comes from."
+
+Anthrops looked through the magnifying-glass, as he was directed, at the
+river itself, and found he could clearly see the sand at the bottom.
+He was horrified at seeing the yellow surface strewn with human bones,
+bleached by long exposure to the running water.
+
+"Alas!" he exclaimed, sorrowfully, "have so many noble youths perished
+in these treacherous waters? That golden sand might be ruddy with the
+blood of its numerous victims!"
+
+"Don't be blaming the innocent waters, simple boy!" half sneered
+the philosopher. "Lay the blame where it is due, upon the artful
+river-nixes. Since the creation of the world, the stream has flowed
+tranquilly between these banks; and during that time do you not suppose
+that these fair alluring sprites have had opportunity to entice such
+silly boys as you into the cool green water there below?"
+
+Anthrops gazed long into the still, cruel depths of the river, held
+spell-bound by a horrible fascination; at last he raised his head, and,
+drawing a long sigh of relief, exclaimed,--
+
+"Thank fortune, Haguna is no water-nix!"
+
+"What!" cried the angry philosopher, "your mind still running upon that
+silly witch? Can you learn no wisdom from the fate of other generations
+of fools, but must yourself add another to the catalogue? She is more
+dangerous than the nixes: the snares which they laid for their victims
+were cobwebs, compared to the one she is weaving for you. You admire her
+hair, forsooth! The silk of the Indian corn is a fairer color, spiders'
+webs are finer, and the back of the earth-mole is softer; yet in your
+eyes nothing will compare with it."
+
+"The silk of the Indian corn is golden, but coarse and rough; the
+threads of the spider's web are fine, but dull and gray; the satin hair
+of the blind mole is lifeless and stiff. Let me go, old man! I care
+nothing for your fancied dangers. I shall row her to-day; that is
+pleasure enough." And he attempted to seize the unused oar.
+
+"Once more, pause! Reflect upon what you are leaving: the pleasures of
+tranquil meditation, the keen excitements of science, the entrancing
+delights of philosophy. All these you must abandon, if you leave me
+now."
+
+Anthrops hesitated a moment.
+
+"How so?" he asked.
+
+"He who is devoted to philosophy must share his soul with no other
+mistress. No restlessness, no longing after an unseen face, no feverish
+anxiety for the love or approval of an earthly maiden must disturb the
+balanced calm of his absorbed mind"--
+
+"Herr Anthrops, Herr Anthrops, how you have forgotten your engagement!"
+
+She was in a boat that had pushed up close to them unawares. Some girls
+and young men occupied the bows. Haguna was leaning over the stern and
+waving her hand to Anthrops. So suddenly had she appeared, that it was
+as if she had risen out of the rippling river, and the ripples still
+seemed to undulate on her sunny hair and laughing dimpled face: so fresh
+and bright and fair she seemed in that glad June morning. What did it
+matter whether he reasoned rightly on any subject?
+
+"Let me go!" he exclaimed to his companion. "Farewell, philosophy!
+farewell, science! I have chosen."
+
+To his surprise, he discovered that he was suddenly quite alone in the
+boat. The philosopher had disappeared,--whether by waxen wings, or an
+invisible cap, or any of the other numerous contrivances of many-wiled
+philosophers, he did not stop to consider, but hastened to join Haguna
+and her companions.
+
+"You are a welcome addition to our company," said Haguna, graciously
+reaching out her white hand; "but you choose strange companions. An old
+gray owl flew out of your boat a moment ago, scared to find himself
+abroad in such a pleasant sunlight. I confess I don't altogether
+admire your taste, not being an orni"--
+
+She appealed in pretty perplexity to the student to help her out of the
+difficulty into which she had fallen by her rash attempt at large words.
+
+--"Thologist," added Anthrops, much wondering at these new tricks of
+the philosopher,--and then again he so much the more applauded his own
+wisdom in exchanging for her society the company of an old owl.
+
+So all the day long he stayed by her, all the day long he followed her,
+rowing or walking or dancing, or sitting by her under the willows on the
+banks of the river. The soft breeze routed her shining hair from its
+compact masses; it touched his cheek as he knelt beside her to pull
+up the tough-rooted columbine that resisted her fingers; her fragrant
+breath mingled with the odor of the sweet-scented violets that he
+plucked for her; the trailing tresses of the mournful willow, swaying in
+the breeze, brushed them both; the murmuring water at their feet heard a
+new tale as it flowed past her, and babbled it to him, adding delicious
+nonsense of its own, endless variations upon the same sweet theme. How
+happy he was that day! It came to an end, of course; but its death
+scattered the seeds of other days, that sprang up in gracious profusion,
+yielding dear delights of flower and fruit. All over his garden these
+bright plants grew, gradually triumphing over and expelling the coarser
+and ruder vegetables.
+
+Nothing but flowers would he cultivate now,--and cared not even that
+they should be perennials, if only the present blooming were gay and
+gladsome.
+
+One June day, Anthrops joined a pleasure-seeking equestrian party, who
+rode from the town to spend the day in the woods. What a lovely day it
+was! The pure, fresh air seemed to contain the very essence of the life
+it inspired, life drained of all impurity and sadness and foulness
+by the early summer rains, the springing joyous life of the delicate
+wood-flowers. The strong trees in the leafy woods trembled with
+happiness in their boughs and tender sprays; the carolling birds poured
+forth their brimming songs from full hearts. And upon the interlacing
+greenery of the shrubbery, and the lichens upon the trees, and the soft
+moss covering with jealous tenderness the bare places in the ground,
+the slant sunbeams glittered in the early morning dew. As Anthrops rode
+along silently by the side of Haguna, an inexpressible joyfulness filled
+his heart; the light, round, white clouds nestling in the deep bosom of
+the sky, the faint, delicious odor of the woods, the rustling, murmuring
+presence that forever dwelt there, all made him unspeakably glad and
+light-hearted. As he rode, he began to sing a little song that he had
+learned awhile before.
+
+  We rushed from the mountain,
+    The streamlet and I,
+  Restless, unquiet,
+    We scarcely knew why,--
+  Till we met a dear maiden,
+    Whose beauty divine
+  Stilled with great quiet
+    This wild heart of mine;
+  And awed and astonished
+    To peacefulness sweet,
+  The fierce mountain-torrent
+    Lay still at her feet."
+
+"A right rare power for beauty to possess!" laughed Haguna. "Are you so
+restless that you need this soothing, fair Sir?"
+
+A deep, sweet smile gushed out from his eyes and illumined his face.
+He stretched out his arms lovingly into the warm air, as if he thus
+infolded some rich joy, and answered, musingly,--
+
+"In ordinary action, thought, and feeling,--we are too conscious of
+ourselves, we are perplexed with the miserable little 'I,' that, by
+claiming deed and thought for its own work, makes it little and mean.
+But the wondrous Beautiful comes to us entirely from outside; our very
+contemplation of it does not belong to us; we are overpowered
+and conquered by the vast idea that broods over us. And so that
+contemplation is pure happiness."
+
+Haguna laughed a little, and a little wondered what he meant; then
+observed, lightly,--
+
+"You must value yourself very modestly, to consider your greatest
+happiness to consist in losing your self-consciousness,--unless,
+indeed, like Polycrates, you hope to insure future prosperity by
+sacrificing your most valuable possession."
+
+"If so, I, like Polycrates, am the gainer by my own precaution; for, in
+your presence, dear lady, do I first truly find my right consciousness."
+
+She clapped her hands gleefully, wilfully misunderstanding his meaning.
+
+"Most complimentary of monarchs! So I am the haggard old fisherman who
+replaced the lost bawble in the royal treasury! Pray, Sire, remember the
+pension with which I should be rewarded!" And she bowed low, in mock
+courtesy to her companion.
+
+"Nay," rejoined Anthrops, vexed that his earnest compliment should be so
+mishandled,--"blame your own perversity for such an interpretation. At
+your side I forget that I live for any other purpose than to look at
+you, and lavish my whole soul in an intensity of gazing; and then the
+presumptuous thought, that you like to have me near you, nay, are
+sometimes even pleased to talk to me, gives my poor self a value in my
+own eyes, for the kindness you show me."
+
+"I know all that well enough," said Haguna, quietly. "But in the mean
+while, dear Anthrops, you must remember that it is really impolite to
+stare so much."
+
+By this time they had ridden deep into the still woods. Following the
+light current of their talking, they wound in and out among the green
+trees, under their broad arching boughs,--now following the path, now
+beating a new track over the short grass mixed with the crisp gray moss.
+The sunlight glanced shyly through the fluttering leaves, weaving with
+their delicate shadows a rare tracery on the grass. The pattern was so
+intricate and yet so suggestive, they were sure that some strange legend
+was written there in mysterious characters,--something holding a fateful
+reason for their ride together in the green woods. But just as they had
+almost deciphered the secret, the broidered shadow disappeared under a
+bush, leaving them in new perplexity. They looked for the story in the
+windings of the checkerberry-vine and blue-eyed periwinkle, on the
+lichens curiously growing on the boles of aged trees; but for all these
+they had no dictionary. So they strayed on and on, in the endless
+mazes of the forest, till they became entirely separated from their
+companions, and lost all clue for recovering the path.
+
+Anthrops looked in some perplexity at Haguna, to see if she were alarmed
+at this position of affairs. He was rather surprised to find, that, far
+from being discouraged, she seemed highly to enjoy the dilemma. She
+leaned forward a little on her horse, her one gloved hand, dropping the
+reins on his neck, nestled carelessly in his mane, while the forefinger
+of the other hand rested on her lip, with a comical expression of mock
+anxiety, as she looked inquiringly at Anthrops.
+
+"I think," finally exclaimed Anthrops, "that we had better push straight
+through the woods. We cannot go far without discovering some road that
+will lead us back to the city."
+
+"Nobly resolved, courageous Sir! But first tell me how we shall pass
+this first barrier that besets our onward march."
+
+And she pointed the end of the riding-whip that hung at her wrist to a
+mass of brambles which formed an impenetrable wall immediately in their
+path. Anthrops rubbed his eyes, for he could scarce believe that this
+thicket had been there before; it seemed to have grown up suddenly while
+he turned his head. He then tried to retrace his steps, but was thrown
+into fresh perplexity by discovering that the trees seemed to have
+closed in around them, so that he could find no opening for a horse.
+
+"It seems evident to me," said Haguna, "that we must dismount, and find
+our way on foot. If now we could have deciphered the hieroglyphs of the
+shadows, we might have avoided this misfortune."
+
+As cool water upon the brow of a fevered man, fell the clear tones
+of her voice upon Anthrops, bewildered and confused by the sudden
+enchantment. She, indeed, called it a misfortune, but so cheerily and
+gayly that her voice belied the term; and Anthrops insensibly plucked up
+heart, and shook off somewhat of that paralyzing astonishment.
+
+He assisted her to dismount, and, leaving the horses to their fate,
+they together hunted for some opening in the dense thicket. After much
+search, Anthrops succeeded in discovering a small gap in the brambles,
+through which he and Haguna crept, but only into fresh perplexity. They
+gained a path, but with it no prospect of rejoining their companions;
+for it wound an intricate course between ramparts of vine-covered
+shrubbery, that shut it in on either side and intercepted all extended
+view. The way was too narrow to admit of more than one person passing at
+a time; and as Haguna happened to have emerged first from the thicket,
+she boldly took the lead, following the path until they emerged into a
+more open part of the forest, where the undulating ground was entirely
+free from underbrush, and the eye roamed at pleasure through the wide
+glades. Haguna followed some unseen waymarks with sure step, still
+tacitly compelling Anthrops to follow her without inquiry. As she sped
+lightly over the turf, she began to hum a little song:--
+
+  "Nodding flowers, and tender grass,
+  Bend and let the lady pass!
+  Lighter than the south-wind straying,
+  In the spring, o'er leaves decaying,
+  Seeking for his ardent kisses
+  One small flower that he misses,
+  Will I press your snowy bosoms,
+  Dainty, darling little blossoms!"
+
+Singing thus, she descended a little hill, and, gliding round its base,
+disappeared under a thick grape-vine that swung across it from two lofty
+elms on either side. A spider in conscious security had woven his web
+across the archway formed by the drooping festoons of the vine; the
+untrodden path was overgrown with moss. Haguna lifted up the vine
+and passed under, beckoning Anthrops to follow. He heard her still
+singing,--
+
+  "Quick unclasp your tendrils clinging,
+  Stealthily the trees enringing!
+  I have learnt your wily secret:
+  I will use it, I shall keep it!
+  Cunning spider, cease your spinning!
+  My web boasts the best beginning.
+  Yours is wan and pale and ashen:
+  After no such lifeless fashion
+  Mine is woven. Golden sunbeams
+  Prisoned in its meshes, light gleams
+  From its shadowest recesses.
+  Tell me, spider, made you ever
+  Web so strong no knife could sever
+  Woven of a maiden's tresses?"
+
+On the other side of the viny curtain, Anthrops discovered the entrance
+to a large cavern hollowed out in a rock. The cavern was carpeted with
+the softest moss of the most variegated shades, ranging from faintest
+green to a rich golden brown. The rocky walls were of considerable
+height, and curved gracefully around the ample space,--a woodland
+apartment. But the most remarkable feature in the grotto was a
+rose-colored cloud, that seemed to have been imprisoned in the farther
+end, and, in its futile efforts to escape, shifted perpetually into
+strange, fantastic figures. Now, the massive form of the Israelitish
+giant appeared lying at the feet of the Philistine damsel; anon, the
+kingly shoulders of the swift-footed Achilles towered helplessly above
+the heads of the island girls. The noble head of Marcus Antoninus bowed
+in disgraceful homage before his wife; the gaunt figure of the stern
+Florentine trembled at the footsteps of the light Beatrice; the sister
+of Honorius, from the throne of half the world, saluted the sister
+of Theodosius, grasping the sceptre of the other half in her slender
+fingers. Every instance of weak compliance with the whims, of devoted
+subjection to the power, of destructive attention to the caprices of
+women by men, since Eve ruined her lord with the fatal apple, was
+whimsically represented by the rapid configurations of this strange
+vapor.
+
+Anthrops presently discovered Haguna half reclining on a raised
+moss-seat, and dreamily running her white fingers through her hair,
+which now fell unchecked to her feet. He had lost sight of her but a
+few minutes, yet in that short time a strange change had come over her.
+Perhaps it was because her rippling hair, which, slightly stirred by the
+faint air of the cavern, rose and fell around her in long undulations,
+made her appear as if floating in a golden brown haze. Perhaps it was
+the familiarity with which she had taken possession of the grotto, as if
+it had been a palace that she had expected, prepared for her reception.
+But for some reason she appeared a great way off,--no longer a simple
+maiden, involved with him in a woodland adventure, but a subtle
+enchantress, who, through all the seeming accidents of the day, had
+been pursuing a deep-laid plot, and now was awaiting its triumphant
+consummation. She did not at first notice Anthrops as he stood in
+curious astonishment in the doorway; but presently, looking up, she
+motioned him to another place beside herself.
+
+"This is a pleasant place to rest in for a while before we rejoin our
+companions," she said; "we are fortunate in finding so pretty a spot."
+
+The natural tone of her frank, girlish voice somewhat dissipated
+Anthrops's vague bewilderment, and he accepted the proffered seat at
+her side. He for the first time looked attentively at Haguna, as he had
+until now been gazing at the shifting diorama behind her. He noticed, to
+his surprise, a number of bright shining points, somewhat like stars,
+glistening in her hair, and with some hesitation inquired their
+nature. Haguna laughed, a low musical laugh, yet with an indescribable
+impersonality in it,--as if a spring brook had just then leaped over a
+little hill, and were laughing mockingly to itself at its exploit.
+
+"They are souls," she said.
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Anthrops; "are souls no bigger than that?"
+
+"How do you know how large they are?" laughed Haguna, beginning to weave
+her hair into a curiously intricate braid. "These are but the vital
+germs of souls; but I hold them bound as surely by imprisoning these."
+
+"But surely every soul is not so weak; all cannot be so cruelly
+imprisoned."
+
+Again she laughed, that strange laugh.
+
+"Strong and weak are merely relative terms. There is nothing you know
+of so strong that it may not yield to a stronger, and anything can be
+captured that is once well laid hold of. I will sing you a song by which
+you may learn some of the ways in which other things beside souls are
+caught."
+
+Still continuing her busy weaving, Haguna began to sing. Except the song
+she had hummed in the woods that afternoon, he had never heard her voice
+but in speaking, and was astonished at its richness and power; yet it
+was a simple chant she sang, that seemed to follow the gliding motion of
+her fingers.
+
+  "Running waters swiftly flowing,
+  On the banks fair lilies growing
+  Watch the dancing sunbeams quiver,
+  Watch their faces in the river.
+  Round their long roots, in and out,
+  The supple river winds about,--
+  Wily, oily, deep designing,
+  Their foundations undermining.
+  Fall the lilies in the river,
+  Smoothly glides the stream forever."
+
+The subtle song crept into Anthrops's brain, and seemed to spin a web
+over it, which, though of lightest gossamer, confined him helplessly in
+its meshes. Again she sang:--
+
+  "From the swamp the mist is creeping;
+  Fly the startled sunbeams weeping,
+  Up the mountain feebly flying,
+  Paling, waning, fainting, dying.
+  All their cheerful work undoing,
+  Crawls the cruel mist pursuing.
+  Shrouded in a purple dimness,
+  Quenched the sunlight is in shadow;
+  Over hill and wood and meadow
+  Broads the mist in sullen grimness."
+
+She had already woven a great deal of her shining hair into a curious
+braid, so broad and intricate as to be almost a golden web. A strange
+fascination held Anthrops spell-bound; it was as if her song were
+weaving her web, and her fingers chanting her song, and as if both song
+and web were made of the wavering cloud that still shifted into endless
+dioramas. Once more she sang:--
+
+  "Drop by drop the charmed ear tingling,
+  Rills of music intermingling,
+  Murmuring in their mazy winding,
+  All the steeped senses blinding,
+  Their intricate courses wending,
+  Closer still the streams are blending.
+  Down the rapid channel rushing,
+  Floods of melody are gushing;
+  Flush the tender rills with gladness,
+  Drown the listener in sweet madness.
+  Onward sweeps the eddying singing,
+  Ever new enchantment bringing.
+  Break the bubbles on the river,
+  Faints the wearied sound in darkness;
+  But, as one that always hearkens,
+  Floats the charmed soul forever."
+
+As she finished the song, she arose, and threw over the youth the web
+of her fatal hair. The charmed song had so incorporated itself with the
+odorous air of the cavern, that every breath he drew seemed to be laden
+with the subtle music. It oppressed, stifled him; he strove in vain to
+escape its influence; and as he felt the soft hair brush his cheek, he
+swooned upon the ground.
+
+The philosopher's study was a very different place from the green
+wood,--perched up, as it was, on the summit of a bare, bleak mountain.
+The room was fitted up with the frugality demanded by philosophic
+indifference to luxury, and the abundance necessitated by a wide range
+of study. The walls were hung with a number of pictures, in whose
+subjects an observer might detect a remarkable similarity. A satirical
+pencil had been engaged in depicting some of the most striking instances
+of successful manly resistance to female tyranny, of manly contempt for
+feminine weakness, of manly endurance of woman-inflicted injury. The
+unfortunate Longinus turned with contemptuous pity from the trembling
+Zenobia; the valiant Thomas Aquinas hurled his protesting firebrand
+against the too charming interruption of his scholastic pursuits; the
+redoubtable Conqueror beat his rebellious sweetheart into matrimony.
+The flickering light of a wood fire served not merely to illuminate
+the actual portraits, but almost to discover the sarcastic face of the
+anonymous artist, smiling in triumph from the background. On the hearth
+in front of the fire stood the philosopher in earnest conversation with
+a venerable friend.
+
+"I am provoked beyond measure," exclaimed our friend, in an exceedingly
+vexed tone. "So much as I had hoped from the boy,--that he, too, could
+not keep from the silly snare! It is shameful, abominable;--she is
+always in my way, upsetting all my plans, interfering with everything I
+undertake. Would you believe it? at the death of one of her sisters, the
+fools were not content with giving her a funeral good enough for a man,
+but they must place her _hair_ in the sky for a constellation!"
+
+"That was indeed an insult to Orion," said his sympathizing friend,
+soothingly.
+
+"My hands are absolutely tied," continued the irate philosopher. "I
+bestow upon the boys the most careful education, enlarge their minds
+by the study of the history and destiny of man, of the world, of the
+stellar system, till I may hope that in the contemplation of the
+vast universe they have lost their little prejudices and personal
+preferences. I strengthen their judgment, assiduously exercise their
+powers of ratiocination, fortify their minds with philosophy, train them
+to habits of accuracy, patience, and perseverance by long scientific
+research; and at the moment when I ought to find them useful as
+philosophers, as seekers after eternal Truth, as lovers of imperishable
+Wisdom, they degenerate into seekers after eyes and hair and cheeks, and
+I know not what nonsense, lovers of frail, perishable women, who appear
+to preserve an astonishing longevity on purpose to plague and thwart
+rational people."
+
+His friend pondered deeply upon the vexatious problem.
+
+"You say," he remarked, "that this unfortunate attraction exists in
+spite of philosophical training,--that it is exerted towards the
+antipodes of their previous associations; that, as they have been
+trained to yield only to well-grounded syllogisms, it is the illogical
+mode of assault that vanquishes them unguarded; that their reasonable
+minds have nothing to say to such, perfectly unreasonable fascinations;
+that, in short, the enemy succeeds by supplying a vacuum, as the walls
+of Visibis gave way under the pressure of the dammed-up river?"
+
+"Alas, friend, your observations are too true!"
+
+"Then my way becomes clearer. It surely cannot be unknown to you, sagest
+of students, that in physical science we oppose a plenum to a vacuum,
+in medicine we supply a deficiency of saline secretions by the common
+expedient of salt. Wherefore not apply our knowledge painfully gleaned
+from lower science to the study of these more complicated phenomena? The
+coward who would flee the fire of the enemy may be kept at his post by
+the equal dread of death from his commander. Open a double fire upon
+these wayward youths. Make the Barbarians enlist in the Roman legions.
+In short, teach Haguna and the others philosophy. There will then no
+longer be an opposing force of entirely different nature, but merely an
+influence of the same kind as he has been accustomed to, though vastly
+inferior in power."
+
+The philosopher started,--the idea was so new to him.
+
+"But, my friend," he urged, doubtfully, "do you not remember,
+that, after the Romans had painfully learnt ship-building from the
+Carthaginians, they vanquished them with their own weapons? Might not
+some such danger be apprehended in this case?"
+
+His companion reddened with indignation, then spoke in a tone of mildly
+severe rebuke.
+
+"Are the girls Romans? Do you suppose that in ship-building the silly
+little things would ever advance beyond scows? We shall have the double
+advantage of the plenum, by their minds being turned in the same
+direction as those of our students,--and of the defeat and shipwreck,
+through fighting in unseaworthy vessels."
+
+"I have another idea also," observed the philosopher. "Even supposing,
+as I must confess there seems to me a possibility, that in a
+philosophical tournament, or trial of wits, they should occasionally
+come off victorious," (his friend shook his head angrily,) "the effect
+of separation that we desire would still be obtained. Haguna would no
+longer be able to entangle silly boys in her treacherous hair. Your
+suggestion is good; I will act upon it."
+
+After some deliberation, they agreed upon the method of procedure, which
+the philosopher immediately began to put into practice.
+
+Shortly after this conversation, invitations were sent to a select
+number of the inhabitants of the city to a new kind of entertainment to
+be given by the recluse philosopher of the mountain. The entertainment
+was to consist of astronomical and chemical exhibitions; the infinitely
+great and infinitesimally little were to be conjoined to form an
+evening's amusement. Such was the programme; and the eager curiosity
+of the select few who were invited brought them punctually to the
+philosopher's eyry. Haguna of course was there,--as unconsciously lovely
+as if the disappearance of the unfortunate Anthrops were as much
+a mystery to her as to the rest of the wondering citizens. The
+philosopher, laying aside the brusqueness acquired in his solitude,
+devoted himself with the utmost courtesy to the amusement of his guests,
+--opened for them dusty cases of butterflies, shells, and rare stones,
+which he had collected in his pursuit of the various sciences that
+made them a specialty,--placed ponderous tomes open at some curious
+or amusing story of otherwise forgotten ages, to arrest the fancy
+of elegant literati,--exhibited rare and grotesque curiosities, the
+glittering mica that he had picked up in his long researches, as toys
+for these idlers of taste.
+
+The flashing gems and gay dresses of the brilliant assemblage
+illuminated the dusky old study; the rustling of silks, and the merry
+laughter, only a trifle subdued by the novelty of the circumstances, the
+eager chattering, the tripping sound of girlish feet darting in and
+out of every quaint nook and corner, the varied flow of sprightly
+conversation, scared the solemn quiet of the library. Looming down
+grimly from the shelves that lined the walls, stood ponderous volumes,
+monuments over the graves in which their authors were buried. Oh, the
+life's blood that had been wrung into those forgotten pages! Oh, the
+eager hope and sickening disappointment, the vehement aspirations,
+the intense longings, the bitter hatred, the scorn, the greater than
+angelic, the human love and benevolence, the fortitude, the courage, the
+whole strange life of hundreds of dead men, that burned between those
+thick covers! Often books do not reveal their authors until many years
+after their death. They are read at first for the mite of fuel that they
+bring to some blazing controversy; the man is entirely forgotten in his
+work. But when years, centuries, have passed away, and the fire that
+threatened to consume the world has died out as quietly as any common
+bonfire, then the "spirits of the mighty dead" come back calmly to their
+world-work,--now doubtless seeing its little worth as clearly as their
+modern critics, but also hallowing their mighty labors with regal
+authority, as the living garment of a human soul. The marble tombs in
+graveyards hold empty dust; the real men lie buried alive in quiet
+libraries.
+
+The philosopher entertained his guests well. But underneath all the
+polite suavity of his manner could be detected a curious satisfaction at
+the contrast between the deep sea of still thought usually embosoming
+his library, and this sparkling, shallow little stream now flowing into
+it. The prominent popular tricks of science he played off for their
+amusement, exhibited the standard stars, enlarged upon the most
+wonder-striking and easily understood facts in the sublime science, and
+bewildered them with a pleasant enthusiasm of acquisition, by a series
+of brilliant chemical experiments. The labors of a lifetime were
+concentrated on a few dazzling results: the long tedium of the
+means, the painful training, the hard mathematical preparation, the
+brain-sickness and heart-sickness of these years of solitude were
+quietly ignored.
+
+But it was round Haguna that he plied the most subtle enchantments,--to
+her he exhibited the most glittering decoys of Knowledge. She was
+completely fascinated. Her cheeks grew pale, her large dark eyes deeper
+and darker, with intense interest. She hung upon every word that fell
+from the philosopher's lips, pored over the elegant trifles the scholar
+had collected for the wondering ignorant, and stood abashed before the
+studied unconsciousness of power,--the power of vast learning, that she
+felt for the first time. When the guests were departing, she was still
+reluctant to go,--she timidly followed the watchful philosopher to the
+mighty telescope that had brought down stars for their playthings that
+evening.
+
+"My ignorance and weakness overwhelm me," she exclaimed; "would that I
+could spend my life in this awful library!"
+
+The philosopher repressed his exultation at this confession, and
+replied,--
+
+"Nothing is easier, Madam, than the gratification of your laudable
+desire. I am in the habit of receiving pupils, and should be most happy
+to admit you to my class."
+
+An eager light leaped into her lovely face as she earnestly thanked him
+for his condescension, and engaged to begin the lessons on the very next
+day. So, when the guests had all gone, and the scared quiet ventured to
+brood again over its ancient nestling-place, the wily philosopher
+threw himself back into his great chair, and laughed a long while with
+solitary enjoyment.
+
+The next day Haguna wended her lonely way to the bleak hill. It was so
+stony and bare and treeless,--jutting out against the gray cold sky
+like a giant sentinel stripped naked, yet still with dogged obstinacy
+clinging to his post. The hard path pushed up over jagged stones that
+cut her tender feet, and they left bleeding waymarks on the difficult
+ascent. Woe, woe to poor trembling Haguna! Uncouth birds whizzed in
+circles round her head, clanging and clamoring with their shrill voices,
+striving to beat her back with their flapping wings. The faint sweet
+fragrance of brier-roses clustering at the foot of the mountain wafted
+reproachfully upon the chill air an entreaty to return. Once, turning at
+a sudden bend in the road, she spied a merry party of girls and children
+crowning each other with quickly fading wreaths of clover-blossoms. A
+rosy-cheeked child in the centre of the group, enjoying the glory of his
+first coronation, accidentally pointed his fat fore-finger at her, as
+if in derision of her undertaking. It was strange, that, although she
+presently pressed forward eagerly again, she felt glad that none of
+those laughing girls would leave the sunny valley to follow her example.
+She had flung her whole soul into the scheme, as is the fashion with
+girls, and could not recover it again now. It seemed absolutely
+necessary that somewhere some woman like herself should be compelled
+to scale this ascent, and she--one of those girls in the valley, for
+instance, might not be nearly so well able as herself to face this
+bleakness. Thus she might preserve those sportive triflers in their
+everlasting childhood by the warning of her sad devotion. Faint shadows
+of gigantic tasks to be conquered when the hill was surmounted swam
+through her mind. And somewhat whimsically associated with these, a
+portrait of the learned Hooker occurred vividly to her imagination,--his
+face disfigured through his devotion to sedentary pursuits.
+Involuntarily she smoothed her soft cheek with her little hand. It was
+still round and velvet as an August peach. Nevertheless she threw this
+possibility into the burden she was going to assume for humanity,
+and felt happier as the burden waxed heavier. The innate hunger for
+sacrifice was gratified, with only the definite prospect of suffering
+from loss of complexion; a concrete living shape was given to the vague
+longing that possessed her; and she cheerfully marched on, strong in the
+hope of the love and reverence she was sure her devotion would gain. Ah,
+sweet Haguna, Haguna! Sweating enough and toil enough already! Go back,
+dear child, from a work thou canst not understand, and imprison sunbeams
+for the panting world in flowery valleys!
+
+By this time she had reached the philosophic hermitage. Her future
+master met her at the door, and, saluting her with grave courtesy, led
+the way to a small unfurnished apartment, from whose windows nothing
+could be seen but the distant sea and sky,--always a solemn monotone of
+sea and sky.
+
+"And so," he said, with mild irony, "even the maidens must dim their
+bright eyes with philosophy! Can they leave their dolls so long?"
+
+The hot blood rushed into Haguna's face, as she exclaimed, with intense
+eagerness,--
+
+"Is it my fault that I am a girl? I come to you to learn, to satisfy
+the insatiable thirst for knowledge which you have awakened,--and you
+reproach me with my ignorance! I have just discovered that the one thing
+I have secretly needed always was to learn to exercise my mind cramped
+with inaction, to share with you labor and toil."
+
+"Poor child," sighed the philosopher, excited to sudden pity by her
+ardor, "you know little of the sweat of brain-toil! Do you know that it
+takes years of painful study to arrive at a single valuable result? that
+for a distant, doubtful advantage, all your bright, unfettered life must
+be sacrificed? Each enjoyment must be stinted and weighed,--each day
+valued only as another step to be climbed in the endless ladder,--all
+simple, sweet enjoyment of earth and air and sky, the careless, golden
+halo of each free day, must be given up. Everything must be squared
+according to an inexorable plan; self must be despised, passions
+restrained and clarified, till the life becomes thin and attenuated
+through careful discipline,--all hopes and fears laid aside till the
+soul becomes accustomed to its chilly atmosphere. Then body and mind
+must be trained to endure a fearful weariness, to pass the days under
+such a stern pressure of toil that all loving, graceful interests shall
+be rooted out of the stony soil. You must be prepared to lose precious
+truths in a gulf of delusion,--to leave all your old beacon-lights and
+wander forth in an eternal dark. The troubles that beset weak souls
+may be dissipated, but new strength brings dreadful trials. Tremendous
+conflicts, undreamt-of in your innocence, will agitate your adventurous
+Intellect, penetrating into vast regions of Doubt, where the mind made
+for belief often reels into madness, goaded by harassing anxiety.
+Often the lonely night-hours must be spent in sore battle with fearful
+spectres revived by the roaming soul from their frequent graves.
+All this and more must he dare who aspires to the lofty service of
+philosophy."
+
+"All this and more would I gladly suffer," cried Haguna. "There is a
+fire now in my brain; you have kindled it, and it must be fed. And,
+moreover, I wish to endure this trial for its own sake; for it is not
+fitting that men should suffer more than women. Perhaps, too,--am I
+presumptuous in thinking so?--two workers may so lessen the toil of one
+that this lonely trial maybe greatly helped by even my assistance."
+
+And her bosom heaved, and glorious tears welled up into her deep blue
+eyes. The repentant philosopher placed his hand on her lovely head, and
+lifted a tress of her soft hair.
+
+"Ah, child, child, you know little about it! What! will you sacrifice
+these glorious tresses to a hard and joyless course of study? For none
+can study Euclid with me with hair like this."
+
+"Willingly! willingly!" cried Haguna, impetuously, and pulled a pair of
+scissors from her pocket to immediately make the beautiful offering.
+
+The reluctant philosopher arrested her hand.
+
+"Rash girl! consider yet a moment. You are exchanging a treasure whose
+value you know for--you know not what. You will bitterly repent."
+
+But Haguna, would not consider. She impatiently tore away her hand, and
+in a few minutes had closely shorn her head, and the neglected hair lay
+in rich profusion on the floor. As it lay there, the warm golden brown
+color faded and faded, and some glittering things entangled in its
+abundant masses beamed forth for a moment like tiny stars, and then
+disappeared. And had Haguna stepped into a cloud, that so great a change
+had come over her? The fine contour of head and forehead, the soft
+outline of face, the delicate moulding of the chin were the same
+still,--the dark eyes glowed with even new lustre; but the graceful
+throat and white arm were hidden in a dark muffling cloak, the delicious
+blush had faded from the cheek, whose color was now firm and tranquil,
+the well-cut lips had settled into almost too harsh lines, an air of
+indescribably voluptuous grace had forever fled. Ah, hapless Haguna!
+
+The philosopher made no further remonstrance, but led her immediately
+to the library, and, seating her at the table, opened a worn copy of
+Euclid, and began at "Two straight lines," and so forth.
+
+A few moments after, Anthrops, released from his imprisonment, opened
+the door of the upper room, walked quietly down-stairs, and returned to
+the city, much to the joy of his friends and relations, who had long
+mourned him as lost.
+
+About a year after this, Anthrops strolled into the philosopher's study,
+to inquire the solution of a certain problem.
+
+"I will refer you," said his old instructor, "to my accomplished pupil";
+then raising his voice,--"Haguna!"
+
+Anthrops, startled at hearing her name in such a connection, awaited her
+entrance with anxious curiosity. She speedily came in obedience to
+the summons, bowed with an air of grave abstraction to Anthrops, and,
+seating herself, composedly awaited the commands of her master. Her
+former captive asked himself, wondering, if this could be the airy,
+laughing, winsome maiden with whom in days past he had ridden into the
+green forest. The billows of hair had ebbed away; the short, ungraceful,
+and somewhat thin remnant was meant for use in covering the head, not
+for luxurious beauty. All falling laces, all fluttering ribbons, all
+sparkling jewels were discarded from the severe simplicity of the
+scholastic gown; and with them had disappeared the glancing ripple that
+before had sunnily flowed around her, like wavy undulations through a
+field of corn. Very clear and still were the violet eyes, but their dewy
+lustre had long ago dried up. Like a flowering tree whose blossoms have
+been prematurely swept off by a cold wind was the maiden, as she sat
+there, abstractedly drawing geometrical diagrams with her pencil.
+
+"Now, Sir," said the philosopher, "if you will state your difficulty, I
+have no doubt my pupil can afford you assistance."
+
+So saying, he withdrew into a corner, that the discussion might have
+free scope.
+
+Haguna now looking inquiringly at Anthrops. He cleared his throat with a
+somewhat dictatorial "hem!" and began.
+
+"These circumstances, Madam, are really so unusual, that you must excuse
+me, if I"--
+
+"Proceed, Sir, to the point."
+
+"When, avoiding the barbarous edict of Justinian, which condemned to a
+perpetual silence the philosophic loquacity of the Athenian schools, the
+second heptacle of wise men undertook a perilous journey to implore the
+protection of Persia, they undoubtedly must at some stages of their
+travels have passed the night on the road. In this case, the method of
+so passing the time becomes an interesting object of research. Did the
+last of the Greeks provide themselves with tents,--effeminately impede
+their progress with luggage? Did they, skirting the north of the Arabian
+desert, repose under the scattered palm-trees,--or rather, wandering
+among the mountains of Assyria, find surer and colder shade? The
+importance of this inquiry becomes evident upon reflecting that the
+characters of the great are revealed by their behavior in the incidental
+events of their lives."
+
+"It is evident to my mind," returned Haguna, thoughtfully, "that the
+seven sages, joyfully escaping from the frivolous necessities of
+society, would return to the privileges of the children of eternal
+Nature, and sleep confidingly under the blue welkin."
+
+"Rheumatism," suggested Anthrops.
+
+"Rheumatism!" echoed Haguna, disdainfully. "What is rheumatism? What are
+any mere pains of the flesh, to the glorious content of the unshackled
+spirit revelling in the freedom of its own nature? Thus the cultivated
+Reason returns, with a touching appreciation of the Beautiful and the
+Fit, to the simple couch of childish spontaneity. Mankind, after
+long confinement in marble palaces, sepulchres of their inner being,
+retrograde to the golden age. The wisdom of the world lies down to sleep
+under the open sky. Such a beautiful comparison! It must be true."
+
+"Really, Madam, your conclusions, although attained with great rapidity
+of reasoning, are hardly deducible from the premises. Let me remark"--
+
+"Reduce Camenes to Celarent, and the argument is plainly irrefragable.
+It requires a mind deeply toned to sympathy with the inner significance
+of all things to"--
+
+"Contemporary testimony is absolutely necessary, if not suspiciously
+sullied by credulity or deceit,--in which case, the nearest trustworthy
+historian, if not more than a hundred years from the specified time, is
+incomparably preferable. But"--
+
+Haguna again interrupted, her voice a little raised with excitement. The
+dispute waxed warm, on either side authorities were quoted and rejected,
+and how it terminated has never been recorded. But the philosopher in
+the corner rubbed his hands with satisfaction, exclaiming,--
+
+"Thank fortune, we may now have a little peace!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY.
+
+
+  What flower is this that greets the morn,
+  Its hues from heaven so freshly born?
+  With burning star and flaming band
+  It kindles all the sunset land;--
+  O, tell us what its name may be!
+  Is this the Flower of Liberty?
+      It is the banner of the free,
+      The starry Flower of Liberty!
+
+  In savage Nature's far abode
+  Its tender seed our fathers sowed;
+  The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud,
+  Its opening leaves were streaked with blood,
+  Till, lo! earth's tyrants shook to see
+  The full-blown Flower of Liberty!
+      Then hail the banner of the free,
+      The starry Flower of Liberty!
+
+  Behold its streaming rays unite
+  One mingling flood of braided light,--
+  The red that fires the Southern rose,
+  With spotless white from Northern snows,
+  And, spangled o'er its azure, see
+  The sister Stars of Liberty!
+      Then hail the banner of the free,
+      The starry Flower of Liberty!
+
+  The blades of heroes fence it round;
+  Where'er it springs is holy ground;
+  From tower and dome its glories spread;
+  It waves where lonely sentries tread;
+  It makes the land as ocean free,
+  And plants an empire on the sea!
+      Then hail the banner of the free,
+      The starry Flower of Liberty!
+
+  Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower,
+  Shall ever float on dome and tower,
+  To all their heavenly colors true,
+  In blackening frost or crimson dew,--
+  And GOD love us as we love thee,
+  Thrice holy Flower of Liberty!
+     Then hail the banner of the free,
+     The starry FLOWER OF LIBERTY!
+
+
+
+
+ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE.
+
+
+The memory of Alexis de Tocqueville belongs scarcely less to America
+than to France. His book on "Democracy in America" was the foundation of
+his fame. As a successful investigation by a foreigner of the nature and
+working of institutions dissimilar from those of his own country, and
+in many essential respects different from any which were elsewhere
+established, it stands quite alone in political literature. It is still
+further remarkable as the work of a very young man. Its merits were at
+once acknowledged; and though twenty-six years have passed since it
+appeared, it has been superseded by no later work. The book has a double
+character, which has given to it an equal authority on both sides of
+the Atlantic. For while it is a profound and sagacious analysis of the
+spirit and methods of the American social and political system, it
+is intended at the same time--more, however, by implied than open
+comparison--to exhibit the relations of the principles established
+here to the development of modern society and government in France and
+elsewhere in Europe. It is a manual alike for the political theorist
+and the practical statesman; and whatever changes our institutions may
+undergo, its value will remain undiminished.
+
+The volumes of Tocqueville's Inedited Works and Correspondence, with a
+Memoir by his friend M. Gustave de Beaumont, which have lately appeared
+in Paris, have, therefore, a special claim to the attention of American
+readers. Their intrinsic interest is great as illustrating the life and
+character not only of one of the most original and independent thinkers
+of this generation, but also of a man not less distinguished by the
+elevation and integrity of his character than by the power of his
+intellect. The race of such men has seemed of late years to be dying out
+in France. In the long list of her public characters during the past
+thirty years, there are few names which can share the honor with
+Tocqueville's of being those neither of apostates nor of schemers. Men
+who hold to their principles in the midst of revolutions, who for the
+sake of honor resist the temptations of power, who have faith in liberty
+and in progress even when their hopes are overthrown, are rare at all
+times and in all lands. "France no longer produces such men," said the
+Duke de Broglie, when he heard of Tocqueville's death.
+
+No book has been published of more importance than this in its
+exhibition of the condition of thought and of society in France during
+recent years. None has given more convincing evidence of the suppression
+of intellectual liberty under the new Imperial rule. The reserves and
+the omissions to which M. de Beaumont has been forced in the performance
+of his work as editor display the oppressive nature of the censorship to
+which the writings of the most honest and superior men are liable,
+and the burdensome restraints by which such men are controlled and
+disheartened. M. de Beaumont's notice of the life of Tocqueville, and
+Tocqueville's own later correspondence, appear to a thoughtful reader as
+accusations against Imperial despotism, as protests against the wrongs
+from which freedom is now suffering in France. There is in them a
+pervading tone of sadness, and, here and there, an expression of
+bitterness of feeling, all the more effective for being conveyed in
+restrained and unimpassioned words. There is no place for such men as
+these in a system like that by which Louis Napoleon governs France.
+The men of strong character, of incorruptible integrity, of thoughtful
+moderation, and of fixed principles are more dangerous to the permanence
+of despotic rule than the Victor Hugos, the Ledru Rollins, or the
+Orsinis. It is the men with whom the love of liberty is founded upon
+intellectual and moral convictions, not those with whom it is a hot and
+reckless passion, that are the most to be feared by a ruler whose power
+is based on the ignorance, the fears, the selfish ambitions, and the
+material interests of the people whom he flatters and corrupts.
+
+Tocqueville was born a thinker. His physical organization was delicate,
+but he had an energy of spirit which led him often to overtask his
+bodily forces in long-continued mental exertions. Without brilliancy
+of imagination and with little liveliness of fancy, he possessed the
+faculty of acute and discriminating observation, and early acquired the
+rare power of deep and continuous reflection. His mind was large and
+calm. The candor of his intellect was never stained by passion. He had
+not the faculties of an original discoverer in the domain of abstract
+truth, but, as an investigator of the causes of political and social
+conditions, of the relation between particular facts and general
+theories, of the influence of systems and institutions upon the life of
+communities, he has rarely been surpassed. His book on "Democracy in
+America," and still more his later work on "The Old Régime and the
+Revolution," display in a remarkable degree the union of philosophic
+insight and practical good sense, of clearness of thought and
+condensation of statement.
+
+But, however great the value of his writings may be, a still greater
+value attaches to the character of the man himself, as it is displayed
+in these volumes. M. de Beaumont's brief and affectionate memoir of his
+friend, and Tocqueville's own letters, are not so much narratives of
+events as evidences of character. His life was, indeed, not marked with
+extraordinary incidents. It was the life of a man whose career was
+limited both by his own temperament and by the public circumstances of
+his times; of one who set more value upon ideas than upon events; who
+sought intellectual satisfactions and distinctions rather than personal
+advancement; who affected his contemporaries by his thought and his
+integrity of principle more than by power of commanding position or
+energy of resolute will. Although for many years in public life, he made
+little mark on public affairs. But his influence, though indirect,
+was perhaps not the less strong or permanent. The course of political
+affairs is in the long run greatly modified, if not completely guided,
+by the thinkers of a nation. Tocqueville's convictions kept him for the
+most part in opposition to the successive governments of France during
+the period of his public life. But his reputation and the weight of his
+authority are continually increasing, and of the Frenchmen of the last
+generation few have done so much as he to extend by his writings the
+knowledge, and to strengthen by his example the love of those principles
+by which liberty is maintained and secured, and upon which the real
+advancement of society depends. The leading facts of his life may be
+briefly told.
+
+Born in 1805, at Paris, of an old and honorable family, his early years
+were passed at home. As a youth, he was for some time at the college of
+Metz; but his education was irregular, and he was not distinguished for
+scholarship. In 1826 and 1827 he travelled with one of his brothers in
+Italy and Sicily, and on his return to France was attached to the Court
+of Justice at Versailles, where his father, the Count de Tocqueville,
+was then Prefect, in the quality of _Juge-Auditeur_, an office to which
+there is none correspondent in our courts. It was at this time that his
+friendship with M. Gustave de Beaumont began.
+
+For more than two years he performed the duties of this place with
+marked fidelity and ability. But at the same time he pursued studies
+less narrow and technical than the law, investigating with ardor the
+general questions of politics, and laying the foundation of those
+principles and opinions which he afterward developed in his writings and
+his public life. He witnessed the Revolution of 1830 with regret, not
+because he was personally attached to the elder branch of the Bourbons,
+but because he dreaded the effect of a sudden and violent change of
+dynasty upon the stability of those constitutional institutions which
+were of too recent establishment to be firmly rooted in France, but to
+which he looked as the safeguard of liberty. He gave his adhesion to the
+new government without hesitation, but without enthusiasm; and having
+little hope of advancement in his career as magistrate, he applied to
+the Ministry of the Interior early in 1831 for an official mission to
+America to examine the system of our prisons, which at that time was
+exciting attention in France. But the real motive which led him
+to desire to visit America was his wish to study the democratic
+institutions of the United States with reference to their bearing upon
+the political and social questions which underlay the violent changes
+and revolutions of government in France, and of which a correct
+appreciation was of continually increasing importance. It was plain that
+the dominating principle in the modern development of society was that
+of democratic equality; and this being the case, the question of prime
+importance presenting itself for solution was, How is liberty to be
+reconciled with equality and saved from the inevitable dangers to which
+it is exposed? or in other words, Can equality, which, by dividing
+men and reducing the mass to a common level, smooths the way for the
+establishment of a despotism, either of an individual or of the mob, be
+made to promote and secure liberty? For the study of this question,
+and of others naturally connected with it, the United States afforded
+opportunities nowhere else to be found.
+
+Accompanied by M. de Beaumont, Tocqueville passed a year in this
+country, and the chief results of his visit appeared in the first two
+volumes of his "Democracy in America," which were published in January,
+1835. The success of the book was instant and extraordinary. His
+publisher, who had undertaken it with reluctance, had ventured on a
+first edition of but five hundred copies; and in one of his letters,
+shortly after its publication, Tocqueville tells pleasantly of the
+bookseller's ingenuous surprise at the interest which the work had
+excited. "I went yesterday morning to Gosselin's [the publisher]; he
+received me with the most beaming face in the world, saying to me,
+'Well, now, so it seems you have made a _chef-d'oeuvre_.' Does not
+that expression paint the complete man of business? I sat down, and we
+talked of our second edition."
+
+From this time Tocqueville was famous. In the autumn of the same year,
+1835, he married an English lady, Miss Mottley, who had long resided in
+France, and the happiness of his private life was secured at the very
+moment when he was entering upon the cares and anxieties of a public
+career. In 1836 the French Academy decreed for his book an extraordinary
+prize; in 1838 he was elected a member of the Institute; and in 1841,
+a year after the publication of the last volumes of his work, he was
+chosen member of the Academy. From 1839 to 1848, Tocqueville, elected
+and reëlected from Valognes, sat without interruption in the Chamber of
+Deputies, where he constantly voted with the constitutional opposition.
+His nature was too sensitive and his health too delicate to enable him
+to hold a foremost place as orator in the debates of this period. His
+habits of mind were, moreover, those of a writer rather than of a public
+speaker. But the firmness and moderation of his principles and the
+clearness and justice of his opinions secured for him a general respect,
+and gave weight and influence to his counsels. "In 1839, having been
+named reporter on the proposition relative to the abolition of slavery
+in the colonies, he succeeded," says his biographer, "not only in
+tracing with an able and sure hand the great principles of justice and
+of humanity which should lead on the triumph of this holy cause, but
+also, by words full of respect for existing interests and acquired
+rights, in preparing the government and the public mind for a
+concession, and the colonists for a compromise." He was frequently
+intrusted with the duty of reporting on other projects of the first
+importance; but special labors of this sort did not prevent him from
+taking broad and large views of the political and moral tendencies of
+the time, and of forecasting with clear insight the results of the
+measures of the government and of the influences at work upon the
+people. On the 27th of January, 1848, he announced the Revolution, which
+he saw to be at hand. A passage from his speech on this occasion is
+given by M. de Beaumont. It is striking, when read by the light of
+subsequent events, for the truth of its inferences, the force of its
+statements, and its prophetic warnings. After speaking of the opinions
+and ideas prevalent among the working classes, he said, "When such
+opinions take root, when they spread themselves so widely, when they
+strike down deeply into the masses, they must bring about, sooner or
+later, I do not know when, I do not know how, but they must bring about,
+sooner or later, the most formidable revolutions.... I believe that at
+this moment we are asleep upon a volcano. (_Dissent_.) I am profoundly
+convinced of it."
+
+Tocqueville, thus anticipating the Revolution, was more afflicted and
+disappointed than surprised, when it overthrew the monarchy in February.
+He had comprehended beforehand that its character was to be rather
+social than simply political. He had determined to accept it as a
+necessary evil. He measured from the first the risk to which the
+principles to the maintenance of which he was devoted were exposed, the
+peril which, threatened liberty itself. Believing that the Republic now
+afforded the only and perhaps the last chance of liberty in France, and
+that its downfall would result in throwing power into the hands of an
+individual ruler, he determined to give all his support to the new
+government, and to endeavor to work out the good of his country by means
+which gave little encouragement or hope of success. He took part in the
+Constituent Assembly, was one of the committee to form the Constitution,
+and in the autumn of 1848 represented France as plenipotentiary at the
+Conference held at Brussels, which had for its object the mediation of
+France and England between Austria and Sardinia. The next year, having
+just been elected a member of the Legislative Assembly, he was invited
+by the President of the Republic to take the portfolio of Foreign
+Affairs in the ministry of M. Barrot. He did not hold office long.
+The ministry was too honest and too firm to suit the designs of the
+President, and on the 31st of October Louis Napoleon announced, in a
+message which took the Assembly by surprise, that it had been dismissed,
+and a new set of ministers appointed. The President endeavored to retain
+Tocqueville, and to win him over to his party; but Tocqueville already
+presaged the fall of the Republic, and witnessed with anxiety and
+discouragement the approach of the Empire. He remained a member of the
+Assembly to the last. He was one of the deputies arrested on the 2d of
+December, 1851, and was confined for a time at Vincennes. "Here ended
+his political life. It ended with liberty in France."
+
+The remaining years of Tocqueville's life were spent in a retirement
+which might have been happy, had he not felt too deeply for happiness
+the despotism which weighed upon France. He engaged in the studies that
+resulted in his masterly work on "The Old Régime and the Revolution";
+but these studies, instead of diverting him from the contemplation
+of what France had lost, gave poignancy to the sorrow excited by her
+present condition. All his hopes for the prevalence of the principles
+which he had sought during life to confirm and establish, all his
+personal ambitions as a public man, were completely broken down. But,
+though thus defeated in hope and in desire, he was not overcome in
+spirit. And the record of the closing years of his life shows, more than
+that of any other portion of it, the firmness, the strength, and the
+sweetness of his character.
+
+His health, which had never been vigorous, became from year to year more
+and more uncertain, and the labor which he gave to the historical work
+to which he now devoted himself was frequently followed by exhaustion.
+He passed some time in England, where be had many warm friends, in
+examining the collections in the British Museum concerning the French
+Revolution; and in 1855 he made a visit of considerable length to
+Germany for the purpose of studying the social institutions of the
+country, so far as they might illustrate the condition of France under
+the old regime. At the beginning of 1856 the first part of his great
+work was published. The impression produced by it was extraordinary. It
+was, as it were, a key that opened to men the secrets of a history with
+the events of which they were so familiar that it had seemed to them
+nothing more was to be learned concerning it. The book is one which,
+though unfinished, is, so far as it advances, complete. It will retain
+its place as an historical essay of the highest value; for it is a study
+of the past, undertaken not merely with the intention of elucidating the
+facts of a particular period of history, but also with the design of
+investigating and establishing the general principles in politics and
+government of which facts and events are but the external indications.
+Tocqueville was too honest to write according to any predetermined
+theory; but he also penetrated too deeply into the causes of things not
+to arrive, at length, at definite conclusions as to the meaning and
+teachings of history.
+
+Tocqueville had now reached the summit of fame as an author. He enjoyed
+the harvest of success, and his ambition was urged by it to new
+exertion. But in the summer of 1858 he had an alarming attack of
+bleeding at the lungs, accompanied with a general prostration of
+strength. In the autumn, his physicians ordered him to the South, and
+early in November he arrived at Cannes, where he was to spend the
+winter. But neither change of climate nor tender nursing was sufficient
+to prevent his disease from progressing. He suffered much, but he still
+hoped. He became worse as the spring came on, and on the 16th of April,
+1859, he died. He was fifty-four years old, but he had lived a long
+life, if life be measured by thought and moral progress.
+
+In his domestic life Tocqueville had been most happy, and it was in his
+own home that his character appeared in its most delightful aspect. In
+society he was a converser of extraordinary brilliancy. Few men were his
+rivals in this art, so well practised in Paris. His flow of ideas was
+not more remarkable than the choiceness and vigor of his expression. But
+he was not a tyrant in talk, and he was as ready to listen as to seek
+for listeners. His social powers were at the service of his friends. He
+was not of a gay temper, but he had a peculiar thoughtfulness for others
+which gave a charm to his manners far superior to that of careless
+vivacity. M. de Beaumont speaks of him in his relations to his friends
+in words full of feeling:--
+
+"I have said that he had many friends; but he experienced a still
+greater happiness, that of never losing one of them. He had also another
+happiness: it was the knowing how to love them all so well, that none
+ever complained of the share he received, even while seeing that of the
+others. He was as ingenious as he was sincere in his attachments; and
+never, perhaps, did example prove better than his how many charms
+good-wit adds to good-will (_combien l'esprit ajoute de charmes à la
+bonté_).
+
+"Good as he was," continues M. de Beaumont, "he aspired without ceasing
+to become better; and it is certain that each day he drew nearer to that
+moral perfection which seemed to him the only end worthy of man....
+Each day he brought into all his sentiments and all his actions
+something of deeper piety, and stronger gratitude to God.... He was
+more patient, more laborious, more watchful to lose nothing of that life
+which he loved so well, and which he had the right to find beautiful,
+he who made of it so noble a use! Finally, it may be said to his honor,
+that at an epoch in which each man tends to concentrate his regard upon
+himself, he had no other aim than that of seeking for truths useful to
+his fellows, no other passion than that of increasing their well-being
+and their dignity."--Vol. I. p. 124.
+
+The correspondence of a man about whom such--words may be said without
+exaggeration has more than a merely literary interest. This book is
+one of which the literary critic is not the final judge. Tocqueville's
+letters, like every genuine series of letters written without thought
+of publication, have the charm and more than the simplicity of
+autobiography. Their merit lies not so much in grace of style,
+picturesqueness of description, or familiar freedom of composition,
+as in their exhibition of power of thought combined with delicacy
+and refinement of feeling, and in the frequent expression of ardent
+patriotism and strong personal sympathies with public or with private
+interests. They are the letters of a man who took a grave view of life,
+regarding it "as an affair with which we are charged, which must be
+carried through and ended with honor to ourselves." They are the letters
+also of a man of strong and faithful affections; and the long series of
+them addressed during twenty-five years to the Count Louis de Kergorlay
+has, in addition to its interest from its variety of topics, a special
+moral value as the record of a close and confidential friendship
+maintained in spite of the widest divergence of political opinion during
+a period of unusual political excitement. Few men have the temper or the
+sentiment requisite for the support of intimate relations under
+such conditions. But his friendships occupied a very large place in
+Tocqueville's life. In them he found happiness and repose. To one of his
+friends he writes in 1844, "The remembrance of you is the more precious
+to me because it calms in me all those troubles of the soul that
+politics engender." And thus in the most trying passages of his life,
+and especially in the discouragement of his later years, the thought
+of his friends seems to have been constantly with him, and his
+correspondence with them became almost a necessity for his spirit.
+His letters, or rather that portion of them which M. de Beaumont has
+published, and which must some day be succeeded by a fuller collection,
+have thus a double character: they contain the judgments of a wide and
+profound thinker on the subjects which interested him, while they show
+him in the most amiable and attractive light as a generous and constant
+friend. They are not to be compared in wit or elaborate finish with the
+brilliant letters of Courier; they have not the striking originality and
+terse vigor of those of De Maistre, but they have the grace of simple
+and pure feeling, and the worth of clear, manly, high-toned thought. No
+one capable of appreciating them can read them without learning to
+feel toward their author not merely respect, but also a strong personal
+regard. The two following extracts have a special appropriateness to
+the present condition of our own country, while at the same time they
+display the qualities most characteristic of Tocqueville's intellect.
+They are both from letters addressed to one of the most distinguished
+correspondents of his later years, Madame de Swetchine.
+
+"There are, it seems to me, two distinct divisions in morals, one as
+important as the other in the eyes of God, but in which in our days his
+ministers instruct us with very unequal ardor. One belongs to private
+life: it embraces the relative duties of mankind as fathers, as sons, as
+wives, as husbands. The other regards public life: the duties of every
+citizen toward his country, and toward that human society of which he
+forms a special part. Am I deceived in believing that the clergy of our
+time are very much occupied with the first portion of morals, and very
+little with the second? This appears to me especially observable in the
+manner in which women think and feel. I see a great number of them who
+have a thousand private virtues in which the direct and beneficent
+action of religion manifests itself,--who, thanks to it, are most
+faithful wives and excellent mothers, who show themselves just and
+indulgent toward their domestics, charitable to the poor. But as to that
+portion of duties which is connected with public life, they do not
+seem to have even the idea of it. Not only they do not practise them
+themselves, which is natural enough, but they do not seem even to have
+the thought of inculcating them on those over whom they have influence.
+It is a side of education that is, as it were, invisible to them. It
+was not so under that old regime which, in the midst of many vices,
+developed proud and manly virtues. I have often heard it told, that
+my grandmother, who was a very religious (_très sainte_) woman, after
+impressing upon her young son the exercise of all the duties of private
+life, failed not to add,--'And then, my child, never forget that a man
+owes himself above all to his country; that there is no sacrifice that
+he ought not to make for her; that he cannot remain indifferent to her
+fate; that God requires of him that he be always ready to consecrate,
+if need be, his time, his fortune, even his life, to the service of the
+State and of the king."--Vol. II. p. 341.
+
+"I do not ask of the priests to require of the men whose education is
+committed to them, or over whom they exercise influence, I do not ask of
+them to require of these men, as a duty of conscience, to support the
+republic or the monarchy; but I avow that I desire that they should
+oftener tell them, that, as they are Christians, so they belong to one
+of those great human associations which God has established, without
+doubt in order to render more visible and more sensible the bonds which
+ought to unite individuals to each other,--associations which are named
+the people, and whose territory is called the country. I desire that
+they should cause the fact to penetrate more deeply into the souls of
+men, that each man owes himself to this collective existence before
+belonging to himself; that in regard to this existence no man is allowed
+to be indifferent, still less to make of indifference a sort of feeble
+virtue which enervates many of the most noble instincts that have been
+given to us; that all are responsible for what happens to it, and that
+all, according to their light, are bound to labor constantly for its
+prosperity, to take care that it be submitted only to beneficent,
+respectable, and lawful authorities.... This is what I wish should be
+inculcated on men, and especially on women. Nothing has more struck me,
+in an experience now of considerable length in public affairs, than the
+influence that women always exercise in this matter,--influence so much
+the greater as it is indirect. I do not doubt that it is they above all
+who give to every nation a certain moral temperament, which shows itself
+afterwards in politics."--Vol. II. p. 348. Tocqueville's services to
+France, to liberty, did not end with his life. The example, no less than
+the writings of such a man, bears fruit in later times. It belongs to no
+one land. Wherever men are striving in thought or in action to support
+the cause of freedom and of law, to strengthen institutions founded
+on principles of equal justice, to secure established liberties by
+defending the government in which they are embodied, his teachings will
+be prized, and his memory be honored.
+
+
+
+
+AGNES OF SORRENTO.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MONK'S STRUGGLE.
+
+
+The golden sunshine of the spring morning was deadened to a sombre tone
+in the shadowy courts of the Capuchin convent. The reddish brown of the
+walls was flecked with gold and orange spots of lichen; and here
+and there, in crevices, tufts of grass, or even a little bunch of
+gold-blooming flowers, looked hardily forth into the shadowy air. A
+covered walk, with stone arches, inclosed a square filled with dusky
+shrubbery. There were tall funereal cypresses, whose immense height and
+scraggy profusion of decaying branches showed their extreme old age.
+There were gaunt, gnarled olives, with trunks twisted in immense
+serpent folds, and boughs wreathed and knotted into wild, unnatural
+contractions, as if their growth had been a series of spasmodic
+convulsions, instead of a calm and gentle development of Nature. There
+were overgrown clumps of aloes, with the bare skeletons of former
+flower-stalks standing erect among their dusky horns or lying rotting on
+the ground beside them. The place had evidently been intended for the
+culture of shrubbery and flowers, but the growth of the trees had long
+since so intercepted the sunlight and fresh air that not even grass
+could find root beneath their branches. The ground was covered with a
+damp green mould, strewn here and there with dead boughs, or patched
+with tufts of fern and lycopodium, throwing out their green hairy roots
+into the moist soil. A few half-dead roses and jasmines, remnants of
+former days of flowers, still maintained a struggling existence, but
+looked wan and discouraged in the effort, and seemed to stretch and pine
+vaguely for a freer air. In fact, the whole garden might be looked upon
+as a sort of symbol of the life by which it was surrounded,--a life
+stagnant, unnatural, and unhealthy, cut off from all those thousand
+stimulants to wholesome development which are afforded by the open plain
+of human existence, where strong natures grow distorted in unnatural
+efforts, though weaker ones find in its lowly shadows a congenial
+refuge.
+
+We have given the brighter side of conventual life in the days we are
+describing: we have shown it as often a needed shelter of woman's
+helplessness during ages of political uncertainty and revolution; we
+have shown it as the congenial retreat where the artist, the poet, the
+student, and the man devoted to ideas found leisure undisturbed to
+develop themselves under the consecrating protection of religion. The
+picture would be unjust to truth, did we not recognize, what, from our
+knowledge of human nature, we must expect, a conventual life of far less
+elevated and refined order. We should expect that institutions which
+guarantied to each individual a livelihood, without the necessity of
+physical labor or the responsibility of supporting a family, might in
+time come to be incumbered with many votaries in whom indolence and
+improvidence were the only impelling motives. In all ages of the world
+the unspiritual are the majority,--the spiritual the exceptions. It was
+to the multitude that Jesus said, "Ye seek me, not because ye saw the
+miracles, but because ye did eat and were filled,"--and the multitude
+has been much of the same mind from that day to this.
+
+The convent of which we speak had been for some years under the lenient
+rule of the jolly Brother Girolamo,--an easy, wide-spread, loosely
+organized body, whose views of the purpose of human existence were
+decidedly Anacreontic. Fasts he abominated; night-prayers he found
+unfavorable to his constitution; but he was a judge of olives and good
+wine, and often threw out valuable hints in his pastoral visits on the
+cooking of maccaroni, for which he had himself elaborated a savory
+recipe; and the cellar and larder of the convent, during his pastorate,
+presented so many urgent solicitations to conventual repose, as to
+threaten an inconvenient increase in the number of brothers. The monks
+in his time lounged in all the sunny places of the convent like so many
+loose sacks of meal, enjoying to the full the _dolce far niente_ which
+seems to be the universal rule of Southern climates. They ate and drank
+and slept and snored; they made pastoral visits through the surrounding
+community which were far from edifying; they gambled, and tippled, and
+sang most unspiritual songs; and keeping all the while their own private
+pass-key to Paradise tucked under their girdles, were about as jolly
+a set of sailors to Eternity as the world had to show. In fact, the
+climate of Southern Italy and its gorgeous scenery are more favorable
+to voluptuous ecstasy than to the severe and grave warfare of the true
+Christian soldier. The sunny plains of Capua demoralized the soldiers of
+Hannibal, and it was not without a reason that ancient poets made those
+lovely regions the abode of Sirens whose song maddened by its sweetness,
+and of a Circe who made men drunk with her sensual fascinations, till
+they became sunk to the form of brutes. Here, if anywhere, is the
+lotos-eater's paradise,--the purple skies, the enchanted shores, the
+soothing gales, the dreamy mists, which all conspire to melt the energy
+of the will, and to make existence either a half-doze of dreamy apathy
+or an awaking of mad delirium.
+
+It was not from dreamy, voluptuous Southern Italy that the religious
+progress of the Italian race received any vigorous impulses. These came
+from more northern and more mountainous regions, from the severe, clear
+heights of Florence, Perugia, and Assisi, where the intellectual and the
+moral both had somewhat of the old Etruscan earnestness and gloom.
+
+One may easily imagine the stupid alarm and helpless confusion of these
+easy-going monks, when their new Superior came down among them hissing
+with a white heat from the very hottest furnace-fires of a new religious
+experience, burning and quivering with the terrors of the world to
+come,--pale, thin, eager, tremulous, and yet with all the martial
+vigor of the former warrior, and all the habits of command of a former
+princely station. His reforms gave no quarter to right or left; sleepy
+monks were dragged out to midnight-prayers, and their devotions
+enlivened with vivid pictures of hell-fire and ingenuities of eternal
+torment enough to stir the blood of the most torpid. There was to be
+no more gormandizing, no more wine-bibbing; the choice old wines were
+placed under lock and key for the use of the sick and poor in the
+vicinity; and every fast of the Church, and every obsolete rule of the
+order, were revived with unsparing rigor. It is true, they hated their
+new Superior with all the energy which laziness and good living had left
+them, but they every soul of them shook in their sandals before him; for
+there is a true and established order of mastery among human beings, and
+when a man of enkindled energy and intense will comes among a flock of
+irresolute commonplace individuals, he subjects them to himself by a
+sort of moral paralysis similar to what a great, vigorous gymnotus
+distributes among a fry of inferior fishes. The bolder ones, who made
+motions of rebellion, were so energetically swooped upon, and consigned
+to the discipline of dungeon and bread-and-water, that less courageous
+natures made a merit of siding with the more powerful party, mentally
+resolving to carry by fraud the points which they despaired of
+accomplishing by force.
+
+On the morning we speak of, two monks might have been seen lounging on
+a stone bench by one of the arches, looking listlessly into the sombre
+garden-patch we have described. The first of these, Father Anselmo, was
+a corpulent fellow, with an easy swing of gait, heavy animal features,
+and an eye of shrewd and stealthy cunning: the whole air of the man
+expressed the cautious, careful voluptuary. The other, Father Johannes,
+was thin, wiry, and elastic, with hands like birds' claws, and an eye
+that reminded one of the crafty cunning of a serpent. His smile was a
+curious blending of shrewdness and malignity. He regarded his companion
+from time to time obliquely from the corners of his eyes, to see what
+impression his words were making, and had a habit of jerking himself up
+in the middle of a sentence and looking warily round to see if any one
+were listening, which indicated habitual distrust.
+
+"Our holy Superior is out a good while this morning," he said, at
+length.
+
+The observation was made in the smoothest and most silken tones, but
+they carried with them such a singular suggestion of doubt and inquiry
+that they seemed like an accusation.
+
+"Ah?" replied the other, perceiving evidently some intended undertone of
+suspicion lurking in the words, but apparently resolved not to commit
+himself to his companion.
+
+"Yes," said the first; "the zeal of the house of the Lord consumes him,
+the blessed man!"
+
+"Blessed man!" echoed the second, rolling up his eyes, and giving a deep
+sigh, which shook his portly proportions so that they quivered like
+jelly.
+
+"If he goes on in this way much longer," continued Father Johannes,
+"there will soon be very little mortal left of him; the saints will
+claim him."
+
+Father Anselmo gave something resembling a pious groan, but darted
+meanwhile a shrewd observant glance at the speaker.
+
+"What would become of the convent, were he gone?" said Father Johannes.
+"All these blessed reforms which he has brought about would fall back;
+for our nature is fearfully corrupt, and ever tends to wallow in the
+mire of sin and pollution. What changes hath he wrought in us all! To be
+sure, the means were sometimes severe. I remember, brother, when he had
+you under ground for more than ten days. My heart was pained for you;
+but I suppose you know that it was necessary, in order to bring you to
+that eminent state of sanctity where you now stand."
+
+The heavy, sensual features of Father Anselmo flushed up with some
+emotion, whether of anger or of fear it was hard to tell; but he gave
+one hasty glance at his companion, which, if a glance could kill, would
+have struck him dead, and then there fell over his countenance, like a
+veil, an expression of sanctimonious humility, as he replied,--
+
+"Thank you for your sympathy, dearest brother. I remember, too, how I
+felt for you that week when you were fed only on bread and water, and
+had to take it on your knees off the floor, while the rest of us sat at
+table. How blessed it must be to have one's pride brought down in that
+way! When our dear, blessed Superior first came, brother, you were as a
+bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, but now what a blessed change! It must
+give you so much peace! How you must love him!"
+
+"I think we love him about equally," said Father Johannes, his dark,
+thin features expressing the concentration of malignity. "His labors
+have been blessed among us. Not often does a faithful shepherd meet so
+loving a flock. I have been told that the great Peter Abelard found far
+less gratitude. They tried to poison him in the most holy wine."
+
+"How absurd!" interrupted Father Anselmo, hastily; "as if the blood of
+the Lord, as if our Lord himself, could be made poison!"
+
+"Brother, it is a fact," insisted the former, in tones silvery with
+humility and sweetness.
+
+"A fact that the most holy blood can be poisoned?" replied the other,
+with horror evidently genuine.
+
+"I grieve to say, brother," said Father Johannes, "that in my profane
+and worldly days I tried that experiment on a dog, and the poor brute
+died in five minutes. Ah, brother," he added, observing that his obese
+companion was now thoroughly roused, "you see before you the chief of
+sinners! Judas was nothing to me; and yet, such are the triumphs
+of grace, I am an unworthy member of this most blessed and pious
+brotherhood; but I do penance daily in sackcloth and ashes for my
+offence."
+
+"But, Brother Johannes, was it really so? did it really happen?"
+inquired Father Anselmo, looking puzzled. "Where, then, is our faith?"
+
+"Doth our faith rest on human reason, or on the evidence of our senses,
+Brother Anselmo? I bless God that I have arrived at that state where I
+can adoringly say, 'I believe, because it is impossible.' Yea, brother,
+I know it to be a fact that the ungodly have sometimes destroyed holy
+men, like our Superior, who could not be induced to taste wine for
+any worldly purpose, by drugging the blessed cup; so dreadful are the
+ragings of Satan in our corrupt nature!"
+
+"I can't see into that," said Father Anselmo, still looking confused.
+
+"Brother," answered Father Johannes, "permit an unworthy sinner to
+remind you that you must not try to see into anything; all that is
+wanted of you in our most holy religion is to shut your eyes and
+believe; all things are possible to the eye of faith. Now, humanly
+speaking," he added, with a peculiarly meaning look, "who would believe
+that you kept all the fasts of our order, and all the extraordinary ones
+which it hath pleased our blessed Superior to lay upon us, as you surely
+do? A worldling might swear, to look at you, that such flesh and color
+must come in some way from good meat and good wine; but we remember how
+the three children throve on the pulse and rejected the meat from the
+king's table."
+
+The countenance of Father Anselmo expressed both anger and alarm at
+this home-thrust, and the changes did not escape the keen eye of Father
+Johannes, who went on.
+
+"I directed the eyes of our holy father upon you as a striking example
+of the benefits of abstemious living, showing that the days of miracles
+are not yet past in the Church, as some skeptics would have us believe.
+He seemed to study you attentively. I have no doubt he will honor you
+with some more particular inquiries,--the blessed saint!"
+
+Father Anselmo turned uneasily on his seat and stealthily eyed his
+companion, to see, if possible, how much real knowledge was expressed by
+his words, and then answered on quite another topic.
+
+"How this garden has fallen to decay! We miss old Father Angelo
+sorely, who was always trimming and cleansing it. Our Superior is too
+heavenly-minded to have much thought for earthly things, and so it
+goes."
+
+Father Johannes watched this attempt at diversion with a glitter of
+stealthy malice, and, seeming to be absorbed in contemplation, broke out
+again exactly where he had left off on the unwelcome subject.
+
+"I mind me now, Brother Anselmo, that, when you came out of your cell to
+prayers, the other night, your utterance was thick, and your eyes heavy
+and watery, and your gait uncertain. One would swear that you had been
+drunken with new wine; but we knew it was all the effect of fasting and
+devout contemplation, which inebriates the soul with holy raptures, as
+happened to the blessed Apostles on the day of Pentecost. I remarked the
+same to our holy father, and he seemed to give it earnest heed, for
+I saw him watching you through all the services. How blessed is such
+watchfulness!"
+
+"The Devil take him!" said Father Anselmo, suddenly thrown off his
+guard; but checking himself, he added, confusedly,--"I mean"--
+
+"I understand you, brother," said Father Johannes; "it is a motion of
+the old nature not yet entirely subdued. A little more of the discipline
+of the lower vaults, which you have found so precious, will set all that
+right."
+
+"You would not inform against me?" said Father Anselmo, with an
+expression of alarm.
+
+"It would be my duty, I suppose," said Father Johannes, with a sigh;
+"but, sinner that I am, I never could bring my mind to such proceedings
+with the vigor of our blessed father. Had I been Superior of the
+convent, as was talked of, bow differently might things have proceeded!
+I should have erred by a sinful laxness. How fortunate that it was he,
+instead of such a miserable sinner as myself!"
+
+"Well, tell me, then, Father Johannes,--for your eyes are shrewd as a
+lynx's,--is our good Superior so perfect as he seems? or does he have
+his little private comforts sometimes, like the rest of us? Nobody,
+you know, can stand it to be always on the top round of the ladder to
+Paradise. For my part, between you and me, I never believed all that
+story they read to us so often about Saint Simon Stylites, who passed so
+many years on the top of a pillar and never came down. Trust me, the old
+boy found his way down sometimes, when all the world was asleep, and got
+somebody to do duty for him meantime, while he took a little something
+comfortable. Is it not so?"
+
+"I am told to believe, and I do believe," said Father Johannes, casting
+down his eyes, piously; "and, dear brother, it ill befits a sinner like
+me to reprove; but it seemeth to me as if you make too much use of the
+eyes of carnal inquiry. Touching the life of our holy father, I cannot
+believe the most scrupulous watch can detect anything in his walk or
+conversation other than appears in his profession. His food is next to
+nothing,--a little chopped spinach or some bitter herb cooked without
+salt for ordinary days, and on fast days he mingles this with ashes,
+according to a saintly rule. As for sleep, I believe he does without
+it; for at no time of the night, when I have knocked at the door of
+his cell, have I found him sleeping. He is always at his prayers or
+breviary. His cell hath only a rough, hard board for a bed, with a log
+of rough wood for a pillow; yet he complains of that as tempting to
+indolence."
+
+Father Anselmo shrugged his fat shoulders, ruefully.
+
+"It's all well enough," he said, "for those that want to take this hard
+road to Paradise; but why need they drive the flock up with them?"
+
+"True enough, Brother Anselmo," said Father Johannes; "but the flock
+will rejoice in it in the end, doubtless. I understand he is purposing
+to draw yet stricter the reins of discipline. We ought to be thankful."
+
+"Thankful? We can't wink but six times a week now," said Father Anselmo;
+"and by-and-by he won't let us wink at all."
+
+"Hist! hush! here he comes," said Father Johannes, "What ails him? he
+looks wild, like a man distraught."
+
+In a moment more, in fact, Father Francesco strode hastily through the
+corridor, with his deep-set eyes dilated and glittering, and a vivid
+hectic flush on his hollow cheeks. He paid no regard to the salutation
+of the obsequious monks; in fact, he seemed scarcely to see them, but
+hurried in a disordered manner through the passages and gained the room
+of his cell, which he shut and locked with a violent clang.
+
+"What has come over him now?" said Father Anselmo.
+
+Father Johannes stealthily followed some distance, and then stood with
+his lean neck outstretched and his head turned in the direction where
+the Superior had disappeared. The whole attitude of the man, with
+his acute glittering eye, might remind one of a serpent making an
+observation before darting after his prey.
+
+"Something is working him," he said to himself; "what may it be?"
+
+Meanwhile that heavy oaken door had closed on a narrow cell,--bare of
+everything which could be supposed to be a matter of convenience in
+the abode of a human being. A table of the rudest and most primitive
+construction was garnished with a skull, whose empty eyeholes and
+grinning teeth were the most conspicuous objects in the room. Behind
+this stood a large crucifix, manifestly the work of no common master,
+and bearing evident traces in its workmanship of Florentine art: it was,
+perhaps, one of the relics of the former wealth of the nobleman who
+had buried his name and worldly possessions in this living sepulchre. A
+splendid manuscript breviary, richly illuminated, lay open on the table;
+and the fair fancy of its flowery letters, the lustre of gold and silver
+on its pages, formed a singular contrast to the squalid nakedness of
+everything else in the room. This book, too, had been a family heirloom;
+some lingering shred of human and domestic affection sheltered itself
+under the protection of religion in making it the companion of his
+self-imposed life of penance and renunciation.
+
+Father Francesco had just returned from the scene in the confessional we
+have already described. That day had brought to him one of those pungent
+and vivid inward revelations which sometimes overset in a moment some
+delusion that has been the cherished growth of years. Henceforth the
+reign of self-deception was past,--there was no more self-concealment,
+no more evasion. He loved Agnes,--he knew it,--he said it over and over
+again to himself with a stormy intensity of energy; and in this hour
+the whole of his nature seemed to rise in rebellion against the awful
+barriers which hemmed in and threatened this passion. He now saw clearly
+that all that he had been calling fatherly tenderness, pastoral zeal,
+Christian unity, and a thousand other evangelical names, was nothing
+more nor less than a passion that had gone to the roots of existence and
+absorbed into itself all that there was of him. Where was he to look for
+refuge? What hymn, what prayer had he not blent with her image? It was
+this that he had given to her as a holy lesson,--it was that that she
+had spoken of to him as the best expression of her feelings. This prayer
+he had explained to her,--he remembered just the beautiful light in her
+eyes, which were fixed on his so trustingly. How dear to him had been
+that unquestioning devotion, that tender, innocent humility!--how dear,
+and how dangerous!
+
+We have read of flowing rivulets wandering peacefully without ripple or
+commotion, so long as no barrier stayed their course, suddenly chafing
+in angry fury when an impassable dam was thrown across their waters. So
+any affection, however genial and gentle in its own nature, may become
+an ungovernable, ferocious passion, by the intervention of fatal
+obstacles in its course. In the case of Father Francesco, the sense of
+guilt and degradation fell like a blight over all the past that had been
+so ignorantly happy. He thought he had been living on manna, but found
+it poison. Satan had been fooling him, leading him on blindfold, and
+laughing at his simplicity, and now mocked at his captivity. And how
+nearly had he been hurried by a sudden and overwhelming influence to the
+very brink of disgrace! He felt himself shiver and grow cold to think of
+it. A moment more and he had blasted that pure ear with forbidden words
+of passion; and even now he remembered, with horror, the look of grave
+and troubled surprise in those confiding eyes, that had always looked
+up to him trustingly, as to God. A moment more and he had betrayed the
+faith he taught her, shattered her trust in the holy ministry, and
+perhaps imperilled her salvation. He breathed a sigh of relief when he
+thought of it,--he had not betrayed himself, he had not fallen in her
+esteem, he still stood on that sacred vantage-ground where his power
+over her was so great, and where at least he possessed her confidence
+and veneration. There was still time for recollection, for self-control,
+for a vehement struggle which should set all right again: but, alas! how
+shall a man struggle who finds his whole inner nature boiling in furious
+rebellion against the dictates of his conscience,--self against self?
+
+It is true, also, that no passions are deeper in their hold, more
+pervading and more vital to the whole human being, than those that make
+their first entrance through the higher nature, and, beginning with a
+religious and poetic ideality, gradually work their way through the
+whole fabric of the human existence.
+
+From grosser passions, whose roots lie in the senses, there is always a
+refuge in man's loftier nature. He can cast them aside with contempt,
+and leave them as one whose lower story is flooded can remove to a
+higher loft, and live serenely with a purer air and wider prospect. But
+to love that is born of ideality, of intellectual sympathy, of harmonies
+of the spiritual and Immortal nature, of the very poetry and purity of
+the soul, if it be placed where reason and religion forbid its exercise
+and expression, what refuge but the grave,--what hope but that wide
+eternity where all human barriers fall, all human relations end, and
+love ceases to be a crime? A man of the world may struggle by change of
+scene, place, and employment. He may put oceans between himself and the
+things that speak of what he desires to forget. He may fill the void in
+his life with the stirring excitement of the battlefield, or the whirl
+of travel from city to city, or the press of business and care. But what
+help is there for him whose life is tied down to the narrow sphere of
+the convent,--to the monotony of a bare cell, to the endless repetition
+of the same prayers, the same chants, the same prostrations, especially
+when all that ever redeemed it from monotony has been that image and
+that sympathy which conscience now bids him forget?
+
+When Father Francesco precipitated himself into his cell and locked
+the door, it was with the desperation of a man who flies from a mortal
+enemy. It seemed to him that all eyes saw just what was boiling within
+him,--that the wild thoughts that seemed to scream their turbulent
+importunities in his ears were speaking so loud that all the world would
+hear. He should disgrace himself before the brethren whom he had so
+long been striving to bring to order and to teach the lessons of holy
+self-control. He saw himself pointed at, hissed at, degraded, by the
+very men who had quailed before his own reproofs; and scarcely, when he
+had bolted the door behind him, did he feel himself safe. Panting and
+breathless, he fell on his knees before the crucifix, and, bowing his
+head in his hands, fell forward upon the floor. As a spent wave melts at
+the foot of a rock, so all his strength passed away, and he lay awhile
+in a kind of insensibility,--a state in which, though consciously
+existing, he had no further control over his thoughts and feelings. In
+that state of dreamy exhaustion his mind seemed like a mirror, which,
+without vitality or will of its own, simply lies still and reflects the
+objects that may pass over it. As clouds sailing in the heavens cast
+their images, one after another, on the glassy floor of a waveless sea,
+so the scenes of his former life drifted in vivid pictures athwart his
+memory. He saw his father's palace,--the wide, cool, marble halls,--the
+gardens resounding with the voices of falling waters. He saw the fair
+face of his mother, and played with the jewels upon her hands. He saw
+again the picture of himself, in all the flush of youth and health,
+clattering on horseback through the streets of Florence with troops of
+gay young friends, now dead to him as he to them. He saw himself in the
+bowers of gay ladies, whose golden hair, lustrous eyes, and siren wiles
+came back shivering and trembling in the waters of memory in a thousand
+undulating reflections. There were wild revels,--orgies such as Florence
+remembers with shame to this day. There was intermingled the turbulent
+din of arms,--the haughty passion, the sudden provocation, the swift
+revenge. And then came the awful hour of conviction, the face of that
+wonderful man whose preaching had stirred all souls,--and then those
+fearful days of penance,--that darkness of the tomb,--that dying to the
+world,--those solemn vows, and the fearful struggles by which they had
+been followed.
+
+"Oh, my God!" he cried, "is it all in vain?--so many prayers? so many
+struggles?--and shall I fail of salvation at last?"
+
+He seemed to himself as a swimmer, who, having exhausted his last gasp
+of strength in reaching the shore, is suddenly lifted up on a cruel wave
+and drawn back into the deep. There seemed nothing for him but to fold
+his arms and sink.
+
+For he felt no strength now to resist,--he felt no wish to conquer,--he
+only prayed that he might lie there and die. It seemed to him that
+the love which possessed him and tyrannized over his very being was a
+doom,--a curse sent upon him by some malignant fate with whose power it
+was vain to struggle. He detested his work,--he detested his duties,--he
+loathed his vows,--and there was not a thing in his whole future to
+which he looked forward otherwise than with the extreme of aversion,
+except one to which he clung with a bitter and defiant tenacity,--the
+spiritual guidance of Agnes. Guidance!--he laughed aloud, in the
+bitterness of his soul, as he thought of this. He was her guide,--her
+confessor,--to him she was bound to reveal every change of feeling;
+and this love that he too well perceived rising in her heart for
+another,--he would wring from her own confessions the means to repress
+and circumvent it. If she could not be his, he might at least prevent
+her from belonging to any other,--he might at least keep her always
+within the sphere of his spiritual authority. Had he not a right to do
+this?--had he not a right to cherish an evident vocation,--a right to
+reclaim her from the embrace of an excommunicated infidel, and present
+her as a chaste bride at the altar of the Lord? Perhaps, when that
+was done, when an irrevocable barrier should separate her from all
+possibility of earthly love, when the awful marriage-vow should have
+been spoken which should seal her heart for heaven alone, he might
+recover some of the blessed calm which her influence once brought over
+him, and these wild desires might cease, and these feverish pulses be
+still.
+
+Such were the vague images and dreams of the past and future that
+floated over his mind, as he lay in a heavy sort of lethargy on the
+floor of his cell, and hour after hour passed away. It grew afternoon,
+and the radiance of evening came on. The window of the cell overlooked
+the broad Mediterranean, all one blue glitter of smiles and sparkles.
+The white-winged boats were flitting lightly to and fro, like
+gauzy-winged insects in the summer air,--the song of the fishermen
+drawing their nets on the beach floated cheerily upward. Capri lay like
+a half-dissolved opal in shimmering clouds of mist, and Naples
+gleamed out pearly clear in the purple distance. Vesuvius, with its
+cloud-spotted sides, its garlanded villas and villages, its silvery
+crown of vapor, seemed a warm-hearted and genial old giant lying down
+in his gorgeous repose and holding all things on his heaving bosom in a
+kindly embrace.
+
+So was the earth flooded with light and glory, that the tide poured into
+the cell, giving the richness of an old Venetian painting to its bare
+and squalid furniture. The crucifix glowed along all its sculptured
+lines with rich golden hues. The breviary, whose many-colored leaves
+fluttered as the wind from the sea drew inward, was yet brighter in its
+gorgeous tints. It seemed a sort of devotional butterfly perched before
+the grinning skull, which was bronzed by the enchanted light into warmer
+tones of color, as if some remembrance of what once it saw and felt came
+back upon it. So also the bare, miserable board which served for
+the bed, and its rude pillow, were glorified. A stray sunbeam, too,
+fluttered down on the floor like a pitying spirit, to light up that
+pale, thin face, whose classic outlines had now a sharp, yellow setness,
+like that of swooning or death; it seemed to linger compassionately on
+the sunken, wasted cheeks, on the long black lashes that fell over the
+deep hollows beneath the eyes like a funereal veil. Poor man! lying
+crushed and torn, like a piece of rockweed wrenched from its rock by a
+storm and thrown up withered upon the beach!
+
+From the leaves of the breviary there depends, by a fragment of gold
+braid, a sparkling something that wavers and glitters in the evening
+light. It is a cross of the cheapest and simplest material, that once
+belonged to Agnes. She lost it from her rosary at the confessional, and
+Father Francesco saw it fall, yet would not warn her of the loss, for he
+longed to posses something that had belonged to her. He made it a mark
+to one of her favorite hymns; but she never knew where it had gone.
+Little could she dream, in her simplicity, what a power she held over
+the man who seemed to her an object of such awful veneration. Little did
+she dream that the poor little tinsel cross had such a mighty charm with
+it, and that she herself, in her childlike simplicity, her ignorant
+innocence, her peaceful tenderness and trust, was raising such a
+turbulent storm of passion in the heart which she supposed to be above
+the reach of all human changes.
+
+And now, through the golden air, the Ave Maria is sounding from the
+convent-bells, and answered by a thousand tones and echoes from the
+churches of the old town, and all Christendom gives a moment's adoring
+pause to celebrate the moment when an angel addressed to a mortal maiden
+words that had been wept and prayed for during thousands of years. Dimly
+they sounded through his ear, in that half-deadly trance,--not with
+plaintive sweetness and motherly tenderness, but like notes of doom and
+vengeance. He felt rebellious impulses within, which rose up in hatred
+against them, and all that recalled to his mind the faith which seemed
+a tyranny, and the vows which appeared to him such a hopeless and
+miserable failure.
+
+But now there came other sounds nearer and more earthly. His quickened
+senses perceive a busy patter of sandalled feet outside his cell, and a
+whispering of consultation,--and then the silvery, snaky tones of Father
+Johannes, which had that oily, penetrative quality which passes through
+all substances with such distinctness.
+
+"Brethren," he said, "I feel bound in conscience to knock. Our blessed
+Superior carries his mortifications altogether too far. His faithful
+sons must beset him with filial inquiries."
+
+The condition in which Father Francesco was lying, like many abnormal
+states of extreme exhaustion, seemed to be attended with a mysterious
+quickening of the magnetic forces and intuitive perceptions. He felt
+the hypocrisy of those tones, and they sounded in his ear like the
+suppressed hiss of a deadly serpent. He had always suspected that this
+man hated him to the death; and he felt now that he was come with his
+stealthy-tread and his almost supernatural power of prying observation,
+to read the very inmost secrets of his heart. He knew that he longed for
+nothing so much as the power to hurl him from his place and to reign in
+his stead; and the instinct of self-defence roused him. He started up
+as one starts from a dream, waked by a whisper in the ear, and, raising
+himself on his elbow, looked towards the door.
+
+A cautious rap was heard, and then a pause. Father Francesco smiled with
+a peculiar and bitter expression. The rap became louder, more energetic,
+stormy at last, intermingled with vehement calls on his name.
+
+Father Francesco rose at length, settled his garments, passed his
+hands over his brow, and then, composing himself to an expression of
+deliberate gravity, opened the door and stood before them.
+
+"Holy father," said Father Johannes, "the hearts of your sons have
+been saddened. A whole day have you withdrawn your presence from our
+devotions. We feared you might have fainted, your pious austerities so
+often transcend the powers of Nature."
+
+"I grieve to have saddened the hearts of such affectionate sons," said
+the Superior, fixing his eye keenly on Father Johannes; "but I have
+been performing a peculiar office of prayer to-day for a soul in deadly
+peril, and have been so absorbed therein that I have known nothing that
+passed. There is a soul among us, brethren," he added, "that stands at
+this moment so near to damnation that even the most blessed Mother of
+God is in doubt for its salvation, and whether it can be saved at all
+God only knows."
+
+These words, rising up from a tremendous groundswell of repressed
+feeling, had a fearful, almost supernatural earnestness that made the
+body of the monks tremble. Most of them were conscious of living but a
+shabby, shambling, dissembling life, evading in every possible way the
+efforts of their Superior to bring them up to the requirements of their
+profession; and therefore, when these words were bolted out among them
+with such a glowing intensity, every one of them began mentally feeling
+for the key of his own private and interior skeleton-closet, and
+wondering which of their ghastly occupants was coming to light now.
+
+Father Johannes alone was unmoved, because he had long since ceased to
+have a conscience. A throb of moral pulsation had for years been an
+impossibility to the dried and hardened fibre of his inner nature. He
+was one of those real, genuine, thorough unbelievers in all religion and
+all faith and all spirituality, whose unbelief grows only more callous
+by the constant handling of sacred things. Ambition was the ruling
+motive of his life, and every faculty was sharpened into such
+acuteness under its action that his penetration seemed at times almost
+preternatural.
+
+
+While he stood with downcast eyes and hands crossed upon his breast,
+listening to the burning words which remorse and despair wrung from his
+Superior, he was calmly and warily studying to see what could be made of
+the evident interior conflict that convulsed him. Was there some secret
+sin? Had that sanctity at last found the temptation that was more than a
+match for it? And what could it be?
+
+To a nature with any strong combative force there is no tonic like the
+presence of a secret and powerful enemy, and the stealthy glances
+of Father Johannes's serpent eye did more towards restoring Father
+Francesco to self-mastery than the most conscientious struggles could
+have done. He grew calm, resolved, determined. Self-respect was dear to
+him,--and dear to him no less that reflection of self-respect which a
+man reads in other eyes. He would not forfeit his conventual honor, or
+bring a stain on his order, or, least of all, expose himself to the
+scoffing eye of a triumphant enemy. Such were the motives that now came
+to his aid, while as yet the whole of his inner nature rebelled at the
+thought that he must tear up by the roots and wholly extirpate this love
+that seemed to have sent its fine fibres through every nerve of his
+being. "No!" he said to himself, with a fierce interior rebellion,
+"_that_ I will not do! Right or wrong, come heaven, come hell, I _will_
+love her; and if lost I must be, lost I will be!" And while this
+determination lasted, prayer seemed to him a mockery. He dared not pray
+alone now, when most he needed prayer; but he moved forward with dignity
+towards the convent-chapel to lead the vesper devotions of his brethren.
+Outwardly he was calm and rigid as a statue; but as he commenced the
+service, his utterance had a terrible meaning and earnestness that were
+felt even by the most drowsy and leaden of his flock. It is singular
+how the dumb, imprisoned soul, locked within the walls of the body,
+sometimes gives such a piercing power to the tones of the voice during
+the access of a great agony. The effect is entirely involuntary, and
+often against the most strenuous opposition of the will; but one
+sometimes hears another reading or repeating words with an intense
+vitality, a living force, which tells of some inward anguish or conflict
+of which the language itself gives no expression.
+
+Never were the long-drawn intonations of the chants and prayers of the
+Church pervaded by a more terrible, wild fervor than the Superior that
+night breathed into them. They seemed to wail, to supplicate, to combat,
+to menace, to sink in despairing pauses of helpless anguish, and anon to
+rise in stormy agonies of passionate importunity; and the monks quailed
+and trembled, they scarce knew why, with forebodings of coming wrath and
+judgment.
+
+In the evening exhortation, which it had been the Superior's custom to
+add to the prayers of the vesper-hour, he dwelt with a terrible and
+ghastly eloquence on the loss of the soul.
+
+"Brethren," he said, "believe me, the very first hour of a damned spirit
+in hell will outweigh all the prosperities of the most prosperous life.
+If you could gain the whole world, that one hour of hell would outweigh
+it all; how much more such miserable, pitiful scraps and fragments of
+the world as they gain who for the sake of a little fleshly ease neglect
+the duties of a holy profession! There is a broad way to hell through a
+convent, my brothers, where miserable wretches go who have neither the
+spirit to serve the Devil wholly, nor the patience to serve God; there
+be many shaven crowns that gnash their teeth in hell to-night,--many a
+monk's robe is burning on its owner in living fire, and the devils call
+him a fool for choosing to be damned in so hard a way. 'Could you not
+come here by some easier road than a cloister?' they ask. 'If you must
+sell your soul, why did you not get something for it?' Brethren, there
+be devils waiting for some of us; they are laughing at your paltry
+shifts and evasions, at your efforts to make things easy,--for they know
+how it will all end at last. Rouse yourselves! Awake! Salvation is no
+easy matter,--nothing to be got between sleeping and waking. Watch,
+pray, scourge the flesh, fast, weep, bow down in sackcloth, mingle your
+bread with ashes, if by any means ye may escape the everlasting fire!"
+
+"Bless me!" said Father Anselmo, when the services were over, casting
+a half-scared glance after the retreating figure of the Superior as he
+left the chapel, and drawing a long breath; "it's enough to make one
+sweat to hear him go on. What has come over him? Anyhow, I'll give
+myself a hundred lashes this very night: something must be done."
+
+"Well," said another, "I confess I did hide a cold wing of fowl in the
+sleeve of my gown last fast-day. My old aunt gave it to me, and I was
+forced to take it for relation's sake; but I'll do so no more, as I'm a
+living sinner. I'll do a penance this very night."
+
+Father Johannes stood under one of the arches that looked into the
+gloomy garden, and, with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his
+cold, glittering eye fixed stealthily now on one and now on another,
+listened with an ill-disguised sneer to these hasty evidences of fear
+and remorse in the monks, as they thronged the corridor on the way to
+their cells. Suddenly turning to a young brother who had lately joined
+the convent, he said to him,--
+
+"And what of the pretty Clarice, my brother?"
+
+The blood flushed deep into the pale cheek of the young monk, and his
+frame shook with some interior emotion, as he answered,--
+
+"She is recovering."
+
+"And she sent for thee to shrive her?"
+
+"My God!" said the young man, with an imploring, wild expression in his
+dark eyes, "she did; but I would not go."
+
+"Then Nature is still strong," said Father Johannes, pitilessly eying
+the young man.
+
+"When will it ever die?" said the stripling, with a despairing gesture;
+"it heeds neither heaven nor hell."
+
+"Well, patience, boy! if you have lost an earthly bride, you have gained
+a heavenly one. The Church is our espoused in white linen. Bless the
+Lord, without ceasing, for the exchange."
+
+There was an inexpressible mocking irony in the tones in which this was
+said, that made itself felt to the finely vitalized spirit of the youth,
+though to all the rest it sounded like the accredited average pious talk
+which is more or less the current coin of religious organizations.
+
+Now no one knows through what wanton deviltry Father Johannes broached
+this painful topic with the poor youth; but he had a peculiar faculty,
+with his smooth tones and his sanctimonious smiles, of thrusting red-hot
+needles into any wounds which he either knew or suspected under the
+coarse woollen robes of his brethren. He appeared to do it in all
+coolness, in a way of psychological investigation.
+
+He smiled, as the youth turned away, and a moment after started as if a
+thought had suddenly struck him.
+
+"I have it!" he said to himself. "There may be a woman at the bottom
+of this discomposure of our holy father; for he is wrought upon by
+something to the very bottom of his soul. I have not studied human
+nature so many years for nothing. Father Francesco hath been much in the
+guidance of women. His preaching hath wrought upon them, and perchance
+among them.--Aha!" he said to himself, as he paced up and down, "I have
+it! I'll try an experiment upon him!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE SERPENT'S EXPERIMENT.
+
+
+Father Francesco sat leaning his head on his hand by the window of his
+cell, looking out upon the sea as it rose and fell, with the reflections
+of the fast coming stars glittering like so many jewels on its breast.
+The glow of evening had almost faded, but there was a wan, tremulous
+light from the moon, and a clearness, produced by the reflection of such
+an expanse of water, which still rendered objects in his cell quite
+discernible.
+
+In the terrible denunciations and warnings just uttered, he had been
+preaching to himself, striving to bring a force on his own soul by which
+he might reduce its interior rebellion to submission; but, alas! when
+was ever love cast out by fear? He knew not as yet the only remedy
+for such sorrow,--that there is a love celestial and divine, of which
+earthly love in its purest form is only the sacramental symbol and
+emblem, and that this divine love can by God's power so outflood human
+affections as to bear the soul above all earthly idols to its only
+immortal rest. This great truth rises like a rock amid stormy seas, and
+many is the sailor struggling in salt and bitter waters who cannot yet
+believe it is to be found. A few saints like Saint Augustin had reached
+it,--but through what buffetings, what anguish!
+
+At this moment, however, there was in the heart of the father one of
+those collapses which follow the crisis of some mortal struggle. He
+leaned on the windowsill, exhausted and helpless.
+
+Suddenly, a kind of illusion of the senses came over him, such as is not
+infrequent to sensitive natures in severe crises of mental anguish. He
+thought he heard Agnes singing, as he had sometimes heard her when he
+had called in his pastoral ministrations at the little garden and paused
+awhile outside that he might hear her finish a favorite hymn, which,
+like a shy bird, she sang all the more sweetly for thinking herself
+alone.
+
+Quite as if they were sung in his ear, and in her very tones, he heard
+the words of Saint Bernard, which we have introduced to our reader:--
+
+  Jesu dulcis memoria,
+  Dans vera cordi gaudia:
+  Sed super mel et omnia
+  Ejus dulcis praesentia.
+
+  "Jesu, spes poenitentibus,
+  Quam pius es petentibus,
+  Quam bonus te quaerentibus,
+  Sed quis invenientibus!"
+
+Soft and sweet and solemn was the illusion, as if some spirit breathed
+them with a breath of tenderness over his soul; and he threw himself
+with a burst of tears before the crucifix.
+
+"O Jesus, where, then, art Thou? Why must I thus suffer? She is not the
+one altogether lovely; it is Thou,--Thou, her Creator and mine! Why,
+why cannot I find Thee? Oh, take from my heart all other love but Thine
+alone!"
+
+Yet even this very prayer, this very hymn, were blent with the
+remembrance of Agnes; for was it not she who first had taught him the
+lesson of heavenly love? Was not she the first one who had taught him to
+look upward to Jesus other than as an avenging judge? Michel Angelo has
+embodied in a fearful painting, which now deforms the Sistine Chapel,
+that image of stormy vengeance which a religion debased by force
+and fear had substituted for the tender, good shepherd of earlier
+Christianity. It was only in the heart of a lowly maiden that Christ had
+been made manifest to the eye of the monk, as of old he was revealed to
+the world through a virgin. And how could he, then, forget her, or cease
+to love her, when every prayer and hymn, every sacred round of the
+ladder by which he must climb, was so full of memorials of her? While
+crying and panting for the supreme, the divine, the invisible love, he
+found his heart still craving the visible one,--the one so well known,
+revealing itself to the senses, and bringing with it the certainty of
+visible companionship.
+
+As he was thus kneeling and wrestling with himself, a sudden knock at
+his door startled him. He had made it a point, never, at any hour of the
+day or night, to deny himself to a brother who sought him for counsel,
+however disagreeable the person and however unreasonable the visit. He
+therefore rose and unbolted the door, and saw Father Johannes standing
+with folded arms and downcast head, in an attitude of composed humility.
+
+"What would you with me, brother?" he asked, calmly.
+
+"My father, I have a wrestling of mind for one of our brethren whose
+case I would present to you."
+
+"Come in, my brother," said the Superior. At the same time he lighted a
+little iron lamp, of antique form, such as are still in common use in
+that region, and, seating himself on the board which served for his
+couch, made a motion to Father Johannes to be seated also.
+
+The latter sat down, eying, as he did so, the whole interior of the
+apartment, so far as it was revealed by the glimmer of the taper.
+
+"Well, my son," said Father Francesco, "what is it?"
+
+"I have my doubts of the spiritual safety of Brother Bernard," said
+Father Johannes.
+
+"Wherefore?" asked the Superior, briefly.
+
+"Holy father, you are aware of the history of the brother, and of the
+worldly affliction that drove him to this blessed profession?"
+
+"I am," replied the Superior, with the same brevity.
+
+"He narrated it to me fully," said Father Johannes. "The maiden he was
+betrothed to was married to another in his absence on a long journey,
+being craftily made to suppose him dead."
+
+"I tell you I know the circumstances," said the Superior.
+
+"I merely recalled them, because, moved doubtless by your sermon, he
+dropped words to me to-night which led me to suppose that this sinful,
+earthly love was not yet extirpated from his soul. Of late the woman was
+sick and nigh unto death, and sent for him."
+
+"But he did not go?" interposed Father Francesco.
+
+"No, he did not,--grace was given him thus far,--but he dropped words
+to me to the effect, that in secret he still cherished the love of this
+woman; and the awful words your Reverence has been, speaking to us
+to-night have moved me with fear for the youth's soul, of the which I,
+as an elder brother, have had some charge, and I came to consult with
+you as to what help there might be for him."
+
+Father Francesco turned away his head a moment and there was a pause;
+at last he said, in a tone that seemed like the throb of some deep,
+interior anguish,--
+
+"The Lord help him!"
+
+"Amen!" said Father Johannes, taking keen note of the apparent emotion.
+
+"You must have experience in these matters, my father," he added, after
+a pause,--"so many hearts have been laid open to you. I would crave to
+know of you what you think is the safest and most certain cure for this
+love of woman, if once it hath got possession of the heart."
+
+"Death!" said Father Francesco, after a solemn pause.
+
+"I do not understand you," said Father Johannes.
+
+"My son," said Father Francesco, rising up with an air of authority,
+"you do not understand,--there is nothing in you by which you should
+understand. This unhappy brother hath opened his case to me, and I have
+counselled him all I know of prayer and fastings and watchings and
+mortifications. Let him persevere in the same; and if all these fail,
+the good Lord will send the other in His own time. There is an end to
+all things in this life, and that end shall certainly come at last. Bid
+him persevere and hope in this.--And now, brother," added the Superior,
+with dignity, "if you have no other query, time flies and eternity comes
+on,--go, watch and pray, and leave me to my prayers also."
+
+He raised his hand with a gesture of benediction, and Father Johannes,
+awed in spite of himself, felt impelled to leave the apartment.
+
+"Is it so, or is it not?" he said. "I cannot tell. He did seem to wince
+and turn away his head when I proposed the case; but then he made fight
+at last. I cannot tell whether I have got any advantage or not; but
+patience! we shall see!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HEALTH IN THE CAMP.
+
+
+All the world has heard a great deal of the sufferings and mortality
+of the English and French armies in the late Russian war; and in most
+countries the story has been heard to some purpose. Reforms and new
+methods have been instituted in almost every country in Europe,--so
+strong has been the effect of the mere outline of the case, which is all
+that has been furnished to the public. The broad facts of the singular
+mortality first, and the singular healthfulness of the British army
+afterwards, on the same spot and under the same military circumstances
+as before, have interested all rulers of armies, and brought about great
+benefits to the soldier, throughout the length and breadth of Europe.
+Within these broad outlines there was a multitude of details which were
+never recorded in a systematic way, or which, for good and sufficient
+reasons, could not be made public at the time; and these details are the
+part of the story most interesting to soldiers actually in the field
+or likely to be called there soon. They are also deeply interesting to
+every order of persons concerned in a civil war; for such a war summons
+forth a citizen soldiery to form a system for themselves in regard to
+the life of the march and the camp, and to do the best they can for that
+life and health which they have devoted to their country. Under such
+circumstances it cannot but be interesting to the patriots in the camp
+and to their families at home to know some facts which they cannot have
+heard before of the mistakes made at the beginning of the last Russian
+war, and the repair of those mistakes before the end of it. The prompt
+and anxious care exercised by the American Sanitary Commission, and the
+benevolent diligence bestowed on the organization of hospitals for the
+Federal forces, show that the lesson of the Crimean campaign has been
+studied in the United States; and this is an encouragement to afford
+further illustrations of the case, when new material is at command.
+
+I am thinking most of the volunteer forces at this moment, for the
+obvious reason that their health is in greater danger than that of the
+professional soldier. The regular troops live under a system which is
+always at work to feed, clothe, lodge, and entertain them: whereas
+the volunteers are quitting one mode of life for another, all the
+circumstances of which had to be created at the shortest notice. To them
+their first campaign must be very like what it was to British soldiers
+who had never seen war to be sent to Turkey first, and then to the
+Crimea, to live a new kind of life, and meet discomforts and dangers
+which they had never dreamed of. I shall therefore select my details
+with a view to the volunteers and their friends in the first place.
+
+The enthusiasm which started the volunteers of every Northern State on
+their new path of duty could hardly exceed that by which the British
+troops were escorted from their barrack-gates to the margin of the sea.
+The war was universally approved (except by a clique of peace-men); and
+there was a universal confidence that the troops would do their duty
+well, though not one man in a thousand of them had ever seen war. As
+they marched down to their ships, in the best mood, and with every
+appearance of health and spirit, nobody formed any conception of what
+would happen. Parliament had fulfilled the wishes of the people
+by voting liberal sums for the due support of the troops; the
+Administration desired and ordered that everything should be done for
+the soldier's welfare; and as far as orders and arrangements went, the
+scheme was thoroughly well intended and generous. Who could anticipate,
+that, while the enemy never once gained a battle or obtained an
+advantage over British or French, two-thirds of that fine stout British
+force would perish in a few months? Of the twenty-five thousand who went
+out, eighteen thousand were dead in a year; and the enemy was answerable
+for a very small proportion of those deaths. Before me lie the returns
+of six months of those twelve, showing the fate of the troops for that
+time; and it furnishes the key to the whole story.
+
+In those six months, the admissions into hospital in the Crimea
+(exclusive of the Santari Hospital) were 52,548. The number shows that
+many must have entered the hospitals more than once, as well as that the
+place of the dead was supplied by new comers from England. Of these,
+nearly fifty thousand were absolutely untouched by the Russians. Only
+3,806 of the whole number were wounded. Even this is not the most
+striking circumstance. It is more impressive that three-fourths of the
+sick suffered unnecessarily. Seventy-five per cent. of them suffered
+from preventable diseases. That is, the naturally sick were 12,563;
+while the needlessly sick were 36,179. When we look at the deaths from
+this number, the case appears still more striking. The deaths were
+5,359; and of these scarcely more than the odd hundreds were from
+wounds,--that is, 373. Of the remainder, little more than one-tenth were
+unavoidable deaths. The natural deaths, as we may call them, were only
+521; while the preventable deaths were 4,465. Very different would have
+been the spirit of the parting in England, if the soldiers' friends had
+imagined that so small a number would fall by Russian gun or bayonet, or
+by natural sickness, while the mortality from mismanagement would at one
+season of the next year exceed that of London in the worst days of the
+Great Plague.
+
+That the case was really what is here represented was proved by the
+actual prevention of this needless sickness during the last year of the
+war. In the same camp, and under the same circumstances of warfare, the
+mortality was reduced, by good management, to a degree unhoped for by
+all but those who achieved it. The deaths for the last half year were
+one-third fewer than at home! And yet the army that died was composed of
+fine, well-trained troops; while the army that lived and flourished was
+of a far inferior material when it came out,--raw, untravelled, and
+unhardened to the military life.
+
+How did these things happen? There can be no more important question for
+Americans at this time.
+
+I will not go into the history of the weaknesses and faults of the
+administration of departments at home. They have been abundantly
+published already; and we may hope that they bear no relation to the
+American case. It is more interesting to look into the circumstances of
+the march and the camp, for illustration of what makes the health or the
+sickness of the soldier.
+
+Wherever the men were to provide themselves with anything to eat or to
+wear out of their pay, they were found to suffer. There is no natural
+market, with fair prices, in the neighborhood of warfare; and, on the
+one hand, a man cannot often get what he wishes, and, on the other,
+he is tempted to buy something not so good for him. If there are
+commissariat stores opened, there is an endless accumulation of
+business,--a mass of accounts to keep of the stoppages from the men's
+pay. On all accounts it is found better for all parties that the wants
+of the soldier should be altogether supplied in the form of rations of
+varied food and drink, and of clothing varying with climate and season.
+
+In regard to food, which comes first in importance of the five heads of
+the soldier's wants, the English soldier was remarkably helpless till
+he learned better. The Russians cut that matter very short. Every man
+carried a certain portion of black rye bread and some spirit. No cooking
+was required, and the men were very independent. But the diet is bad;
+and the Russian regiments were composed of sallow-faced men, who died
+"like flies" under frequently recurring epidemics. The Turks were in
+their own country, and used their accustomed diet. The French are the
+most apt, the most practised, and the most economical managers of food
+of any of the parties engaged in the war. Their campaigns in Algeria had
+taught them how to help themselves; and they could obtain a decent meal
+where an Englishman would have eaten nothing, or something utterly
+unwholesome. The Sardinians came next, and it was edifying to see how
+they could build a fire-place and obtain a fire in a few minutes to boil
+their pot. In other ways both French and Sardinians suffered miserably
+when the British had surmounted their misfortunes. The mortality from
+cholera and dysentery in the French force, during the last year, was
+uncalculated and unreported. It was so excessive as, in fact, to close
+the war too soon. The Sardinians were ravaged by disease from their huts
+being made partly under ground. But, so far as the preparation of their
+food went, both had the advantage of the British, in a way which will
+never happen again. I believe the Americans and the English are bad
+cooks in about the same degree; and the warning afforded by the one may
+be accepted by the other.
+
+At the end of a day, in Bulgaria or the Crimea, what happened was this.
+
+The soldiers who did not understand cooking or messing had to satisfy
+their hunger any way they could. They were so exhausted that they were
+sure to drink up their allowance of grog the first moment they could lay
+hands on it. Then there was hard biscuit, a lump of very salt pork or
+beef, as hard as a board, and some coffee, raw. Those who had no touch
+of scurvy (and they were few) munched their biscuit while they poked
+about everywhere with a knife, digging up roots or cutting green wood to
+make a fire. Each made a hole in the ground, unless there was a bank
+or great stone at hand, and there he tried, for one half-hour after
+another, to kindle a fire. When he got up a flame, there was his salt
+meat to cook: it ought to have been soaked and stewed for hours; but he
+could not wait; and he pulled it to pieces, and gnawed what he could of
+it, when it was barely warm. Then he had to roast his coffee, which he
+did in the lid of his camp-kettle, burning it black, and breaking it as
+small as he could, with stones or anyhow. Such coffee as it would make
+could hardly be worth the trouble. It was called by one of the doctors
+charcoal and water. Such a supper could not fit a man for outpost duty
+for the night, nor give him good sleep after the toils of the day.
+
+The Sardinians, meantime, united in companies, some members of which
+were usually on the spot to prepare supper for the rest. They knew how
+to look for or provide a shelter for their fire, if only a foot high;
+and how to cut three or four little trenches, converging at the fire, so
+as to afford a good draught which would kindle even bad fuel. They had
+good stews and porridge and coffee ready when wanted. The French always
+had fresh bread. They carried portable ovens and good bakers. The
+British had flour, after a time, but they did not know how to make
+bread; and if men volunteered for the office, day after day, it usually
+turned out that they had a mind for a holiday, and knew nothing of
+baking; and their bread came out of the oven too heavy, or sour, or
+sticky, or burnt, to be eaten. As scurvy spread and deepened, the
+doctors made eager demands on Government for lime-juice, and more
+lime-juice. Government had sent plenty of lime-juice; but it was somehow
+neglected among the stores for twenty-four days when it was most wanted,
+as was the supply of rice for six weeks when dysentery was raging. All
+the time, the truth was, as was acknowledged afterwards, that the thing
+really wanted was good food. The lime-juice was a medicine, a specific;
+but it could be of no real use till the frame was nourished with proper
+food.
+
+When flour, and preserved vegetables, and fresh meat were served out,
+and there were coffee-mills all through the camp, the men were still
+unable to benefit by the change as their allies did. They could grind
+and make their coffee; but they were still without good fresh bread and
+soup. They despised the preserved vegetables, not believing that those
+little cakes could do them any good. When they learned at last how two
+ounces of those little cakes were equal, when well cooked, to eight
+ounces of fresh vegetables, and just as profitable for a stew or with
+their meat, they duly prized them, and during the final healthy period
+those pressed vegetables were regarded in the camp as a necessary of
+life. By that time, Soyer's zeal had introduced good cookery into the
+camp. Roads were made by which supplies were continually arriving. Fresh
+meat abounded; and it was brought in on its own legs, so that it was
+certain that beef was beef, and mutton mutton, instead of goat's flesh
+being substituted, as in Bulgaria. By that time it was discovered that
+the most lavish orders at home and the profusest expenditure by the
+commissariat will not feed and clothe an army in a foreign country,
+unless there is some agency, working between the commissariat and the
+soldiers, to take care that the food is actually in their hands in an
+eatable form, and the clothes on their backs.
+
+It is for American soldiers to judge how much of this applies to their
+case. The great majority of the volunteers must be handy, self-helping
+men; and bands of citizens from the same towns or villages must be
+disposed and accustomed to concerted action; but cooking is probably the
+last thing they have any of them turned their hand to. Much depends on
+the source of their food-supply. I fear they live on the country they
+are in,--at least, when in the enemy's country. This is very easy
+living, certainly. To shoot pigs or fowls in road or yard is one way of
+getting fresh meat, as ravaging gardens is a short way of feasting on
+vegetables. But supposing the forces fed from a regular commissariat
+department, is there anything to be learned from the Crimean campaigns?
+
+The British are better supplied with the food of the country, wherever
+they are, than the French, because it is their theory and practice to
+pay as they go; whereas it is the French, or at least the Bonapartist
+theory and practice, to "make the war support itself," that is, to live
+upon the people of the country. In the Peninsular War, the French often
+found themselves in a desert where they could not stay; whereas, when
+Wellington and his troops followed upon their steps, the peasants
+reappeared from all quarters, bringing materials for a daily market. In
+the Crimea, the faithful and ready payments of the English commissariat
+insured plenty of food material, in the form of cattle and flour,
+biscuit and vegetables. The defect was in means of transport for
+bringing provisions to the camp. The men were trying to eat hard salt
+meat and biscuit, when scurvy made all eating difficult, while herds
+of cattle were waiting to be slaughtered, and ship-loads of flour were
+lying seven miles off. Whole deck-loads of cabbages and onions were
+thrown into the sea, while the men in camp were pining for vegetable
+food. An impracticable track lay between; and the poor fellows died by
+thousands before the road could be made good, and transport-animals
+obtained, and the food distributed among the tents and huts. Experience
+taught the officers that the food should be taken entire charge of by
+departments of the army till it was actually smoking in the men's hands.
+There were agents, of course, in all the countries round, to buy up the
+cattle, flour, and vegetables needed. The animals should be delivered
+at appointed spots, alive and in good condition, that there might be no
+smuggling in of joints of doubtful character. There should be a regular
+arrangement of shambles, at a proper distance from the tents, and
+provided with a special drainage, and means of disposing instantly of
+the offal. Each company in the camp should have its kitchen, and one
+or two skilled cooks,--one to serve on each day, with perhaps two
+assistants from the company. After the regular establishment of the
+kitchens, there was always food ready and coffee procurable for the
+tired men who came in from the trenches or outpost duty; and it was a
+man's own fault, if he went without a meal when off duty.
+
+It was found to be a grave mistake to feed the soldiers on navy salt
+beef and pork. Corned beef and pork salted for a fortnight have far more
+nourishment and make much less waste in the preparation than meat which
+is salted for a voyage of months. After a time, very little of the hard
+salted meat was used at all. When it was, it was considered essential
+to serve out peas with the pork, and flour, raisins, and suet, for a
+pudding, on salt-beef days. In course of time there were additions
+which made considerable variety: as rice, preserved potatoes, pressed
+vegetables, cheese, dried fruits and suet for puddings, sugar, coffee
+properly roasted, and malt liquor. Beer and porter answer much better
+than any kind of spirit, and are worth pains and cost to obtain. With
+such variety as this, with portable kitchens in the place of the
+cumbersome camp-kettle per man, with fresh bread, well-cooked meat and
+vegetables, and well-made coffee, the soldiers will have every chance
+of health that diet can afford. Whereas hard and long-kept salt meat,
+insufficiently soaked and cooked, and hastily broiled meat or fowls,
+just killed, and swallowed by hungry men unskilled in preparing food,
+help on diseases of the alimentary system as effectually as that
+intemperance in melons and cucumbers and unripe grapes and apples which
+has destroyed more soldiers than all the weapons of all enemies.
+
+So much for the food. Next in order come the clothing, and care of the
+person.
+
+The newspapers have a great deal to say, as we have all seen, about the
+badness of much of the clothing furnished to the Federal troops. There
+is no need to denounce the conduct of faithless contractors in such a
+case; and the glorious zeal of the women, and of all who can help to
+make up clothing for the army, shows that the volunteers at least will
+be well clad, if the good-will of society can effect it. Whatever the
+form of dress, it is the height of imprudence to use flimsy material for
+it.
+
+It seems to be everywhere agreed, in a general way, that the soldier's
+dress should be of an easy fit, in the first place; light enough for hot
+weather and noon service, with resources of warmth for cold weather and
+night duty. In Europe, the blouse or loose tunic is preferred to every
+other form of coat, and knickerbockers or gaiters to any form of
+trousers. The shoe or boot is the weak point of almost all military
+forces. The French are getting over it; and the English are learning
+from them. The number of sizes and proportions is, I think, five to one
+of what it used to be in the early part of the century, so that any
+soldier can get fitted. The Duke of Wellington wrote home from the
+Peninsula in those days,--"If you don't send shoes, the army can't
+march." The enemy marched away to a long distance before the shoes
+arrived; and when they came, they were all too small. Such things do not
+happen now; but it often does happen that hundreds are made footsore,
+and thrown out of the march, by being ill-shod; and there seems reason
+to believe that much of the lagging and apparent desertion of stragglers
+in the marches of the volunteers of the Federal army is owing to the
+difficulty of keeping up with men who walk at ease. If the Southern
+troops are in such want of shoes as is reported, that circumstance alone
+is almost enough to turn the scale, provided the Northern regiments
+attain the full use of their feet by being accurately fitted with stout
+shoes or boots. During the darkest days in the Crimea, those who had
+boots which would stick on ceased to take them off. They slept in them,
+wet or dry, knowing, that, once off, they could never be got on again.
+Such things cannot happen in the Northern States, where the stoppage of
+the trade in shoes to the South leaves leather, skill, and time for the
+proper shoeing of the army; but it may not yet be thoroughly understood
+how far the practical value of every soldier depends on the welfare of
+his feet, and how many sizes and proportions of shoe are needed for duly
+fitting a thousand men.
+
+As for the rest, the conclusion after the Crimean campaign was that
+flannel shirts answer better than cotton on the whole. If the shirt is
+cotton, there must be a flannel waistcoat; and the flannel shirt answers
+the purpose of both, while it is as easily washed as any material. Every
+man should have a flannel bandage for the body, in case of illness, or
+unusual fatigue, or sudden changes of temperature. The make and pressure
+of the knapsack are very important, so that the weight may be thrown on
+the shoulders, without pressure on the chest or interference with the
+arms. The main object is the avoidance of pressure everywhere, from the
+toe-joints to the crown of the head. For this the head-covering should
+be studied, that it may afford shelter and shade from heat and light,
+and keep on, against the wind, without pressure on the temples or
+forehead. For this the neck-tie should he studied, and the cut of the
+coat-chest and sleeve, when coats must be worn: and every man must have
+some sort of overcoat, for chilly and damp hours of duty. There is great
+danger in the wearing of water-proof fabrics, unless they are so loose
+as to admit of a free circulation of air between them and the body.
+
+With the clothing is generally connected the care of the person. It
+is often made a question, With whom rests the responsibility of the
+personal cleanliness of the soldier? The medical men declare that they
+do what they can, but that there is nothing to be said when the men are
+unsupplied with water; and all persuasions are thrown away when the poor
+fellows are in tatters, and sleeping on dirty straw or the bare ground.
+The indolent ones, at least, go on from day to day without undressing,
+combing, or washing, till they are swarming with vermin; and then they
+have lost self-respect. But if, before it is too late, there is an issue
+of new shirts, boots, stockings, comforters, or woollen gloves, the
+event puts spirit into them; they will strip and wash, and throw out
+dirt and rags from their sleeping-places, and feel respectable again.
+
+Perhaps the first consideration should be on the part of the
+quartermaster, whose business it is to see to the supply of water; and
+the sanitary officer has next to take care that every man gets his eight
+or ten gallons per day. If the soldiers are posted near a stream which
+can be used for bathing and washing clothes, there ought to be no
+difficulty; and every man may fairly be required to be as thoroughly
+washed from head to foot every days and as clean in his inner clothing,
+as his own little children at home. If on high and dry ground, where the
+water-supply is restricted, some method and order are needed; but no
+pains should be spared to afford each man his eight or ten gallons.
+
+This cannot be done, unless the source of supply is properly guarded.
+When unrestrained access is afforded to a spring-head or pond, the water
+is fatally wasted and spoiled. In the Crimea, the English officers
+had to build round the spring-heads, and establish a regular order in
+getting supplied. Where there is crowding, dirt gets thrown in, the
+water is muddied, or animals are brought to drink at the source. This
+ruins everything; for animals will not drink below, when the mouth
+of horse, mule, or cow has touched the water above. The way is for
+guardians to take possession, and board over the source, and make a
+reservoir with taps, allowing water to be taken first for drinking and
+washing purposes, a flow being otherwise provided by spout and troughs
+for the animals, and for cleansing the camp. The difference on the same
+spot was enormous between the time when a British sergeant wrote that he
+was not so well as at home, and could not expect it, not having had his
+shoes or any of his clothes off for five months, and the same time the
+next year, when every respectable soldier was fresh and tidy, with his
+blood flowing healthfully under a clean skin. The poor sergeant said, in
+his days of discomfort: "I wonder what our sweethearts would think of
+us, if they were to see us now,--unshaved, unwashed, and quite old men!"
+Cut in a year, those who survived had grown young again,--not shaven,
+perhaps, for their beards were a great natural comfort on winter duty,
+but brushed and washed, in vigorous health, and gay spirits.
+
+The next consideration is the soldier's abode,--whether tent, or hut, or
+quarters.
+
+I have shown certain British doctors demanding lime-juice when food was
+necessary first. In the same way, there was a cry from the same quarter
+for peat charcoal, instead of preventing the need of disinfectants.
+Wherever men are congregated in large numbers,--in a caravan, at a
+fair in the East or a protracted camp-meeting in the far West, or as a
+military force anywhere, there is always animal refuse which should
+not be permitted to lie about for a day or an hour. Dead camels among
+Oriental merchants, dead horses among Western soldiers, are the cause of
+plague. It is to be hoped that there will never be a military encampment
+again without the appointment of officers whose business it shall be to
+see that all carrion, offal, and dirt of every kind is put away into
+its proper place instantly. For those receptacles, and for stables and
+shambles, peat charcoal is a great blessing; but it ought not to be
+needed in or about the abodes of the men. The case is different in
+different armies. The French have a showy orderliness in their way of
+settling themselves on new ground,--forming their camp into streets,
+with names painted up, and opening post-office, _cafés_, and bazaars of
+camp-followers; but they are not radically neat in their ways. In a few
+days or weeks their settlement is a place of stench, turning to disease;
+and thus it was, that, notwithstanding their fresh bread, and good
+cookery, and clever arrangements, they were swept away by cholera and
+dysentery, to an extent unrevealed to this day, while the British force,
+once well fed and clothed, had actually only five per cent sick from all
+causes, in their whole force.
+
+The Sardinians suffered, as I have already observed, from their way of
+making their huts. They excavated a space, to the depth of three or four
+feet, and used the earth they threw out to embank the walls raised upon
+the edge of the excavation. This procured warmth in winter and coolness
+in hot weather; but the interior was damp and ill-ventilated; and as
+soon as there was any collection of refuse within, cholera and fever
+broke out. It is essential to health that the dwelling should be above
+ground, admitting the circulation of air from the base to the ridge of
+the roof, where there should be an escape for it at all hours of the day
+and night.
+
+Among volunteer troops in America, the difficulty would naturally seem
+to be the newness of the discipline, the strangeness of the requisite
+obedience. Something must be true of all that is said of the scattering
+about of food, and other things which have no business to lie about on
+the ground. A soldier is out of his duty who throws away a crust of
+bread or meat, or casts bones to dogs, or in any way helps to taint the
+air or obstruct the watercourses or drains. It may be troublesome to
+obey the requisitions of the sanitary authorities; but it is the only
+chance for escaping camp-disease.
+
+On the other hand, in fixing on a spot for encampment, it is due to
+the soldier to avoid all boggy places, and all places where the air is
+stagnant from inclosure by woods, or near burial-grounds, or where the
+soil is unfavorable to drainage. The military officer must admit the
+advice of the sanitary officer in the case, though he may not be
+always able to adopt it. When no overwhelming military considerations
+interfere, the soldiers have a right to be placed on the most dry and
+pervious soil that may offer, in an airy situation, removed from swamps
+and dense woods, and admitting of easy drainage. Wood and water used to
+be the quartermaster's sole demands; now, good soil and air are added,
+and a suitable slope of the ground, and other minor requisites.
+
+It depends on the character of the country whether quarters in towns and
+villages are best, or huts or tents. In Europe, town quarters are found
+particularly fatal; and the state of health of the inmates of tents and
+huts depends much on the structure and placing of either. Precisely the
+same kind of hut in the Crimea held a little company of men in perfect
+health, or a set of invalids, carried out one after another to their
+graves. Nay, the same hut bore these different characters, according to
+its position at the top of a slope, or half-way down, so as to collect
+under its floor the drainage from a spring. American soldiers, however,
+are hardly likely to be hutted, I suppose; so I need say no more than
+that in huts and tents alike it is indispensable to health that there
+should be air-holes,--large spaces, sheltered from rain,--in the highest
+part of the structure, whether the entrance below be open or closed. The
+sanitary officers no doubt have it in charge to see that every man has
+his due allowance of cubic feet of fresh air,--in other words, to take
+care that each tent or other apartment is well ventilated, and not
+crowded. The men's affair is to establish such rules among comrades as
+that no one shall stop up air-holes, or overcrowd the place with guests,
+or taint the air with unwholesome fumes. In the British army, bell-tents
+are not allowed at all as hospital tents. Active, healthy men may use
+them in their resting hours; but their condemnation as abodes for the
+sick shows how pressing is the duty of ventilating them for the use of
+the strongest and healthiest.
+
+A sound and airy tent being provided, the next consideration is of
+bedding.
+
+The surgeons of the British force were always on the lookout for straw
+and hay, after being informed at the outset that the men could not have
+bedding, though it was hoped there was enough for the hospitals. A few
+nights in the dust, among the old bones and rubbish of Gallipoli, and
+then in the Bulgarian marshes, showed that it would be better to bestow
+the bedding before the men went into hospital, and sheets of material
+were obtained for some of them to lie upon. A zealous surgeon pointed
+out to the proper officer that this bedding consisted in fact of double
+ticking, evidently intended as _paillasses_, to be stuffed with straw.
+The straw not being granted, he actually set to work to make hay; and,
+being well aided by the soldiers, he soon saw them sleeping on
+good mattresses. It was understood in England, and believed by the
+Government, that every soldier in camp had three blankets; and after a
+time, this came true: but in the interval, during the damp autumn and
+bitter winter, they had but one. Lying on wet ground, with one damp and
+dirty blanket over them, prepared hundreds for the hospital and the
+grave. The mischief was owing to the jealousy of some of the medical
+authorities, in the first place, who would not see, believe, or allow to
+be reported, the fact that the men were in any way ill-supplied, because
+these same doctors had specified the stores that would be wanted,--and
+next, to the absence of a department for the actual distribution of
+existing stores. With the bedding the case was the same as with the
+lime-juice and the rice: there was plenty; but it was not served out
+till too late. When the huts were inhabited, in the Crimea, and the
+wooden platforms had a dry soil beneath, and every man had a bed of some
+sort and three blankets, there was no more cholera or fever.
+
+The American case is radically unlike that of any of the combatants in
+the Crimean War, because they are on the soil of their own country,
+within reach of their own railways, and always in the midst of the
+ordinary commodities of life. In such a position, they can with the
+utmost ease be supplied with whatever they really want,--so profuse as
+are the funds placed at the command of the authorities. Considering
+this, and the well-known handiness of Americans, there need surely be no
+disease and death from privation. This may be confidently said while we
+have before us the case of the British in the Crimea during the second
+winter of the war. A sanitary commission had been sent out; and
+under their authority, and by the help of experience, everything was
+rectified. The healthy were stronger than ever; there was scarcely any
+sickness; and the wounded recovered without drawback. As the British
+ended, the Americans ought to begin.
+
+On the last two heads of the soldier's case there is little to be said
+here, because the American troops are at home, and not in a perilous
+foreign climate, and on the shores of a remote sea. Their drill can
+hardly be appointed for wrong hours, or otherwise mismanaged. In regard
+to transport, they have not the embarrassment of crowds of sick and
+wounded, far away in the Black Sea, without any adequate supply of
+mules and carriages, after the horses had died off, and without any
+organization of hospital ships at all equal to the demand. Neither do
+they depend for clothing and medicines on the arrival of successive
+ships through the storms of the Euxine; and they will never see the
+dreary spectacle of the foundering of a noble vessel just arriving, in
+November, with ample stores of winter clothing, medicines, and comforts,
+which six hours more would have placed in safety. Under the head of
+transport, they ought to have nothing to suffer.
+
+Having gone through the separate items, and looking at the case as a
+whole, we may easily perceive that in America, as in England and France
+and every other country, the responsibility of the soldier's health in
+camp is shared thus.
+
+The authorities are bound so to arrange their work as that there shall
+be no hitch through which disaster shall reach the soldiery. The
+relations between the military and medical authorities must be so
+settled and made clear as that no professional jealousy among the
+doctors shall keep the commanding officers in the dark as to the
+needs--of their men, and that no self-will or ignorance in commanding
+officers shall neutralize the counsels of the medical men. The military
+authorities must not depend on the report of any doctor who may be
+incompetent as to the provision made for the men's health, and the
+doctor must be authorized to represent the dangers of a bad encampment
+without being liable to a recommendation to keep his opinion to himself
+till he is asked for it. These particular dangers are best obviated by
+the appointment of sanitary officers, to attend the forces, and take
+charge of the health of the army, as the physicians and surgeons take
+charge of its sickness. If, besides, there is a separate department
+between the commissariat and the soldiery, to see that the comforts
+provided are actually brought within every man's grasp, the authorities
+will have done their part.
+
+The rest is the soldier's own concern. When cruelly pressed by hardship,
+the soldiers in Turkey and the Crimea took to drinking; and what they
+drank was poison. The vile raid with which they intoxicated themselves
+carried hundreds to the grave as surely as arsenic would have done.
+When, at last, they were well fed, warm, clean, and comfortable, and
+well amused in the coffee-houses opened for them, there was an end, or
+a vast diminution, of the evil of drunkenness. Good coffee and harmless
+luxuries were sold to them at cost price; and books and magazines and
+newspapers, chess, draughts, and other games, were at their command. The
+American soldiery are a more cultivated set of men than these, and are
+in proportion more inexcusable for any resort to intemperance. They
+ought to have neither the external discomfort nor the internal vacuity
+which have caused drunkenness in other armies. The resort to strong
+drinks so prevalent in the Americans is an ever-lasting mystery to
+Europeans, who recognize in them a self-governing people, universally
+educated up to a capacity for intellectual interests such as are
+elsewhere found to be a safeguard against intemperance in drink. If the
+precautions instituted by the authorities are well supported by the
+volunteers themselves, the most fatal of all perils will be got rid of.
+If not, the army will perish by a veritable suicide. But such a fate
+cannot be in store for such an army.
+
+There is something else almost as indispensable to the health of
+soldiers as sobriety, and that is subordination. The true, magnanimous,
+patriotic spirit of subordination is not more necessary to military
+achievement than it is to the personal composure and the trustworthiness
+of nerve of the individual soldier. A strong desire and fixed habit of
+obedience to command relieve a man of all internal conflict between
+self-will and circumstance, and give him possession of his full powers
+of action and endurance. If absolute reliance on authority is a
+necessity to the great majority of mankind, (which it is,) it is to the
+few wisest and strongest a keen enjoyment when they can righteously
+indulge in it; and the occasion on which it is supremely a duty--in the
+case of military or naval service--is one of privilege. Americans are
+less accustomed than others to prompt and exact obedience, being a
+self-governing and unmilitary nation: and they may require some time to
+become aware of the privileges of subordination to command. But time
+will satisfy them of the truth; and those who learn the lesson most
+quickly will be the most sensible of the advantage to health of body,
+through ease of mind. The abdication of self-will in regard to the
+ordering of affairs, the repose of reliance upon the responsible
+parties, the exercise of silent endurance about hardships and fatigues,
+the self-respect which relishes the honor of cooperation through
+obedience, the sense of patriotic devotedness which glows through every
+act of submission to command,--all these elevated feelings tend to
+composure of the nerves, to the fortifying of brain and limb, and the
+genial repose and exaltation of all the powers of mind and body. I
+need not contrast with this the case of the discontented and turbulent
+volunteer, questioning commands which he is not qualified to judge of,
+and complaining of troubles which cannot be helped. It is needless to
+show what wear-and-tear is caused by such a spirit, and how nerve and
+strength must, in such a case, fail in the hour of effort or of crisis,
+and give way at once before the assault of disease. By the aid of
+sobriety and the calm and cheerful subordination of the true military
+character, the health of the Federal army may be equal to its high
+mission: and all friends of human freedom, in all lands, must heartily
+pray that it may be so.
+
+There is another department of the subject which I propose to treat of
+another month: "Health in the Military Hospital."
+
+
+
+
+"THE STORMY PETREL."
+
+
+  Where the gray crags beat back the northern main,
+  And all around, the ever restless waves,
+  Like white sea-wolves, howl on the lonely sands,
+  Clings a low roof, close by the sounding surge.
+  If, in your summer rambles by the shore,
+  His spray-tost cottage you may chance espy,
+  Enter and greet the blind old mariner.
+
+  Full sixty winters he has watched beside
+  The turbulent ocean, with one purpose warmed:
+  To rescue drowning men. And round the coast--
+  For so his comrades named him in his youth--
+  They know him as "The Stormy Petrel" still.
+
+  Once he was lightning-swift, and strong; his eyes
+  Peered through the dark, and far discerned the wreck
+  Plunged on the reef. Then with bold speed he flew,
+  The life-boat launched, and dared the smiting rocks.
+
+  'T is said by those long dwelling near his door,
+  That hundreds have been storm-saved by his arm;
+  That never was he known to sleep, or lag
+  In-doors, when danger swept the seas. His life
+  Was given to toil, his strength to perilous blasts.
+  In freezing floods when tempests hurled the deep,
+  And battling winds clashed in their icy caves,
+  Scared housewives, waking, thought of him, and said,
+  "'The Stormy Petrel' is abroad to-night,
+  And watches from the cliffs."
+
+                             He could not rest
+  When shipwrecked forms might gasp amid the waves,
+  And not a cry be answered from the shore.
+
+  Now Heaven has quenched his sight; but when he hears
+  By his lone hearth the sullen sea-winds clang,
+  Or listens, in the mad, wild, drowning night,
+  As younger footsteps hurry o'er the beach
+  To pluck the sailor from his sharp-fanged death,--
+  The old man starts, with generous impulse thrilled,
+  And, with the natural habit of his heart,
+  Calls to his neighbors in a cheery tone,
+  Tells them he'll pilot toward the signal guns,
+  And then, remembering all his weight of years,
+  Sinks on his couch, and weeps that he is blind.
+
+
+
+
+A STORY OF TO-DAY.
+
+
+Margaret stood looking down in her quiet way at the sloping moors and
+fog. She, too, had her place and work. She thought that night she saw it
+clearly, and kept her eyes fixed on it, as I said. They plodded steadily
+down the wide years opening before her. Whatever slow, unending work
+lay in them, whatever hungry loneliness they held for her heart, or
+coarseness of deed, she saw it all, shrinking from nothing. She
+looked at the tense blue-corded veins in her wrist, full of fine
+pure blood,--gauged herself coolly, her lease of life, her power of
+endurance,--measured it out against the work waiting for her. The work
+would be long, she knew. She would be old before it was finished, quite
+an old woman, hard, mechanical, worn out. But the day would be so
+bright, when it came, it would atone for all: the day would be bright,
+the home warm again; it would hold all that life had promised her of
+good.
+
+All? Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Was there no sullen doubt in the brave
+resolve? Was there no shadow rose just then, dark, ironical, blotting
+out father and mother and home, coming nearer, less alien to your soul
+than these, than even your God?
+
+If any such cold, masterful shadow rose out of years gone, and clutched
+at the truest life of her heart, she stifled it, and thrust it down.
+And yet, leaning on the gate, and thinking drearily, vacantly, she
+remembered a time when God came nearer to her than He did now, and came
+through that shadow,--when, by the help of that dead hope, He of whom
+she read to-night came close, an infinitely tender Helper, who, with the
+human love that was in her heart to-day, had loved his mother and John
+and Mary. Now, struggle as she would for healthy hopes and warmth, the
+world was gray and silent. Her defeated woman's nature called it so,
+bitterly. Christ was a dim ideal power, heaven far-off. She doubted if
+it held anything as real as that which she had lost.
+
+As if to bring back the old times more vividly to her, there happened
+one of those curious little coincidences with which Fate, we think, has
+nothing to do. She heard a quick step along the clay road, and a muddy
+little terrier jumped up, barking, beside her. She stopped with a
+suddenness strange in her slow movements. _"Tiger!"_ she said, stroking
+its head with passionate eagerness. The dog licked her hand, smelt her
+clothes to know if she were the same: it was two years since he had seen
+her. She sat there, softly stroking him. Presently there was a sound of
+wheels jogging down the road, and a voice singing snatches of some song,
+one of those cheery street-songs that the boys whistle. It was a low,
+weak voice, but very pleasant. Margaret heard it through the dark; she
+kissed the dog with a strange paleness on her face, and stood up, quiet,
+attentive as before. Tiger still kept licking her hand, as it hung by
+her side: it was cold, and trembled as he touched it. She waited a
+moment, then pushed the dog from her, as if his touch, even, caused her
+to break some vow. He whined, but she hurried away, not waiting to know
+how he came, or with whom. Perhaps, if Dr. Knowles had seen her face as
+she looked back at him, he would have thought there were depths in her
+nature which his probing eyes had never reached.
+
+The wheels came close, and directly a cart stopped at the gate. It was
+one of those little wagons that hucksters drive; only this seemed to be
+a home-made affair, patched up with wicker-work and bits of board. It
+was piled up with baskets of vegetables, eggs, and chickens, and on a
+broken bench in the middle sat the driver, a woman. You could not
+help laughing, when you looked at the whole turn-out, it had such a
+make-shift look altogether.
+
+The reins were twisted rope, the wheels uneven. It went jolting along in
+such a careless, jolly way, as if it would not care in the least, should
+it go to pieces any minute just there in the road. The donkey that drew
+it was bony and blind of one eye; but he winked the other knowingly at
+you, as if to ask if you saw the joke of the thing. Even the voice of
+the owner of the establishment, chirruping some idle song, as I told
+you, was one of the cheeriest sounds you ever heard. Joel, up at the
+barn, forgot his dignity to salute it with a prolonged "Hillo!" and
+presently appeared at the gate.
+
+"I'm late, Joel," said the weak voice. It sounded like a child's near at
+hand.
+
+"We can trade in the dark, Lois, both bein' honest," he responded,
+graciously, hoisting a basket of tomatoes into the cart, and taking out
+a jug of vinegar.
+
+"Is that Lois?" said Mrs. Howth, coming to the gate. "Sit still, child.
+Don't get down."
+
+But the child, as she called her, had scrambled off the cart, and stood
+beside her, leaning on the wheel, for she was helplessly crippled.
+
+"I thought you would be down tonight. I put some coffee on the stove.
+Bring it out, Joel."
+
+Mrs. Howth never put up the shield between herself and this member of
+"the class,"--because, perhaps, she was so wretchedly low in the social
+scale. However, I suppose she never gave a reason for it even to
+herself. Nobody could help being kind to Lois, even if he tried. Joel
+brought the coffee with more readiness than he would have waited on Mrs.
+Howth.
+
+"Barney will be jealous," he said, patting the bare ribs of the old
+donkey, and glancing wistfully at his mistress.
+
+"Give him his supper, surely," she said, taking the hint.
+
+It was a real treat to see how Lois enjoyed her supper, sipping and
+tasting the warm coffee, her face in a glow, like an epicure over some
+rare Falernian. You would be sure, from, just that little thing, that no
+sparkle of warmth or pleasure in the world slipped by her which she did
+not catch and enjoy and be thankful for to the uttermost. You would
+think, perhaps, pitifully, that not much pleasure or warmth would ever
+go down so low, within her reach. Now that she stood on the ground, she
+scarcely came up to the level of the wheel; some deformity of her legs
+made her walk with a curious rolling jerk, very comical to see. She
+laughed at it, when other people did; if it vexed her at all, she never
+showed it. She had turned back her calico sun-bonnet, and stood looking
+up at Mrs. Howth and Joel, laughing as they talked--with her. The face
+would have startled you on so old and stunted a body. It was a child's
+face, quick, eager, with that pitiful beauty you always see in deformed
+people. Her eyes, I think, were the kindliest, the hopefullest I ever
+saw. Nothing but the pale thickness of her skin betrayed the fact that
+set Lois apart from even the poorest poor,--the taint in her veins of
+black blood.
+
+"Whoy! be n't this Tiger?" said Joel, as the dog ran yelping about him.
+"How comed yoh with him, Lois?"
+
+"Tiger an' his master's good friends o' mine,--you remember they allus
+was. An' he's back now, Mr. Holmes,--been back for a month."
+
+Margaret, walking in the porch with her father, stopped.
+
+"Are you tired, father? It is late."
+
+"And you are worn out, poor child! It was selfish in me to forget.
+Good-night, dear!"
+
+Margaret kissed him, laughing cheerfully, as she led him to his
+room-door. He lingered, holding her dress.
+
+"Perhaps it will be easier for you tomorrow than it was to-day?"
+hesitating.
+
+"I am sure it will. To-morrow will be sure to be better than to-day."
+
+She left him, and went away with a slow step that did not echo the
+promise of her words.
+
+Joel, meanwhile, consulted apart with his mistress.
+
+"Of course," she said, emphatically.--"You must stay until morning,
+Lois. It is too late. Joel will toss you up a bed in the loft."
+
+The queer little body hesitated.
+
+"I can stay," she said, at last. "It's his watch at the mill to-night."
+
+"Whose watch?" demanded Joel.
+
+Her face brightened.
+
+"Father's. He's back, mum."
+
+Joel caught himself in a whistle.
+
+"He's very stiddy, Joel,--as stiddy as yuh."
+
+"I am very glad he has come back, Lois," said Mrs. Howth, gravely.
+
+At every place where Lois had been that day she had told her bit of good
+news, and at every place it had been met with the same kindly smile and
+"I'm glad he's back, Lois."
+
+Yet Joe Yare, fresh from two years in the penitentiary, was not exactly
+the person whom society usually welcomes with open arms. Lois had a
+vague suspicion of this, perhaps; for, as she hobbled along the path,
+she added to her own assurance of his "stiddiness" earnest explanations
+to Joel of how he had a place in the Croft Street woollen-mills, and
+how Dr. Knowles had said he was as ready a stoker as any in the
+furnace-rooms.
+
+The sound of her weak, eager voice was silent presently, and nothing
+broke the quiet and cold of the night. Even the morning, when it came
+long after, came quiet and cool,--the warm red dawn helplessly smothered
+under great waves of gray cloud. Margaret, looking out into the thick
+fog, lay down wearily again, closing her eyes. What was the day to her?
+
+Very slowly the night was driven back. An hour after, when she lifted
+her head again, the stars were still glittering through the foggy arch,
+like sparks of brassy blue, and the sky and hills and valleys were one
+drifting, slow-heaving mass of ashy damp. Off in the east a stifled red
+film groped through. It was another day coming; she might as well get
+up, and live the rest of her life out;--what else had she to do?
+
+Whatever this night had been to the girl, it left one thought sharp,
+alive, in the exhausted quiet of her brain: a cowardly dread of the
+trial of the day, when she would see him again. Was the old struggle of
+years before coming back? Was it all to go over again? She was worn out.
+She had been quiet in these--two years: what had gone before she never
+looked back upon; but it made her thankful for even this stupid quiet.
+And now, when she had planned her life, busy and useful and contented,
+why need God have sent the old thought to taunt her? A wild, sickening
+sense of what might have been struggled up: she thrust it down,--she had
+kept it down all night; the old pain should not come back,--it should
+not. She did not think of the love she had given up as a dream, as
+verse-makers or sham people do; she knew it to be the reality of her
+life. She cried for it even now, with all the fierce strength of her
+nature; it was the best she knew; through it she came nearest to God.
+Thinking of the day when she had given it up, she remembered it with a
+vague consciousness of having fought a deadly struggle with her fate,
+and that she had been conquered,--never had lived again. Let it be; she
+could not bear the struggle again.
+
+She went on dressing herself in a dreary, mechanical way. Once, a bitter
+laugh came on her face, as she looked into the glass, and saw the dead,
+dull eyes, and the wrinkle on her forehead. Was that the face to be
+crowned with delicate caresses and love? She scorned herself for the
+moment, grew sick of herself, balked, thwarted in her true life as she
+was. Other women whom God has loved enough to probe to the depths of
+their nature have done the same,--saw themselves as others saw them:
+their strength drying up within them, jeered at, utterly alone. It is
+a trial we laugh at. I think the quick fagots at the stake were fitter
+subjects for laughter than the slow gnawing hunger in the heart of many
+a slighted woman or a selfish man. They come out of the trial as out of
+martyrdom, according to their faith: you see its marks sometimes in a
+frivolous old age going down with tawdry hopes and starved eyes to the
+grave; you see its victory in the freshest, fullest lives in the earth.
+This woman had accepted her trial, but she took it up as an inflexible
+fate which she did not understand; it was new to her; its solitude, its
+hopeless thirst were freshly bitter. She loathed herself as one whom God
+had thought unworthy of every woman's right,--to love and be loved.
+
+She went to the window, looking blankly out into the gray cold. Any
+one with keen analytic eye, noting the thin muscles of this woman, the
+childish, scarlet lips, the eyes deep, concealing, would have foretold
+that she would conquer in the trial, that she would force her soul
+down,--but that the forcing down would leave the weak, flaccid body
+spent and dead. One thing was certain: no curious eyes would see the
+struggle; the body might be nerveless or sickly, but it had the great
+power of reticence; the calm with which she faced the closest gaze was
+natural to her,--no mask. When she left her room and went down, the
+same unaltered quiet that had baffled Knowles steadied her step and
+cooled her eyes.
+
+After you have made a sacrifice of yourself for others, did you ever
+notice how apt you were to doubt, as soon as the deed was irrevocable,
+whether, after all, it were worth while to have done it? How poor seems
+the good gained! How new and unimagined the agony of empty hands and
+stifled wish! Very slow the angels are, sometimes, that are sent to
+minister!
+
+Margaret, going down the stairs that morning, found none of the
+chivalric unselfish glow of the night before in her home. It was an old,
+bare house in the midst of dreary moors, in which her life was slowly to
+be worn out: that was all. It did not matter; life was short: she could
+thank God for that at least.
+
+She opened the house-door. A draught of cold morning air struck her
+face, sweeping from the west; it had driven the fog in great gray banks
+upon the hills, or in shimmering broken swamps into the cleft hollows:
+a vague twilight filled the space left bare. Tiger, asleep in the hall,
+rushed out into the meadow, barking, wild with the freshness and cold,
+then back again to tear round her for a noisy good-morning. The touch of
+the dog seemed to bring her closer to his master; she put him away; she
+dared not suffer even that treachery to her purpose: because, in fact,
+the very circumstances that had forced her to give him up made it weak
+cowardice to turn again. It was a simple story, yet one which she dared
+not tell to herself; for it was not altogether for her father's sake she
+had made the sacrifice. She knew, that, though she might be near to
+this man Holmes as his own soul, she was a clog on him,--stood in his
+way,--kept him back. So she had quietly stood aside, taken up her own
+solitary burden, and left him with his clear self-reliant life,--with
+his Self, dearer to him than she had ever been. Why should it not be?
+she thought,--remembering the man as he was, a master among men. He was
+back again; she must see him. So she stood there with this persistent
+dread running through her brain.
+
+Suddenly, in the lane by the house, she heard a voice talking to
+Joel,--the huckster-girl. What a weak, cheery sound it was in the cold
+and fog! It touched her curiously: broke through her morbid thought as
+anything true and healthy would have done. "Poor Lois!" she thought,
+with an eager pity, forgetting her own intolerable future for the
+moment, as she gathered up some breakfast and went with it down the
+lane. Morning had come; great heavy bars of light fell from behind the
+hills athwart the banks of gray and black fog; there was shifting,
+uneasy, obstinate tumult among the shadows; they did not mean to yield
+to the coming dawn. The hills, the massed woods, the mist opposed their
+immovable front, scornfully. Margaret did not notice the silent contest
+until she reached the lane. The girl Lois, sitting in her cart, was
+looking, quiet, attentive, at the slow surge of the shadows, and the
+slower lifting of the slanted rays.
+
+"T' mornin' comes grand here, Miss Marg'et!" she said, lowering her
+voice.
+
+Margaret said nothing in reply; the morning, she thought, was gray
+and cold, as her own life. She stood leaning on the low cart;
+some strange sympathy drew her to this poor wretch, dwarfed,
+alone in the world,--some tie of equality, which the odd childish
+face, nor the quaint air of content about the creature, did
+not lessen. Even when Lois shook down the patched skirt of her flannel
+frock straight, and settled the heaps of corn and tomatoes about her,
+preparatory for a start, Margaret kept her hand on the side of the cart,
+and walked slowly by it down the road. Once, looking at the girl, she
+thought with a half smile how oddly clean she was. The flannel skirt she
+arranged so complacently had been washed until the colors had run madly
+into each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with a
+relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear. The very cart,
+patched as it was, had a snug, cozy look; the masses of vegetables,
+green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a certain reference to
+the glow of color, Margaret noticed, wondering if it were accidental.
+Looking up, she saw the girl's brown eyes fixed on her face. They were
+singularly soft, brooding brown.
+
+"Ye'r' goin' to th' mill, Miss Marg'et?" she asked, in a half whisper.
+
+"Yes. You never go there now, Lois?"
+
+"No, 'm."
+
+The girl shuddered, and then tried to hide it in a laugh. Margaret
+walked on beside her, her hand on the cart's edge. Somehow this
+creature, that Nature had thrown impatiently aside as a failure, so
+marred, imperfect, that even the dogs were kind to her, came strangely
+near to her, claimed recognition by some subtile instinct.
+
+Partly for this, and partly striving to forget herself, she glanced
+furtively at the childish face of the distorted little body, wondering
+what impression the shifting dawn made on the unfinished soul that was
+looking out so intently through the brown eyes. What artist sense had
+she,--what could she know--the ignorant huckster--of the eternal laws
+of beauty or grandeur? Nothing. Yet something in the girl's face made
+her think that these hills, this air and sky, were in fact alive to
+her,--real; that her soul, being lower, it might be, than ours, lay
+closer to Nature, knew the language of the changing day, of these
+earnest-faced hills, of the very worms crawling through the brown mould.
+It was an idle fancy; Margaret laughed at herself for it, and turned
+to watch the slow morning-struggle which Lois followed with such eager
+eyes.
+
+The light was conquering, growing stronger. Up the gray arch the soft,
+dewy blue crept gently, deepening, broadening; below it, the level bars
+of light struck full on the sullen black of the west, and worked there
+undaunted, tinging it with crimson and imperial purple. Two or three
+coy mist-clouds, soon converted to the new allegiance, drifted giddily
+about, mere flakes of rosy blushes. The victory of the day came slowly,
+but sure, and then the full morning flushed out, fresh with moisture and
+light and delicate perfume. The bars of sunlight fell on the lower earth
+from the steep hills like pointed swords; the foggy swamp of wet vapor
+trembled and broke, so touched, rose at last, leaving patches of damp
+brilliance on the fields, and floated majestically up in radiant victor
+clouds, led by the conquering wind. Victory: it was in the cold, pure
+ether filling the heavens, in the solemn gladness of the hills. The
+great forests thrilling in the soft light, the very sleepy river
+wakening under the mist, chorded in with a grave bass to the rising
+anthem of welcome to the new life which God had freshly given to the
+world. From the sun himself, come forth as a bridegroom from his
+chamber, to the flickering raindrops on the road-side mullein, the world
+seemed to rejoice exultant in victory. Homely, cheerier sounds broke the
+outlined grandeur of the morning, on which Margaret looked wearily. Lois
+lost none of them; no morbid shadow of her own balked life kept their
+meaning from her.
+
+The light played on the heaped vegetables in the old cart; the bony legs
+of the donkey trotted on with fresh vigor. There was not a lowing cow in
+the distant barns, nor a chirping swallow on the fence-bushes, that
+did not seem to include the eager face of the little huckster in their
+morning greetings. Not a golden dandelion on the road-side, not a gurgle
+of the plashing brown water from the well-troughs, which did not give
+a quicker pleasure to the glowing face. Its curious content stung the
+woman walking by her side. What secret of recompense had this poor
+wretch found?
+
+"Your father is here, Lois," she said carelessly, to break the silence.
+"I saw him at the mill yesterday."
+
+Her face kindled instantly.
+
+"He's home, Miss Marg'et,--yes. An' it's all right wid him. Things allus
+do come right, some time," she added, in a reflective tone, brushing a
+fly off Sawney's ear.
+
+Margaret smiled.
+
+"Always? Who brings them right for you, Lois?"
+
+"The Master," she said, turning with an answering smile.
+
+Margaret was touched. The owner of the mill was not a more real
+verity to this girl than the Master of whom she spoke with such quiet
+knowledge.
+
+"Are things right in the mill?" she said, testing her.
+
+A shadow came on her face; her eyes wandered uncertainly, as if her weak
+brain were confused,--only for a moment.
+
+"They'll come right!" she said, bravely. "The Master'll see to it!"
+
+But the light was gone from her eyes; some old pain seemed to be surging
+through her narrow thought; and when she began to talk, it was in a
+bewildered, doubtful way.
+
+"It's a black place, th' mill," she said, in a low voice. "It was a good
+while I was there: frum seven year old till sixteen. 'T seemed longer t'
+me 'n 't was. 'T seemed as if I'd been there allus,--jes' forever, yoh
+know. 'Fore I went in, I had the rickets, they say: that's what ails me.
+'T hurt my head, they've told me,--made me different frum other folks."
+
+She stopped a moment, with a dumb, hungry look in her eyes. After a
+while she looked at Margaret furtively, with a pitiful eagerness.
+
+"Miss Marg'et, I think there _is_ something wrong in my head. Did yoh
+ever notice it?"
+
+Margaret put her hand kindly on the broad, misshapen forehead.
+
+"Something is wrong everywhere, Lois," she said, absently.
+
+She did not see the slow sigh with which the girl smothered down
+whatever hope had risen just then, nor the wistful look of the brown
+eyes that brightened into bravery after a while.
+
+"It'll come right," she said, steadily, though her voice was lower than
+before.
+
+"But the mill,"--Margaret recalled her.
+
+"Th' mill,--yes. There was three of us,--father 'n' mother 'n' me,--'n'
+pay was poor. They said times was hard. They _was_ hard times, Miss
+Marg'et!" she said, with a nervous laugh, the brown eyes strangely
+wandering.
+
+"Yes, hard,"--she soothed her, gently.
+
+"Pay was poor, 'n' many things tuk money." (Remembering the girl's
+mother, Margaret knew gin would have covered the "many things.") "Worst
+to me was th' mill. I kind o' grew into that place in them years: seemed
+to me like as I was part o' th' engines, somehow. Th' air used to be
+thick in my mouth, black wi' smoke 'n' wool 'n' smells. It 's better
+now there. I got stunted then, yoh know. 'N' th' air in th' alleys was
+worse, where we slep'. I think mebbe as 't was then I went wrong in my
+head. Miss Marg'et!"
+
+Her voice went lower.
+
+"'T isn't easy to think o' th' Master--down _there_, in them cellars.
+Things comes right--slow there,--slow."
+
+Her eyes grew stupid, as if looking down into some dreary darkness.
+
+"But the mill?"
+
+The girl roused herself with a sharp sigh.
+
+"In them years I got dazed in my head, I think. 'T was th' air 'n' th'
+work. I was weak allus. 'T got so that th' noise o' th' looms went on in
+my head night 'n' day,--allus thud, thud. 'N' hot days, when th' hands
+was chaffin' 'n' singin', th' black wheels 'n' rollers was alive,
+starin' down at me, 'n' th' shadders o' th' looms was like snakes
+creepin',--creepin' anear all th' time. They was very good to me, th'
+hands was,--very good. Ther' 's lots o' th' Master's people down there,
+out o' sight, that's so low they never heard His name: preachers don't
+go there. But He'll see to't. He'll not min' their cursin' o' Him,
+seein' they don't know His face, 'n' thinkin' He belongs to th' gentry.
+I knew it wud come right wi' me, when times was th' most bad. I knew"--
+
+The girl was trembling now with excitement, her hands working together,
+her eyes set, all the slow years of ruin that had eaten into her brain
+rising before her, all the tainted blood in her veins of centuries of
+slavery and heathenism struggling to drag her down. But above all, the
+Hope rose clear, simple: the trust in the Master: and shone in her
+scarred face,--through her marred senses.
+
+"I knew it wud come right, allus. I was alone then: mother was dead, and
+father was gone, 'n' th' Lord thought 't was time to see to me,--special
+as th' overseer was gettin' me an enter to th' poorhouse. So He sent Mr.
+Holmes along. Then it come right!"
+
+Margaret did not speak. Even this mill-girl could talk of him, pray for
+him; but she never must take his name on her lips!
+
+"He got th' cart fur me, 'n' this blessed old donkey, 'n' my room. Did
+yoh ever see my room, Miss Marg'et?"
+
+Her face lighted suddenly with its peculiar childlike smile.
+
+"No? Yoh'll come some day, surely? It's a pore place, yoh'll think; but
+it's got th' air,--th' air."
+
+She stopped to breathe the cold morning wind, as if she thought to find
+in its fierce freshness the life and brains she had lost.
+
+"Ther' 's places in them alleys 'n' dark holes, Miss Marg'et, like th'
+openin's to hell, with th' thick smells 'n' th' sights yoh'd see."
+
+She went back with a terrible clinging pity to the Gehenna from which
+she had escaped. The ill of life was real enough to her,--a hungry devil
+down in those alleys and dens. Margaret listened, waking to the sense
+of a different pain in the world from her own,--lower deeps from which
+women like herself draw delicately back, lifting their gauzy dresses.
+
+"Openin's to hell, they're like. People as come down to preach in them
+think that, 'pears to me,--'n' think we've but a little way to go, bein'
+born so near. It's easy to tell they thinks it,--shows in their looks.
+Miss Marg'et!"
+
+Her face flashed.
+
+"Well, Lois?"
+
+"Th' Master has His people 'mong them very lowest, that's not for such
+as yoh to speak to. He knows 'em: men 'n' women starved 'n' drunk into
+jails 'n' work-houses, that'd scorn to be cowardly or mean,--that shows
+God's kindness, through th' whiskey 'n' thievin', to th' orphints
+or--such as me. Ther 's things th' Master likes in them, 'n' it'll
+come right," she sobbed, "it'll come right at last; they'll have a
+chance--somewhere."
+
+Margaret did not speak; let the poor girl sob herself into quiet. What
+had she to do with this gulf of pain and wrong? Her own higher life was
+starved, thwarted. Could it be that the blood of these her brothers
+called against _her_ from the ground? No wonder that the huckster-girl
+sobbed, she thought, or talked heresy. It was not an easy thing to see
+a mother drink herself into the grave. And yet--was she to blame? Her
+Virginian blood was cool, high-bred; she had learned conservatism in her
+cradle. Her life in the West had not yet quickened her pulse. So she put
+aside whatever social mystery or wrong faced her in this girl, just as
+you or I would have done. She had her own pain to bear. Was she her
+brother's keeper? It was true, there was wrong; this woman's soul lay
+shattered by it; it was the fault of her blood, of her birth, and
+Society had finished the work. Where was the help? She was free,--and
+liberty, Dr. Knowles said, was the cure for all the soul's diseases,
+and----
+
+Well, Lois was quiet now,--ready with her childish smile to be drawn
+into a dissertation on Barney's vices and virtues, or a description of
+her room, where "th' air was so strong, 'n' the fruit 'n' vegetables
+allus stayed fresh,--best in _this_ town," she said, with a bustling
+pride.
+
+They went on down the road, through the corn-fields sometimes, or on
+the riverbank, or sometimes skirting the orchards or barn-yards of the
+farms. The fences were well built, she noticed,--the barns wide and
+snug-looking: for this county in Indiana is settled by New England
+people, as a general thing, or Pennsylvanians. They both leave their
+mark on barns or fields, I can tell you! The two women were talking all
+the way. In all his life Dr. Knowles had never heard from this silent
+girl words as open and eager as she gave to the huckster about paltry,
+common things,--partly, as I said, from a hope to forget herself, and
+partly from a vague curiosity to know the strange world which opened
+before her in this disjointed talk. There were no morbid shadows in this
+Lois's life, she saw. Her pains and pleasures were intensely real, like
+those of her class. If there were latent powers in her distorted brain,
+smothered by hereditary vice of blood, or foul air and life, she knew
+nothing of it. She never probed her own soul with fierce self-scorn,
+as this quiet woman by her side did;--accepted, instead, the passing
+moment, with keen enjoyment. For the rest, childishly trusted "the
+Master."
+
+This very drive, now, for instance,--although she and the cart and
+Barney went through the same routine every day, you would have thought
+it was a new treat for a special holiday, if you had seen the perfect
+_abandon_ with which they all threw themselves into the fun of the
+thing. Not only did the very heaps of ruby tomatoes, and corn in
+delicate green casings, tremble and shine as though they enjoyed the
+fresh light and dew, but the old donkey cocked his ears, and curved his
+scraggy neck, and tried to look as like a high-spirited charger as he
+could. Then everybody along the road knew Lois, and she knew everybody,
+and there was a mutual liking and perpetual joking, not very refined,
+perhaps, but hearty and kind. It was a new side of life for Margaret.
+She had no time for thoughts of self-sacrifice, or chivalry, ancient or
+modern, watching it. It was a very busy ride,--something to do at every
+farmhouse: a basket of eggs to be taken in, or some egg-plants, maybe,
+which Lois laid side by side, Margaret noticed,--the pearly white balls
+close to the heap of royal purple. No matter how small the basket was
+that she stopped for, it brought out two or three to put it in; for Lois
+and her cart were the event of the day for the lonely farm-houses. The
+wife would come out, her face ablaze from the oven, with an anxious
+charge about that butter; the old man would hail her from the barn to
+know "ef she'd thought toh look in th' mail yes'rday"; and one or the
+other was sure to add, "Jes' time for breakfast, Lois." If she had no
+baskets to stop for, she had "a bit o' business," which turned out to be
+a paper she had brought for the grandfather, or some fresh mint for the
+baby, or "jes' to inquire fur th' fam'ly."
+
+As to the amount that cart carried, it was a perpetual mystery to Lois.
+Every day since she and the cart went into partnership, she had gone
+into town with a dead certainty in the minds of lookers-on that it
+would break down in five minutes, and a triumphant faith in hers in its
+unlimited endurance. "This cart'll be right side up fur years to come,"
+she would assert, shaking her head. "It's got no more notion o' givin'
+up than me nor Barney,--not a bit." Margaret had her doubts,--and so
+would you, if you had heard how it creaked under the load,--how they
+piled in great straw panniers of apples: black apples with yellow
+hearts,--scarlet veined, golden pippin apples, that held the warmth and
+light longest,--russet apples with a hot blush on their rough brown
+skins,--plums shining coldly in their delicate purple bloom,--peaches
+with the crimson velvet of their cheeks aglow with the prisoned heat of
+a hundred summer days.
+
+I wish with all my heart some artist would paint me Lois and her cart!
+Mr. Kitts, the artist in the city then, used to see it going past his
+room out by the coal-pits every day, and thought about it seriously. But
+he had his grand battle-piece on hand then,--and after that he went the
+way of all geniuses, and died down into colorer for a photographer. He
+met them, that day, out by the stone quarry, and touched his hat as he
+returned Lois's "Good-morning," and took a couple of great papaws from
+her. She was a woman, you see, and he had some of the schoolmaster's
+old-fashioned notions about women. He was a sickly-looking soul. One day
+Lois had heard him say that there were papaws on his mother's place in
+Ohio; so after that she always brought him some every day. She was one
+of those people who must give, if it is nothing better than a Kentucky
+banana.
+
+After they passed the stone quarry, they left the country behind them,
+going down the stubble-covered hills that fenced in the town. Even in
+the narrow streets, and through the warehouses, the strong, dewy air had
+quite blown down and off the fog and dust. Morning (town morning, to be
+sure, but still morning) was shining in the red window-panes, in the
+tossing smoke up in the frosty air, in the very glowing faces of people
+hurrying from market with their noses nipped blue and their eyes
+watering with cold. Lois and her cart, fresh with country breath hanging
+about them, were not so out of place, after all. House-maids left the
+steps half-scrubbed, and helped her measure out the corn and beans,
+gossiping eagerly; the newsboys "Hi-d!" at her in a friendly,
+patronizing way; women in rusty black, with sharp, pale faces, hoisted
+their baskets, in which usually lay a scraggy bit of flitch, on to the
+wheel, their whispered bargaining ending oftenest in a low "Thank ye,
+Lois!"--for she sold cheaper to some people than they did in the market.
+
+Lois was Lois in town or country. Some subtile power lay in the coarse,
+distorted body, in the pleading child's face, to rouse, wherever they
+went, the same curious, kindly smile. Not, I think, that dumb, pathetic
+eye, common to deformity, that cries, "Have mercy upon me, O my friend,
+for the hand of God hath touched me!"--a deeper, mightier charm, rather:
+a trust down in the fouled fragments of her brain, even in the bitterest
+hour of her bare, wretched life,--a faith, faith in God, faith in her
+fellow-man, faith in herself. No human soul refused to answer its
+summons. Down in the dark alleys, in the very vilest of the black and
+white wretches that crowded sometimes about her cart, there was an
+undefined sense of pride in protecting this wretch whose portion of life
+was more meagre and low than theirs. Something in them struggled up to
+meet the trust in the pitiful eyes,--something which scorned to betray
+the trust,--some Christ-like power, smothered, dying, under the filth of
+their life and the terror of hell. Not lost. If the Great Spirit of love
+and trust lives, not lost!
+
+Even in the cold and quiet of the woman walking by her side the homely
+power of the poor huckster was not weak to warm or to strengthen.
+Margaret left her, turning into the crowded street leading to the part
+of the town where the factories lay. The throng of anxious-faced men and
+women jostled and pushed, but she passed through them with a different
+heart from yesterday's. Somehow, the morbid fancies were gone; she was
+keenly alive; the homely real life of this huckster had fired her,
+touched her blood with a more vital stimulus than any tale of crusader.
+As she went down the crooked maze of dingy lanes, she could hear Lois's
+little cracked bell far off: it sounded like a Christmas song to her.
+She half smiled, remembering how sometimes in her distempered brain
+the world had seemed a gray, dismal Dance of Death. How actual it
+was to-day,--hearty, vigorous, alive with honest work and tears and
+pleasure! A broad, good world to live and work in, to suffer or die, if
+God so willed it,--God, the good! She entered the vast, dingy factory;
+the woollen dust, the clammy air of copperas were easier to breathe in;
+the cramped, sordid office, the work, mere trifles to laugh at; and she
+bent over the ledger with its hard lines in earnest good-will,
+through the slow creeping hours of the long day. She noticed that the
+unfortunate chicken was making its heart glad over a piece of fresh
+earth covered with damp moss. Dr. Knowles stopped to look at it when he
+came, passing her with a surly nod.
+
+"So your master's not forgotten you," he snarled, while the blind old
+hen cocked her one eye up at him.
+
+Pike, the manager, had brought in some bills.
+
+"Who's its master?" he said, curiously, stopping by the door.
+
+"Holmes,--he feeds it every morning."
+
+The Doctor drawled out the words with a covert sneer, watching the
+quiet, cold face bending over the desk, meantime.
+
+Pike laughed.
+
+"Bah! it's the first thing he ever fed, then, besides himself. Chickens
+must lie nearer his heart than men."
+
+Knowles scowled at him; he had no fancy for Pike's scurrilous gossip.
+
+The quiet face was unmoved. When he heard the manager's foot on the
+ladder without, he tested it again. He had a vague suspicion which he
+was determined to verify.
+
+"Holmes," he said, carelessly, "has an affinity for animals. No wonder.
+Adam must have been some such man as he, when the Lord gave him
+'dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air.'"
+
+The hand paused courteously a moment, then resumed its quick, cool
+movement over the page. He was not baffled.
+
+"If there were such a reality as mastership, that man was born to rule.
+Pike will find him harder to cheat than me, when he takes possession
+here."
+
+She looked up now, attentive.
+
+"He came here to take my place in the mills,--buy me out,--articles will
+be signed in a day or two. I know what you think,--no,--not worth
+a dollar. Only brains and a soul, and he's sold them at a high
+figure,--threw his heart in,--the purchaser being a lady. It was light,
+I fancy,--starved out, long ago."
+
+The old man's words were spurted out in the bitterness of scorn. The
+girl listened with a cool incredulity in her eyes, and went back to her
+work.
+
+"Miss Herne is the lady,--my partner's daughter. Herne and Holmes
+they'll call the firm. He is here every day, counting future profit."
+
+Nothing could be read on the cold still face; so he left her, cursing,
+as he went, men who put themselves up at auction,--worse than Orleans
+slaves. Margaret laughed to herself at his passion; as for the story he
+hinted, it was absurd. She forgot it in a moment.
+
+Two or three gentlemen down in one of the counting-rooms, just then,
+looked at the story from another point of view. They were talking low,
+out of hearing from the clerks.
+
+"It's a good thing for Holmes," said one, a burly, farmer-like man, who
+was choosing specimens of wool.
+
+"Cheap. And long credit. Just half the concern he takes."
+
+"There is a lady in the case?" suggested a young doctor, who, by virtue
+of having spent six months in the South, dropped his _r_-s, and talked
+of "niggahs" in a way to make a Georgian's hair stand on end.
+
+"A lady in the case?"
+
+"Of course. Only child of Herne's. _He_ comes down with the dust as
+dowry. Good thing for Holmes. 'Stonishin' how he's made his way up. If
+money's what he wants in this world, he's making a long stride now to
+'t."
+
+The young doctor lighted his cigar, asserting that--
+
+"Ba George, some low people did get on, re-markably! Mary Herne, now,
+was best catch in town."
+
+"Do you think money is what he wants?" said a quiet little man, sitting
+lazily on a barrel,--a clergyman, whom his clerical brothers shook their
+heads when they named, but never argued with, and bowed to with uncommon
+deference.
+
+The wool-buyer hesitated with a puzzled look.
+
+"No," he said, slowly; "Stephen Holmes is not miserly. I've knowed him
+since a boy. To buy place, power, perhaps, eh? Yet not that, neither,"
+he added, hastily. "We think a sight of him out our way, (self-made, you
+see,) and would have had him the best office in the State before this,
+only he was so cursedly indifferent."
+
+"Indifferent, yes. No man cares much for stepping-stones in themselves,"
+said the clergyman, half to himself.
+
+"Great fault of American society, especially in West," said the young
+aristocrat. "Stepping-stones lie low, as my reverend friend suggests;
+impudence ascends; merit and refinement scorn such dirty paths,"--with a
+mournful remembrance of the last dime in his waistcoat-pocket.
+
+"But do you," exclaimed the farmer, with sudden solemnity, "do you
+understand this scheme of Knowles's? Every dollar he owns is in this
+mill, and every dollar of it is going into some castle in the air that
+no sane man can comprehend."
+
+"Mad as a March hare," contemptuously muttered the doctor.
+
+His reverend friend gave him a look,--after which he was silent.
+
+"I wish to the Lord some one would persuade him out of it," persisted
+the wool-man, earnestly looking at the quiet face of his listener. "We
+can't spare old Knowles's brain or heart while he ruins himself. It's
+something of a Communist fraternity: I don't know the name, but I know
+the thing."
+
+Very hard common-sense shone out of his eyes just then at the clergyman,
+whom he suspected of being one of Knowles's abettors.
+
+"There's two ways for 'em to end. If they're made out of the top of
+society, they get so refined, so idealized, that every particle flies
+off on its own special path to the sun, and the Community's broke; and
+if they're made of the lower mud, they keep going down, down together,
+--they live to drink and eat, and make themselves as near the brutes as
+they can. It isn't easy to believe, Sir, but it's true. I have seen it.
+I've seen every one of them the United States can produce. It's _facts_,
+Sir; and facts, as Lord Bacon says, are the basis of every sound
+speculation.'"
+
+The last sentence was slowly brought out, as quotations were not exactly
+his _forte_, but, as he said afterwards,--"You see, that nailed the
+parson."
+
+The parson nodded gravely.
+
+"You'll find no such experiment in the Bible," threw in the young
+doctor, alluding to "serious things" as a peace-offering to his reverend
+friend.
+
+"One, I believe," dryly.
+
+"Well," broke in the farmer, folding up his wool, "that's neither here
+nor there. This experiment of Knowles's is like nothing known since
+the Creation. Plan of his own. He spends his days now hunting out the
+gallows-birds out of the dens in town here, and they're all to be
+transported into the country to start a new Arcadia. A few men and women
+like himself, but the bulk is from the dens, I tell you. All start fair,
+level ground, perpetual celibacy, mutual trust, honor, rise according to
+the stuff that's in them,--pah! it makes me sick!"
+
+"Knowles's inclination to that sort of people is easily explained,"
+spitefully lisped the doctor. "Blood, Sir. His mother was a half-breed
+Creek, with all the propensities of the redskins to fire-water and
+'itching palms.' Blood will out."
+
+"Here he is," maliciously whispered the wool-man. "No, it's Holmes," he
+added, after the doctor had started into a more respectful posture, and
+glanced around frightened.
+
+He, the doctor, rose to meet Holmes's coming footstep,--"a low fellah,
+but always sure to be the upper dog in the fight, goin' to marry the
+best catch," etc., etc. The others, on the contrary, put on their hats
+and sauntered away into the street.
+
+So the day broadened hotly; the shadows of the Lombardy poplars curdling
+up into a sluggish pool of black at their roots along the dry gutters.
+The old schoolmaster in the shade of the great horse-chestnuts (brought
+from the homestead in the Piedmont country, every one) husked corn for
+his wife, composing, meanwhile, a page of his essay on the "Sirventes
+de Bertrand de Born." The day passed for him as did his life, half in
+simple-hearted deed, half in vague visions of a dead world, never to be
+real again. Joel, up in the barn by himself, worked through the long day
+in the old fashion,--pondering gravely (being of a religious turn) upon
+a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Clinche, reported in the "Gazette"; wherein
+that disciple of the meek Teacher invoked, as he did once a week, the
+curses of the law upon his political opponents, praying the Lord to
+sweep them immediately from the face of the earth. Which rendering of
+Christian doctrine was so much relished by Joel, and the other leading
+members of Mr. Clinche's church, that they hinted to him it might be as
+well to continue choosing his texts from Moses and the Prophets
+until the excitement of the day was over. The New Testament
+was,--well,--hardly suited for the emergency; did not, somehow, chime in
+with the lesson of the hour. I may remark, in passing, that this course
+of conduct so disgusted the High-Church rector of the parish, that he
+not only ignored all new devils, (as Mr. Carlyle might have called
+them,) but talked as if the millennium, were _un fait accompli_, and he
+had leisure to go and hammer at the poor dead old troubles of Luther's
+time. One thing, though, about Joel: while he was joining in Mr.
+Clinche's prayer for the "wiping out" of some few thousands, he was
+using up all the fragments of the hot day in fixing a stall for a
+half-dead old horse he had found by the road-side. Let us hope, that,
+even if the listening angel did not grant the prayer, he marked down the
+stall at least, as a something done for eternity.
+
+Margaret, through the heat and stifling air, worked steadily alone in
+the dusty office, the cold, homely face bent over the books, never
+changing but once. It was a trifle then; yet, when she looked back
+afterwards, the trifle was all that gave the day a name. The room shook,
+as I said, with the thunderous, incessant sound of the engines and the
+looms; she scarcely heard it, being used to it. Once, however, another
+sound came between,--a slow, quiet tread, passing through the long
+wooden corridor,--so firm and measured that it sounded like the
+monotonous beatings of a clock. She heard it through the noise in the
+far distance; it came slowly nearer, up to the door without,--passed it,
+going down the echoing plank walk. The girl sat quietly, looking out at
+the dead brick wall. The slow step fell on her brain like the sceptre of
+her master; if Knowles had looked in her face then, he would have seen
+bared the secret of her life. Holmes had gone by, unconscious of who was
+within the door. She had not seen him; it was nothing but a step she
+heard. Yet a power, the power of the girl's life, shook off all outward
+masks, all surface cloudy fancies, and stood up in her with a terrible
+passion at the sound; her blood burned fiercely; her soul looked out
+from her face, her soul as it was, as God knew it,--God and this man. No
+longer a cold, clear face; you would have thought, looking at it, what a
+strong spirit the soul of this woman would be, if set free in heaven
+or in hell. The man who held it in his power went on carelessly, not
+knowing that the mere sound of his step had raised it as from the
+dead. She, and her right, and her pain, were nothing to him now, she
+remembered, staring out at the taunting hot sky. Yet so vacant was the
+sudden life opened before her when he was gone, that, in the desperation
+of her weakness, her mad longing to see him but once again, she would
+have thrown herself at his feet, and let the cold, heavy step crush her
+life out,--as he would have done, she thought, choking down the icy
+smother in her throat, if it had served his purpose, though it cost his
+own heart's life to do it. He would trample her down, if she kept him
+back from his end; but be false to her, false to himself, that he would
+never be!
+
+So the hot, long day wore on,--the red bricks, the dusty desk covered
+with wool, the miserable chicken peering out, growing sharper and more
+real in the glare. Life was no morbid nightmare now; her weak woman's
+heart found it actual and near. There was not a pain nor a want, from
+the dumb hunger in the dog's eyes that passed her on the street, to her
+father's hopeless fancies, that did not touch her sharply through her
+own loss, with a keen pity, a wild wish to help to do something to save
+others with this poor life left in her hands.
+
+So the hot day wore on in the town and country; the old sun glaring down
+like some fierce old judge, intolerant of weakness or shams,--baking the
+hard earth in the streets harder for the horses' feet, drying up the
+bits of grass that grew between the boulders of the gutter, scaling off
+the paint from the brazen faces of the interminable brick houses. He
+looked down in that city as in every American town, as in these where
+you and I live, on the same countless maze of human faces going day by
+day through the same monotonous routine. Knowles, passing through the
+restless crowds, read with keen eye among them strange meanings by this
+common light of the sun,--meanings such as you and I might read, if our
+eyes were clear as his,--or morbid, it may be. A commonplace crowd
+like this in the street without: women with cold, fastidious faces,
+heavy-brained, bilious men, dapper 'prentices, draymen, prize-fighters,
+negroes. Knowles looked about him as into a seething caldron, in which
+the people I tell you of were atoms, where the blood of uncounted races
+was fused, but not mingled,--where creeds, philosophies, centuries old,
+grappled hand to hand in their death-struggle,--where innumerable aims
+and beliefs and powers of intellect, smothered rights and triumphant
+wrongs, warred together, struggling for victory.
+
+Vulgar American life? He thought it a life more potent, more tragic in
+its history and prophecy, than any that has gone before. People called
+him a fanatic. It may be that he was one: yet the uncouth old man, sick
+in soul from some gnawing pain of his own life, looked into the depths
+of human loss with a mad desire to set it right. On the very faces
+of those who sneered at him he found some traces of failure or pain,
+something that his heart carried up to God with a loud and exceeding
+bitter cry. The voice of the world, he thought, went up to heaven a
+discord, unintelligible, hopeless,--the great blind world, astray since
+the first ages! Was there no hope, no help?
+
+The hot sun shone down, as it had done for six thousand years; it shone
+on open problems in the lives of these men and women who walked the
+streets, problems whose end and beginning no eye could read. There were
+places where it did not shine: down in the fetid cellars, in the slimy
+cells of the prison yonder: what riddles of human life lay there he
+dared not think of. God knows how the man groped for the light,--for any
+voice to make earth and heaven clear to him.
+
+So the hot, long day wore on, for all of them. There was another light
+by which the world was seen that day, rarer than the sunshine, purer. It
+fell on the dense crowds,--upon the just and the unjust. It went into
+the fogs of the fetid dens from which the coarser light was barred, into
+the deepest mires where a human soul could wallow, and made them clear.
+It lighted the depths of the hearts whose outer pain and passion men
+were keen to read in the unpitying sunshine, and bared in those depths
+the feeble gropings for the right, the loving hope, the unuttered
+prayer. No kindly thought, no pure desire, no weakest faith in a God and
+heaven somewhere could be so smothered under guilt that this subtile
+light did not search it out, glow about it, shine through it, hold it up
+in full view of God and the angels,--lighting the world other than the
+sun had done for six thousand years. We have no name for the light: it
+has a name,--yonder. Not many eyes were clear to see its shining that
+day; and if they did, it was as through a glass, darkly. Yet it belonged
+to us also, in the old time, the time when men could "hear the voice of
+the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day." It is God's light
+now alone.
+
+Yet poor Lois caught faint glimpses, I think, sometimes, of its heavenly
+clearness. I think it was this light that made the burning of Christmas
+fires warmer for her than for others, that showed her all the love and
+outspoken honesty and hearty frolic which her eyes saw perpetually in
+the old warm-hearted world. That evening, as she sat on the step of her
+brown frame shanty, knitting at a great blue stocking, her scarred face
+and misshapen body very pitiful to the passers-by, it was this light
+that gave to her face its homely, cheery smile. It made her eyes quick
+to know the message in the depths of color in the evening sky, or even
+the flickering tints of the green creeper on the wall with its crimson
+cornucopias filled with hot sunshine. She liked clear, vital colors,
+this girl,--the crimsons and blues. They answered her, somehow. They
+could speak. There were things in the world that like herself were
+marred,--did not understand,--were hungry to know: the gray sky, the
+mud swamps, the tawny lichens. She cried sometimes, looking at them,
+hardly knowing why: she could not help it, with a vague sense of loss.
+It seemed at those times so dreary for them to be alive,--or for her.
+Other things her eyes were quicker to see than ours: delicate or grand
+lines, which she perpetually sought for unconsciously,--in the homeliest
+things, the very soft curling of the woollen yarn in her fingers, as
+in the eternal sculpture of the mountains. Was it the disease of her
+injured brain that made all things alive to her,--that made her watch,
+in her ignorant way, the grave hills, the flashing, victorious rivers,
+look pitifully into the face of some dingy mushroom trodden in the mud
+before it scarce had lived, just as we should look into human faces to
+know what they would say to us? Was it the weakness and ignorance that
+made everything she saw or touched nearer, more human to her than to you
+or me? She never got used to living as other people do; these sights and
+sounds did not come to her common, hackneyed. Why, sometimes, out in the
+hills, in the torrid quiet of summer noons, she had knelt by the
+shaded pools, and buried her hands in the great slumberous beds of
+water-lilies, her blood curdling in a feverish languor, a passioned
+trance, from which she roused herself, weak and tired.
+
+She had no self-poised artist sense, this Lois,--knew nothing of
+Nature's laws. Yet sometimes, watching the dun sea of the prairie rise
+and fall in the crimson light of early morning, or, in the farms,
+breathing the blue air trembling up to heaven exultant with the life of
+bird and forest, she forgot the poor coarse thing she was, some coarse
+weight fell off, and something within, not the sickly Lois of the town,
+went out, free, like an exile dreaming of home.
+
+You tell me, that, doubtless, in the wreck of the creature's brain,
+there were fragments of some artistic insight that made her thus rise
+above the level of her daily life, drunk with the mere beauty of form
+and color. I do not know,--not knowing how sham or real a thing you mean
+by artistic insight. But I do know that the clear light I told you of
+shone for this girl dimly through this beauty of form and color; and
+ignorant, with no words for her thoughts, she believed in it as the
+Highest that she knew. I think it came to her thus an imperfect
+language, (not an outward show of tints and lines, as to some
+artists,)--a language, the same that Moses heard when he stood alone,
+with nothing between his naked soul and God, but the desert and the
+mountain and the bush that burned with fire. I think the weak soul
+of the girl staggered from its dungeon, and groped through these
+heavy-browed hills, these color-dreams, through even the homely kind
+faces on the street, to find the God that lay behind. So the light
+showed her the world, and, making its beauty and warmth divine and near
+to her, the warmth and beauty became real in her, found their homely
+shadows in her daily life. So it showed her, too, through her vague
+childish knowledge, the Master in whom she believed,--showed Him to her
+in everything that lived, more real than all beside. The waiting earth,
+the prophetic sky, the coarsest or fairest atom that she touched was but
+a part of Him, something sent to tell of Him,--she dimly felt; though,
+as I said, she had no words for such a thought. Yet even more real than
+this. There was no pain nor temptation down in those dark cellars where
+she went that He had not borne,--not one. Nor was there the least
+pleasure came to her or the others, not even a cheerful fire, or kind
+words, or a warm, hearty laugh, that she did not know He sent it and was
+glad to do it. She knew that well! So it was that He took part in her
+humble daily life, and became more real to her day by day. Very homely
+shadows her life gave of His light, for it was His: homely, because of
+her poor way of living, and of the depth to which the heavy foot of the
+world had crushed her. Yet they were there all the time, in her cheery
+patience, if nothing more. To-night, for instance, how differently the
+surging crowd seemed to her from what it did to Knowles! She looked down
+on it from her high wood-steps with an eager interest, ready with her
+weak, timid laugh to answer every friendly call from below. She had no
+power to see them as types of great classes; they were just so many
+living people, whom she knew, and who, most of them, had been kind to
+her. Whatever good there was in the vilest face, (and there was always
+something,) she was sure to see it. The light made her poor eyes strong
+for that.
+
+She liked to sit there in the evenings, being alone, yet never growing
+lonesome; there was so much that was pleasant to watch and listen to, as
+the cool brown twilight came on. If, as Knowles thought, the world was
+a dreary discord, she knew nothing of it. People were going from their
+work now,--they had time to talk and joke by the way,--stopping, or
+walking slowly down the cool shadows of the pavement; while here and
+there a lingering red sunbeam burnished a window, or struck athwart the
+gray boulder-paved street. From the houses near you could catch a faint
+smell of supper: very friendly people those were in these houses; she
+knew them all well. The children came out with their faces washed, to
+play, now the sun was down: the oldest of them generally came to sit
+with her and hear a story.
+
+After it grew darker, you would see the girls in their neat blue
+calicoes go sauntering down the street with their sweethearts for
+a walk. There was old Polston and his son Sam coming home from the
+coal-pits, as black as ink, with their little tin lanterns on their
+caps. After a while Sam would come out in his suit of Kentucky jean, his
+face shining with the soap, and go sheepishly down to Jenny Ball's, and
+the old man would bring his pipe and chair out on the pavement, and his
+wife would sit on the steps. Most likely they would call Lois down,
+or come over themselves, for they were the most sociable, coziest old
+couple you ever knew. There was a great stopping at Lois's door, as
+the girls walked past, for a bunch of the flowers she brought from the
+country, or posies, as they called them, (Sam never would take any to
+Jenny but "old man" and pinks,) and she always had them ready in broken
+jugs inside. They were good, kind girls, every one of them,--had taken
+it in turn to sit up with Lois last winter all the time she had the
+rheumatism. She never forgot that time,--never once.
+
+Later in the evening you would see an old man coming along, close by the
+wall, with his head down,--a very dark man, with gray, thin hair,--Joe
+Yare, Lois's old father. No one spoke to him,--people always were
+looking away as he passed; and if old Mr. or Mrs. Polston were on the
+steps when he came up, they would say, "Good-evening, Mr. Yare," very
+formally, and go away presently. It hurt Lois more than anything else
+they could have done. But she bustled about noisily, so that he would
+not notice it. If they saw the marks of the ill life he had lived on his
+old face, she did not; his sad, uncertain eyes may have been dishonest
+to them, but they were nothing but kind to the misshapen little soul
+that he kissed so warmly with a "Why, Lo, my little girl!" Nobody else
+in the world ever called her by a pet name.
+
+Sometimes he was gloomy and silent, but generally he told her of all
+that had happened in the mill, particularly any little word of notice or
+praise he might have received, watching her anxiously until she laughed
+at it, and then rubbing his hands cheerfully. He need not have doubted
+Lois's faith in him. Whatever the rest did, she believed in him; she
+always had believed in him, through all the dark, dark years, when he
+was at home, and in the penitentiary. They were gone now, never to come
+back. It had come right. She, at least, thought his repentance sincere.
+If the others wronged him, and it hurt her bitterly that they did, that
+would come right some day too, she would think, as she looked at the
+tired, sullen face of the old man bent to the window-pane, afraid to go
+out. They had very cheerful little suppers there by themselves in the
+odd, bare little room, as homely and clean as Lois herself.
+
+Sometimes, late at night, when he had gone to bed, she sat alone in the
+door, while the moonlight fell in broad patches over the quiet square,
+and the great poplars stood like giants whispering together. Still the
+far sounds of the town came up cheerfully, while she folded up her
+knitting, it being dark, thinking how happy an ending this was to a
+happy day. When it grew quiet, she could hear the solemn whisper of the
+poplars, and sometimes broken strains of music from the cathedral in the
+city floated through the cold and moonlight past her, far off into the
+blue beyond the hills. All the keen pleasure of the day, the warm,
+bright sights and sounds, coarse and homely though they were, seemed to
+fade into the deep music, and make a part of it.
+
+Yet, sitting there, looking out into the listening night, the poor
+child's face grew slowly pale as she heard it. It humbled her. It made
+her meanness, her low, weak life so real to her! There was no pain nor
+hunger she had known that did not find a voice in its inarticulate cry.
+She! what was she? All the pain and wants of the world must be going up
+to God in that sound, she thought. There was something more in it,--an
+unknown meaning that her shattered brain struggled to grasp. She could
+not. Her heart ached with a wild, restless longing. She had no words
+for the vague, insatiate hunger to understand. It was because she was
+ignorant and low, perhaps; others could know. She thought her Master was
+speaking. She thought the unknown meaning linked all earth and heaven
+together, and made it plain. So she hid her face in her hands, and
+listened while the low harmony shivered through the air, unheeded by
+others, with the message of God to man. Not comprehending, it may
+be,--the poor girl,--hungry still to know. Yet, when she looked up,
+there were warm tears in her eyes, and her scarred face was bright with
+a sad, deep content and love.
+
+So the hot, long day was over for them all,--passed as thousands of days
+have done for us, gone down, forgotten: as that long, hot day we call
+life will be over some time, and go down into the gray and cold. Surely,
+whatever of sorrow or pain may have made darkness in that day for you or
+me, there were countless openings where we might have seen glimpses of
+that other light than sunshine: the light of the great Tomorrow, of the
+land where all wrongs shall be righted. If we had but chosen to see
+it,--if we only had chosen!
+
+
+
+
+CONCERNING PEOPLE WHO CARRIED WEIGHT IN LIFE.
+
+WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON THOSE WHO NEVER HAD A CHANCE.
+
+
+You drive out, let us suppose, upon a certain day. To your surprise and
+mortification, your horse, usually lively and frisky, is quite dull
+and sluggish. He does not get over the ground as he is wont to do. The
+slightest touch of whip-cord, on other days, suffices to make him dart
+forward with redoubled speed; but upon this day, after two or three
+miles, he needs positive whipping, and he runs very sulkily with it
+all. By-and-by his coat, usually smooth and glossy and dry through all
+reasonable work, begins to stream like a water-cart. This will not do.
+There is something wrong. You investigate; and you discover that your
+horse's work, though seemingly the same as usual, is in fact immensely
+greater. The blockheads who oiled your wheels yesterday have screwed up
+your patent axles too tightly; the friction is enormous; the hotter
+the metal gets, the greater grows the friction; your horse's work is
+quadrupled. You drive slowly home, and severely upbraid the blockheads.
+
+There are many people who have to go through life at an analogous
+disadvantage. There is something in their constitution of body or mind,
+there is something in their circumstances, which adds incalculably to
+the exertion they must go through to attain their ends, and which holds
+them back from doing what they might otherwise have done. Very probably
+that malign something exerted its influence unperceived by those around
+them. They did not get credit for the struggle they were going through.
+No one knew what a brave fight they were making with a broken right arm;
+no one remarked that they were running the race, and keeping a fair
+place in it, too, with their legs tied together. All they do, they do at
+a disadvantage. It is as when a noble race-horse is beaten by a sorry
+hack; because the race-horse, as you might see, if you look at the list,
+is carrying twelve pounds additional. But such men, by a desperate
+effort, often made silently and sorrowfully, may (so to speak) run in
+the race, and do well in it, though you little think with how heavy a
+foot and how heavy a heart. There are others who have no chance at all.
+_They_ are like a horse set to run a race, tied by a strong rope to a
+tree, or weighted with ten tons of extra burden. _That_ horse cannot run
+even poorly. The difference between their case and that of the men who
+are placed at a disadvantage is like the difference between setting a
+very near-sighted man to keep a sharp look-out and setting a man who is
+quite blind to keep that sharp look-out. Many can do the work of life
+with difficulty; some cannot do it at all. In short, there are PEOPLE
+WHO CARRY WEIGHT IN LIFE, and there are some WHO NEVER HAVE A CHANCE.
+
+And you, my friend, who are doing the work of life well and
+creditably,--you who are running in the front rank, and likely to do so
+to the end, think kindly and charitably of those who have broken down
+in the race. Think kindly of him who, sadly overweighted, is struggling
+onwards away half a mile behind you; think more kindly yet, if that be
+possible, of him who, tethered to a ton of granite, is struggling hard
+and making no way at all, or who has even sat down and given up the
+struggle in dumb despair. You feel, I know, the weakness in yourself
+which would have made you break down, if sorely tried like others. You
+know there is in your armor the unprotected place at which a well-aimed
+or a random blow would have gone home and brought you down. Yes, you are
+nearing the winning-post, and you are among the first; but six pounds
+more on your back, and you might have been nowhere. You feel, by your
+weak heart and weary frame, that, if you had been sent to the Crimea in
+that dreadful first winter, you would certainly have died. And you feel,
+too, by your lack of moral stamina, by your feebleness of resolution,
+that it has been your preservation from you know not what depths of
+shame and misery, that you never were pressed very hard by temptation.
+Do not range yourself with those who found fault with a certain great
+and good Teacher of former days, because he went to be guest with a man
+that was a sinner. As if He could have gone to be guest with any man who
+was not!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no reckoning up the manifold _impedimenta_ by which human
+beings are weighted for the race of life; but all may be classified
+under the two heads of unfavorable influences arising out of the mental
+or physical nature of the human beings themselves, and unfavorable
+influences arising out of the circumstances in which the human beings
+are placed. You have known men who, setting out from a very humble
+position, have attained to a respectable standing, but who would have
+reached a very much higher place but for their being weighted with a
+vulgar, violent, wrong-headed, and rude-spoken wife. You have known men
+of lowly origin who had in them the makings of gentlemen, but whom this
+single malign influence has condemned to coarse manners and a frowzy,
+repulsive home for life. You have known many men whose powers are
+crippled and their nature soured by poverty, by the heavy necessity
+for calculating how far each shilling will go, by a certain sense of
+degradation that comes of sordid shifts. How can a poor parson write an
+eloquent or spirited sermon when his mind all the while is running upon
+the thought how he is to pay the baker or how he is to get shoes for his
+children? It will be but a dull discourse which, under that weight, will
+be produced even by a man who, favorably placed, could have done very
+considerable things. It is only a great genius here and there who can do
+great things, who can do his best, no matter at what disadvantage he may
+be placed; the great mass of ordinary men can make little headway with
+wind and tide dead against them. Not many trees would grow well, if
+watered daily (let us say) with vitriol. Yet a tree which would
+speedily die under that nurture might do very fairly, might even do
+magnificently, if it had fair play, if it got its chance of common
+sunshine and shower. Some men, indeed, though always hampered by
+circumstances, have accomplished much; but then you cannot help thinking
+how much more they might have accomplished, had they been placed more
+happily. Pugin, the great Gothic architect, designed various noble
+buildings; but I believe he complained that he never had fair play with
+his finest,--that he was always weighted by considerations of expense,
+or by the nature of the ground he had to build on, or by the number
+of people it was essential the building should accommodate. And so he
+regarded his noblest edifices as no more than hints of what he could
+have done. He made grand running in the race; but, oh, what running he
+could have made, if you had taken off those twelve additional pounds! I
+dare say you have known men who labored to make a pretty country-house
+on a site which had some one great drawback. They were always battling
+with that drawback, and trying to conquer it; but they never could quite
+succeed. And it remained a real worry and vexation. Their house was on
+the north side of a high hill, and never could have its due share of
+sunshine. Or you could not reach it but by climbing a very steep ascent;
+or you could not in any way get water into the landscape. When Sir
+Walter was at length able to call his own a little estate on the banks
+of the Tweed he loved so well, it was the ugliest, bleakest, and least
+interesting spot upon the course of that beautiful river; and the public
+road ran within a few yards of his door. The noble-hearted man made a
+charming dwelling at last; but he was fighting against Nature in the
+matter of the landscape round it; and you can see yet, many a year after
+he left it, the poor little trees of his beloved plantations contrasting
+with the magnificent timber of various grand old places above and below
+Abbotsford. There is something sadder in the sight of men who carried
+weight within themselves, and who, in aiming at usefulness or at
+happiness, were hampered and held back by their own nature. There are
+many men who are weighted with a hasty temper; weighted with a nervous,
+anxious constitution; weighted with an envious, jealous disposition;
+weighted with a strong tendency to evil speaking, lying, and slandering;
+weighted with a grumbling, sour, discontented spirit; weighted with a
+disposition to vaporing and boasting; weighted with a great want of
+common sense; weighted with an undue regard to what other people may be
+thinking or saying of them; weighted with many like things, of which
+more will be said by-and-by. When that good missionary, Henry Martyn,
+was in India, he was weighted with an irresistible drowsiness. He could
+hardly keep himself awake. And it must have been a burning earnestness
+that impelled him to ceaseless labor, in the presence of such a
+drag-weight as that. I am not thinking or saying, my friend, that it is
+wholly bad for us to carry weight,--that great good may not come of the
+abatement of our power and spirit which may be made by that weight. I
+remember a greater missionary than even the sainted Martyn, to whom the
+Wisest and Kindest appointed that he should carry weight, and that he
+should fight at a sad disadvantage. And the greater missionary tells us
+that he knew why that weight was appointed him to carry; and that he
+felt he needed it all to save him from a strong tendency to undue
+self-conceit. No one knows, now, what the burden was which he bore; but
+it was heavy and painful; it was "a thorn in the flesh." Three times
+he earnestly asked that it might be taken away; but the answer he got
+implied that he needed it yet, and that his Master thought it a better
+plan to strengthen the back than to lighten the burden. Yes, the blessed
+Redeemer appointed that St. Paul should carry weight in life; and I
+think, friendly reader, that we shall believe that it is wisely and
+kindly meant, if the like should come to you and me.
+
+We all understand what is meant, when we hear it said that a man is
+doing very well, or has done very well, _considering_. I do not know
+whether it is a Scotticism to stop short at that point of the sentence.
+We do it, constantly, in this country. The sentence would be completed
+by saying, _considering the weight he has to carry_, or _the
+disadvantage at which he works_. And things which are _very good,
+considering_, may range very far up and down the scale of actual merit.
+A thing which is _very good, considering_, may be very bad, or may be
+tolerably good. It never can be absolutely very good; for, if it
+were, you would cease to use the word _considering_. A thing which is
+absolutely very good, if it have been done under extremely unfavorable
+circumstances, would not be described as _very good, considering_; it
+would be described as _quite wonderful, considering_, or as _miraculous,
+considering_. And it is curious how people take a pride in accumulating
+unfavorable circumstances, that they may overcome them, and gain the
+glory of having overcome them. Thus, if a man wishes to sign his name,
+he might write the letters with his right hand; and though he write them
+very clearly and well and rapidly, nobody would think of giving him any
+credit. But if he write his name rather badly with his left hand, people
+would say it was a remarkable signature, considering; and if he write
+his name very ill indeed with his foot, people would say the writing was
+quite wonderful, considering. If a man desire to walk from one end of a
+long building to the other, he might do so by walking along the floor;
+and though he did so steadily, swiftly, and gracefully, no one would
+remark that he had done anything worth notice. But if he choose for his
+path a thick rope, extended from one end of the building to the other,
+at a height of a hundred feet, and if he walk rather slowly and
+awkwardly along it, he will be esteemed as having done something very
+extraordinary: while if, in addition to this, he is blindfolded, and has
+his feet placed in large baskets instead of shoes, he will, if in any
+way he can get over the distance between the ends of the building, be
+held as one of the most remarkable men of the age. Yes, load yourself
+with weight which no one asks you to carry; accumulate disadvantages
+which you need not face, unless you choose; then carry the weight in any
+fashion, and overcome the disadvantages in any fashion; and you are a
+great man, considering: that is, considering the disadvantages and the
+weight. Let this be remembered: if a man is so placed that he cannot do
+his work, except in the face of special difficulties, then let him be
+praised, if he vanquish these in some decent measure, and if he do his
+work tolerably well. But a man deserves no praise at all for work which
+he has done tolerably or done rather badly, because he chose to do it
+under disadvantageous circumstances, under which there was no earthly
+call upon him to do it. In this case he probably is a self-conceited
+man, or a man of wrong-headed independence of disposition; and in this
+case, if his work be bad absolutely, don't tell him that it is good,
+considering. Refuse to consider. He has no right to expect that you
+should. There was a man who built a house entirely with his own hands.
+He had never learned either mason-work or carpentry: he could quite well
+have afforded to pay skilled workmen to do the work he wanted; but he
+did not choose to do so. He did the whole work himself. The house was
+finished; its aspect was peculiar. The walls were off the perpendicular
+considerably, and the windows were singular in shape; the doors fitted
+badly, and the floors were far from level. In short, it was a very bad
+and awkward-looking house: but it was a wonderful house, considering.
+And people said that it was so, who saw nothing wonderful in the
+beautiful house next it, perfect in symmetry and finish and comfort, but
+built by men whose business it was to build. Now I should have declined
+to admire that odd house, or to express the least sympathy with its
+builder. He chose to run with a needless hundred-weight on his back: he
+chose to walk in baskets instead of in shoes. And if, in consequence
+of his own perversity, he did his work badly, I should have refused
+to recognize it as anything but bad work. It was quite different with
+Robinson Crusoe, who made his dwelling and his furniture for himself,
+because there was no one else to make them for him. I dare say his cave
+was anything but exactly square; and his chairs and table were cumbrous
+enough; but they were wonderful, considering certain facts which he was
+quite entitled to expect us to consider. Southey's _Cottonian Library_
+was all quite right; and you would have said that the books were very
+nicely bound, considering; for Southey could not afford to pay the
+regular binder's charges; and it was better that his books should be
+done up in cotton of various hues by the members of his own family than
+that they should remain not bound at all. You will think, too, of the
+poor old parson who wrote a book which he thought of great value, but
+which no publisher would bring out. He was determined that all his
+labor should not be lost to posterity. So he bought types and a
+printing-press, and printed his precious work, poor man: he and his
+man-servant did it all. It made a great many volumes; and the task
+took up many years. Then he bound the volumes with his own hands; and
+carrying them to London, he placed a copy of his work in each of the
+public libraries. I dare say he might have saved himself his labor. How
+many of my readers could tell what was the title of the work, or what
+was the name of its author? Still, _there_ was a man who accomplished
+his design, in the face of every disadvantage.
+
+There is a great point of difference between our feeling towards the
+human being who runs his race much overweighted and our feeling towards
+the inferior animal that does the like. If you saw a poor horse gamely
+struggling in a race, with a weight of a ton extra, you would pity it.
+Your sympathies would all be with the creature that was making the best
+of unfavorable circumstances. But it is a sorrowful fact, that the
+drag-weight of human beings not unfrequently consists of things which
+make us angry rather than sympathetic. You have seen a man carrying
+heavy weight in life, perhaps in the form of inveterate wrong-headedness
+and suspiciousness; but instead of pitying him, our impulse would rather
+be to beat him upon that perverted head. We pity physical malformation
+or unhealthiness; but our bent is to be angry with intellectual and
+moral malformation or unhealthiness. We feel for the deformed man, who
+must struggle on at that sad disadvantage; feeling it, too, much more
+acutely than you would readily believe. But we have only indignation for
+the man weighted with far worse things, and things which, in some cases
+at least, he can just as little help. You have known men whose extra
+pounds, or even extra ton, was a hasty temper, flying out of a sudden
+into ungovernable bursts: or a moral cowardice leading to trickery and
+falsehood: or a special disposition to envy and evil-speaking: or a
+very strong tendency to morbid complaining about their misfortunes and
+troubles: or an invincible bent to be always talking of their sufferings
+through the derangement of their digestive organs. Now, you grow angry
+at these things. You cannot stand them. And there is a substratum of
+truth to that angry feeling. A man _can_ form his mind more than he can
+form his body. If a man be well-made, physically, he will, in ordinary
+cases, remain so: but he may, in a moral sense, raise a great hunchback
+where Nature made none. He may foster a malignant temper, a grumbling,
+fretful spirit, which by manful resistance might be much abated, if not
+quite put down. But still, there should often be pity, where we are
+prone only to blame. We find a person in whom a truly disgusting
+character has been formed: well, if you knew all, you would know that
+the person had hardly a chance of being otherwise: the man could not
+help it. You have known people who were awfully unamiable and repulsive:
+you may have been told how very different they once were,--sweet-tempered
+and cheerful. And surely the change is a far sadder one than
+that which has passed upon the wrinkled old woman who was once (as you
+are told) the loveliest girl of her time. Yet many a one who will look
+with interest upon the withered face and the dimmed eyes, and try to
+trace in them the vestiges of radiant beauty gone, will never think of
+puzzling out in violent spurts of petulance the perversion of a quick
+and kind heart; or in curious oddities and pettinesses the result of
+long and lonely years of toil in which no one sympathized; or in cynical
+bitterness and misanthropy an old disappointment never got over. There
+is a hard knot in the wood, where a green young branch was lopped away.
+I have a great pity for old bachelors. Those I have known have for the
+most part been old fools. But the more foolish and absurd they are, the
+more pity is due them. I believe there is something to be said for even
+the most unamiable creatures. The shark is an unamiable creature. It
+is voracious. It will snap a man in two. Yet it is not unworthy of
+sympathy. Its organization is such that it is always suffering the most
+ravenous hunger. You can hardly imagine the state of intolerable famine
+in which that unhappy animal roams the ocean. People talk of its awful
+teeth and its vindictive eye. I suppose it is well ascertained that the
+extremity of physical want, as reached on rafts at sea, has driven human
+beings to deeds as barbarous as ever shark was accused of. The worse a
+human being is, the more he deserves our pity. Hang him, if _that_ be
+needful for the welfare of society; but pity him even as you hang. Many
+a poor creature has gradually become hardened and inveterate in guilt
+who would have shuddered at first, had the excess of it ultimately
+reached been at first presented to view. But the precipice was sloped
+off: the descent was made step by step. And there is many a human being
+who never had a chance of being good: many who have been trained, and
+even compelled, to evil from very infancy. Who that knows anything of
+our great cities, but knows how the poor little child, the toddling
+innocent, is sometimes sent out day by day to steal, and received in his
+wretched home with blows and curses, if he fail to bring back enough?
+Who has not heard of such poor little things, unsuccessful in their
+sorry work, sleeping all night in some wintry stair, because they durst
+not venture back to their drunken, miserable, desperate parents? I could
+tell things at which angels might shed tears, with much better reason
+for doing so than seems to me to exist in some of those more imposing
+occasions on which bombastic writers are wont to describe them as
+weeping. Ah, there is One who knows where the responsibility for all
+this rests! Not wholly with the wretched parents: far from _that_.
+_They_, too, have gone through the like: they had as little chance as
+their children. _They_ deserve our deepest pity, too. Perhaps the deeper
+pity is not due to the shivering, starving child, with the bitter wind
+cutting through its thin rags, and its blue feet on the frozen pavement,
+holding out a hand that is like the claw of some beast; but rather to
+the brutalized mother who could thus send out the infant she bore.
+Surely the mother's condition, if we look at the case aright, is the
+more deplorable. Would not you, my reader, rather endure any degree of
+cold and hunger than come to this? Doubtless, there is blame somewhere,
+that such things should be: but we all know that the blame of the
+most miserable practical evils and failures can hardly be traced to
+particular individuals. It is through the incapacity of scores of public
+servants that an army is starved. It is through the fault of millions of
+people that our great towns are what they are: and it must be confessed
+that the actual responsibility is spread so thinly over so great a
+surface that it is hard to say it rests very blackly upon any one spot.
+Oh that we could but know whom to hang, when we find some flagrant,
+crying evil! Unluckily, hasty people are ready to be content, if they
+can but hang anybody, without minding much whether that individual be
+more to blame than many beside. Laws and kings have something to do
+here: but management and foresight on the part of the poorer classes
+have a great deal more to do. And no laws can make many persons managing
+or provident. I do not hesitate to say, from what I have myself seen
+of the poor, that the same short-sighted extravagance, the same
+recklessness of consequences, which are frequently found in them, would
+cause quite as much misery, if they prevailed in a like degree among
+people with a thousand a year. But it seems as if only the tolerably
+well-to-do have the heart to be provident and self-denying. A man with a
+few hundreds annually does not marry, unless he thinks he can afford it:
+but the workman with fifteen shillings a week is profoundly indifferent
+to any such calculation. I firmly believe that the sternest of all
+self-denial is that practised by those who, when we divide mankind into
+rich and poor, must be classed (I suppose) with the rich. But I turn
+away from a miserable subject, through which I cannot see my way
+clearly, and on which I cannot think but with unutterable pain. It is an
+easy way of cutting the knot, to declare that the rich are the cause of
+all the sufferings of the poor; but when we look at the case in all its
+bearings, we shall see that that is rank nonsense. And on the other
+hand, it is unquestionable that the rich are bound to do something. But
+what? I should feel deeply indebted to any one who would write out, in
+a few short and intelligible sentences, the practical results that are
+aimed at in the "Song of the Shirt." The misery and evil are manifest:
+but tell us whom to hang; tell us what to do!
+
+One heavy burden with which many men are weighted for the race of life
+is depression of spirits. I wonder whether this used to be as common in
+former days as it is now. There was, indeed, the man in Homer who walked
+by the seashore in a very gloomy mood; but his case seems to have been
+thought remarkable. What is it in our modern mode of life and our
+infinity of cares, what little thing is it about the matter of the brain
+or the flow of the blood, that makes the difference between buoyant
+cheerfulness and deep depression? I begin to think that almost all
+educated people, and especially all whose work is mental rather than
+physical, suffer more or less from this indescribable gloom. And
+although a certain amount of sentimental sadness may possibly help the
+poet, or the imaginative writer, to produce material which may be very
+attractive to the young and inexperienced, I suppose it will be admitted
+by all that cheerfulness and hopefulness are noble and healthful
+stimulants to worthy effort, and that depression of spirits does (so to
+speak) cut the sinews with which the average man must do the work of
+life. You know how lightly the buoyant heart carries people through
+entanglements and labors under which the desponding would break down,
+or which they never would face. Yet, in thinking of the commonness of
+depressed spirits, even where the mind is otherwise very free from
+anything morbid, we should remember that there is a strong temptation to
+believe that this depression is more common and more prevalent than it
+truly is. Sometimes there is a gloom which overcasts all life, like
+that in which James Watt lived and worked, and served his race so
+nobly,--like that from which the gentle, amiable poet, James Montgomery,
+suffered through his whole career. But in ordinary cases the gloom is
+temporary and transient. Even the most depressed are not always so.
+Like, we know, suggests like powerfully. If you are placed in some
+peculiar conjuncture of circumstances, or if you pass through some
+remarkable scene, the present scene or conjuncture will call up before
+you, in a way that startles you, something like itself which you had
+long forgotten, and which you would never have remembered but for this
+touch of some mysterious spring. And accordingly, a man depressed in
+spirits thinks that he is always so, or at least fancies that such
+depression has given the color to his life in a very much greater
+degree than it actually has done so. For this dark season wakens up the
+remembrance of many similar dark seasons which in more cheerful days are
+quite forgot; and these cheerful days drop out of memory for the time.
+Hearing such a man speak, if he speak out his heart to you, you think
+him inconsistent, perhaps you think him insincere. You think he is
+saying more than he truly feels. It is not so; he feels and believes
+it all at the time. But he is taking a one-sided view of things; he is
+undergoing the misery of it acutely for the time, but by-and-by he will
+see things from quite a different point. A very eminent man (there can
+be no harm in referring to a case which he himself made so public)
+wrote and published something about his _miserable home_. He was quite
+sincere, I do not doubt. He thought so at the time. He _was_ miserable
+just then; and so, looking back on past years, he could see nothing but
+misery. But the case was not really so, one could feel sure. There
+had been a vast deal of enjoyment about his home and his lot; it was
+forgotten then. A man in very low spirits, reading over his diary,
+somehow lights upon and dwells upon all the sad and wounding things; he
+involuntarily skips the rest, or reads them with but faint perception
+of their meaning. In reading the very Bible, he does the like thing.
+He chances upon that which is in unison with his present mood. I think
+there is no respect in which this great law of the association of ideas
+holds more strictly true than in the power of a present state of mind,
+or a present state of outward circumstances, to bring up vividly before
+us all such states in our past history. We are depressed, we are
+worried; and when we look back, all our departed days of worry and
+depression appear to start up and press themselves upon our view to the
+exclusion of anything else; so that we are ready to think that we have
+never been otherwise than depressed and worried all our life. But when
+more cheerful times come, they suggest only such times of cheerfulness,
+and no effort will bring back the depression vividly as when we felt
+it. It is not selfishness or heartlessness, it is the result of an
+inevitable law of mind, that people in happy circumstances should
+resolutely believe that it is a happy world after all; for, looking
+back, and looking around, the mind refuses to take distinct note of
+anything that is not somewhat akin to its present state. And so, if any
+ordinary man, who is not a distempered genius or a great fool, tells you
+that he is always miserable, don't believe him. He feels so now, but he
+does not always feel so. There are periods of brightening in the darkest
+lot. Very, very few live in unvarying gloom. Not but that there is
+something very pitiful (by which I mean deserving of pity) in what
+may be termed the Micawber style of mind,--in the stage of hysteric
+oscillations between joy and misery. Thoughtless readers of "David
+Copperfield" laugh at Mr. Micawber, and his rapid passages from the
+depth of despair to the summit of happiness, and back again. But if you
+have seen or experienced that morbid condition, you would know that
+there is more reason to mourn over it than to laugh at it. There
+is acute misery felt now and then; and there is a pervading,
+never-departing sense of the hollowness of the morbid mirth. It is but
+a very few degrees better than "moody madness, laughing wild, amid
+severest woe." By depression of spirits I understand a dejection without
+any cause that could be stated, or from causes which in a healthy mind
+would produce no such degree of dejection. No doubt, many men can
+remember seasons of dejection which was not imaginary, and of anxiety
+and misery whose causes were only too real. You can remember, perhaps,
+the dark time in which you knew quite well what it was that made it so
+dark. Well, better days have come. That sorrowful, wearing time, which
+exhausted the springs of life faster than ordinary living would have
+done, which aged you in heart and frame before your day, dragged over,
+and it is gone. You carried heavy weight, indeed, while it lasted. It
+was but poor running you made, poor work you did, with that feeble,
+anxious, disappointed, miserable heart. And you would many a time have
+been thankful to creep into a quiet grave. Perhaps that season did you
+good. Perhaps it was the discipline you needed. Perhaps it took out your
+self-conceit, and made you humble. Perhaps it disposed you to feel for
+the griefs and cares of others, and made you sympathetic. Perhaps,
+looking back now, you can discern the end it served. And now that it has
+done its work, and that it only stings you when you look back, let that
+time be quite forgotten!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are men, and very clever men, who do the work of life at a
+disadvantage, through _this_, that their mind is a machine fitted for
+doing well only one kind of work,--or that their mind is a machine
+which, though doing many things well, does some one thing, perhaps a
+conspicuous thing, very poorly. You find it hard to give a man credit
+for being possessed of sense and talent, if you hear him make a speech
+at a public dinner, which speech approaches the idiotic for its
+silliness and confusion. And the vulgar mind readily concludes that he
+who does one thing extremely ill can do nothing well, and that he who is
+ignorant on one point is ignorant on all. A friend of mine, a country
+parson, on first going to his parish, resolved to farm his glebe for
+himself. A neighboring farmer kindly offered the parson to plough one
+of his fields. The farmer said that he would send his man John with a
+plough and a pair of horses, on a certain day. "If ye're goin' about,"
+said the farmer to the clergyman, "John will be unco' weel pleased, if
+you speak to him, and say it's a fine day, or the like o' that; but
+dinna," said the farmer, with much solemnity, "dinna say onything to him
+aboot ploughin' and sawin'; for John," he added, "is a stupid body, but
+he has been ploughin' and sawin' all his life, and he'll see in a minute
+that _ye_ ken naething aboot ploughin' and sawin'. And then," said the
+sagacious old farmer, with extreme earnestness, "if he comes to think
+that ye ken naething aboot ploughin' and sawin', he'll think that ye ken
+naething aboot onything!" Yes, it is natural to us all to think, that,
+if the machine breaks down at that work in which we are competent to
+test it, then the machine cannot do any work at all.
+
+If you have a strong current of water, you may turn it into any channel
+you please, and make it do any work you please. With equal energy and
+success it will flow north or south; it will turn a corn-mill, or a
+threshing-machine, or a grindstone. Many people live under a vague
+impression that the human mind is like that. They think,--Here is so
+much ability, so much energy, which may be turned in any direction, and
+made to do any work; and they are surprised to find that the power,
+available and great for one kind of work, is worth nothing for another.
+A man very clever at one thing is positively weak and stupid at another
+thing. A very good judge may be a wretchedly bad joker; and he must go
+through his career at this disadvantage, that people, finding him silly
+at the thing they are able to estimate, find it hard to believe that he
+is not silly at everything. I know, for myself, that it would not be
+right that the Premier should request me to look out for a suitable
+Chancellor. I am not competent to appreciate the depth of a man's
+knowledge of equity; by which I do not mean justice, but chancery law.
+But, though quite unable to understand how great a Chancellor Lord Eldon
+was, I am quite able to estimate how great a poet he was, also how great
+a wit. Here is a poem by that eminent person. Doubtless he regarded it
+as a wonder of happy versification, as well as instinct with the most
+convulsing fun. It is intended to set out in a metrical form the career
+of a certain judge, who went up as a poor lad from Scotland to England,
+but did well at the bar, and ultimately found his place upon the bench.
+Here is Lord Chancellor Eldon's humorous poem:--
+
+  "James Allan Parke
+  Came naked stark
+    From Scotland:
+  But he got clothes,
+  Like other beaux,
+    In England!"
+
+Now the fact that Lord Eldon wrote that poem, and valued it highly,
+would lead some folk to suppose that Lord Eldon was next door to an
+idiot. And a good many other things which that Chancellor did, such as
+his quotations from Scripture in the House of Commons, and his attempts
+to convince that assemblage (when Attorney-General) that Napoleon I. was
+the Apocalyptic Beast or the Little Horn, certainly point towards the
+same conclusion. But the conclusion, as a general one, would be
+wrong. No doubt, Lord Eldon was a wise and sagacious man as judge and
+statesman, though as wit and poet he was almost an idiot. So with other
+great men. It is easy to remember occasions on which great men have
+done very foolish things. There never was a truer hero nor a greater
+commander than Lord Nelson; but in some things he was merely an awkward,
+overgrown midshipman. But then, let us remember that a locomotive
+engine, though excellent at running, would be a poor hand at flying.
+_That_ is not its vocation. The engine will draw fifteen heavy carriages
+fifty miles in an hour; and _that_ remains as a noble feat, even though
+it be ascertained that the engine could not jump over a brook which
+would be cleared easily by the veriest screw. We all see this.
+
+But many of us have a confused idea that a great and clever man is (so
+to speak) a locomotive that can fly; and when it is proved that he
+cannot fly, then we begin to doubt whether he can even run. We think he
+should be good at everything, whether in his own line or not. And he is
+set at a disadvantage, particularly in the judgment of vulgar and stupid
+people, when it is clearly ascertained that at some things he is very
+inferior. I have heard of a very eminent preacher who sunk considerably
+(even as regards his preaching) in the estimation of a certain family,
+because it appeared that he played very badly at bowls. And we all know
+that occasionally the Premier already mentioned reverses the vulgar
+error, and in appointing men to great places is guided by an axiom which
+amounts to just this: this locomotive can run well, therefore it will
+fly well. This man has filled a certain position well, therefore let us
+appoint him to a position entirely different; no doubt, he will do
+well there too. Here is a clergyman who has edited certain Greek plays
+admirably; let us make him a bishop.
+
+It may be remarked here, that the men who have attained the greatest
+success in the race of life have generally carried weight. _Nitor in
+adversum_ might be the motto of many a man besides Burke. It seems to
+be almost a general rule, that the raw material out of which the finest
+fabrics are made should look very little like these, to start with. It
+was a stammerer, of uncommanding mien, who became the greatest orator
+of graceful Greece. I believe it is admitted that Chalmers was the most
+effective preacher, perhaps the most telling speaker, that Britain has
+seen for at least a century; yet his aspect was not commanding, his
+gestures were awkward, his voice was bad, and his accent frightful. He
+talked of an _oppning_ when be meant an _opening_, and he read out the
+text of one of his noblest sermons, "He that is fulthy, let him be
+fulthy stall." Yet who ever thought of these things after hearing the
+good man for ten minutes? Ay, load Eclipse with what extra pounds you
+might, Eclipse would always be first! And, to descend to the race-horse,
+_he_ had four white legs, white to the knees; and he ran more awkwardly
+than racer ever did, with his head between his forelegs, close to the
+ground, like a pig. Alexander, Napoleon, and Wellington were all little
+men, in places where a commanding presence would have been of no small
+value. A most disagreeably affected manner has not prevented a barrister
+with no special advantages from rising with general approval to the
+highest places which a barrister can fill. A hideous little wretch has
+appeared for trial in a criminal court, having succeeded in marrying
+seven wives at once. A painful hesitation has not hindered a certain
+eminent person from being one of the principal speakers in the British
+Parliament for many years. Yes, even disadvantages never overcome
+have not sufficed to hold in obscurity men who were at once able and
+fortunate. But sometimes the disadvantage was thoroughly overcome.
+Sometimes it served no other end than to draw to one point the attention
+and the efforts of a determined will; and that matter in regard to which
+Nature seemed to have said that a man should fall short became the thing
+in which he attained unrivalled perfection.
+
+A heavy drag-weight upon the powers of some men is the uncertainty of
+their powers. The man has not his powers at command. His mind is a
+capricious thing, that works when it pleases, and will not work except
+when it pleases. I am not thinking now of what to many is a sad
+disadvantage: that nervous trepidation which cannot be reasoned away,
+and which often deprives them of the full use of their mental abilities
+just when they are most needed. It is a vast thing in a man's favor,
+that whatever he can do he should be able to do at any time, and to
+do at once. For want of coolness of mind, and that readiness which
+generally goes with it, many a man cannot do himself justice; and in a
+deliberative assembly he may be entirely beaten by some flippant person
+who has all his money (so to speak) in his pocket, while the other must
+send to the bank for his. How many people can think next day, or even
+a few minutes after, of the precise thing they ought to have said, but
+which would not come at the time! But very frequently the thing is of no
+value, unless it come at the time when it is wanted. Coming next day, it
+is like the offer of a thick fur great-coat on a sweltering day in July.
+You look at the wrap, and say, "Oh, if I could but have had you on the
+December night when I went to London by the limited mail, and was nearly
+starved to death!" But it seems as if the mind must be, to a certain
+extent, capricious in its action. Caprice, or what looks like it,
+appears of necessity to go with complicated machinery, even material.
+The more complicated a machine is, the liker it grows to mind, in the
+matter of uncertainty and apparent caprice of action. The simplest
+machine--say a pipe for conveying water--will always act in precisely
+the same way. And two such pipes, if of the same dimensions, and
+subjected to the same pressure, will always convey the self-same
+quantities. But go to more advanced machines. Take two clocks or two
+locomotive engines, and though these are made in all respects exactly
+alike, they will act (I can answer at least for the locomotive engines)
+quite differently. One locomotive will swallow a vast quantity of water
+at once; another must be fed by driblets; no one can say why. One engine
+is a _fac-simile_ of the other; yet each has its character and its
+peculiarities as truly as a man has. You need to know your engine's
+temper before driving it, just as much as you need to know that of your
+horse, or that of your friend. I know, of course, there is a mechanical
+reason for this seeming caprice, if you could trace the reason. But not
+one man in a thousand could trace out the reason. And the phenomenon, as
+it presses itself upon us, really amounts to this: that very complicated
+machinery appears to have a will of its own,--appears to exercise
+something of the nature of choice. But there is no machine so capricious
+as the human mind. The great poet who wrote those beautiful verses could
+not do _that_ every day. A good deal more of what he writes is poor
+enough; and many days he could not write at all. By long habit the mind
+may be made capable of being put in harness daily for the humbler task
+of producing prose; but you cannot say, when you harness it in the
+morning, how far or at what rate it will run that day.
+
+Go and see a great organ of which you have been told. Touch it, and you
+hear the noble tones at once. The organ can produce them at any time.
+But go and see a great man; touch _him_,--that is, get him to begin to
+talk. You will be much disappointed, if you expect, certainly, to hear
+anything like his book or his poem. A great man is not a man who is
+always saying great things, or who is always able to say great things.
+He is a man who on a few occasions has said great things; who on the
+coming of a sufficient occasion may possibly say great things again;
+but the staple of his talk is commonplace enough. Here is a point of
+difference from machinery, with all machinery's apparent caprice. You
+could not say, as you pointed to a steam-engine, "The usual power of
+that engine is two hundred horses; but once or twice it has surprised us
+all by working up to two thousand." No; the engine is always of nearly
+the power of two thousand horses, if it ever is. But what we have been
+supposing as to the engine is just what many men have done. Poe wrote
+"The Raven"; he was working then up to two thousand horse power. But
+he wrote abundance of poor stuff, working at about twenty-five. Read
+straight through the volumes of Wordsworth, and I think you will find
+traces of the engine having worked at many different powers, varying
+from twenty-five horses or less up two thousand or more. Go and hear a
+really great preacher, when he is preaching in his own church upon a
+common Sunday, and possibly you may hear a very ordinary sermon. I have
+heard Mr. Melvill preach very poorly. You must not expect to find people
+always at their best. It is a very unusual thing that even the ablest
+men should be like Burke, who could not talk with an intelligent
+stranger for five minutes without convincing the stranger that he had
+talked for five minutes with a great man. And it is an awful thing, when
+some clever youth is introduced to some local poet who has been told how
+greatly the clever youth admires him, and what vast expectations
+the clever youth has formed of his conversation, and when the local
+celebrity makes a desperate effort to talk up to the expectations formed
+of him. I have witnessed such a scene; and I can sincerely say that I
+could not previously have believed that the local celebrity could have
+made such a fool of himself. He was resolved to show that he deserved
+his fame, and to show that the mind which had produced those lovely
+verses in the country newspaper could not stoop to commonplace things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Undue sensitiveness, and a too lowly estimate of their own powers, hang
+heavily upon some men,--probably upon more men than one would imagine.
+I believe that many a man whom you would take to be ambitious,
+pushing, and self-complacent, is ever pressed with a sad conviction of
+inferiority, and wishes nothing more than quietly to slip through life.
+It would please and satisfy him, if he could but be assured that he is
+just like other people. You may remember a touch of nature (that is, of
+some people's nature) in Burns; you remember the simple exultation of
+the peasant mother, when her daughter gets a sweetheart: she is "well
+pleased to see _her_ bairn respeckit _like the lave_," that is, like the
+other girls round. And undue humility, perhaps even befitting humility,
+holds back sadly in the race of life. It is recorded that a weaver in a
+certain village in Scotland was wont daily to offer a singular petition;
+he prayed daily and fervently for a better opinion of himself. Yes, a
+firm conviction of one's own importance is a great help in life. It
+gives dignity of bearing; it does (so to speak) lift the horse over many
+a fence at which one with a less confident heart would have broken down.
+But the man who estimates himself and his place humbly and justly will
+be ready to shrink aside, and let men of greater impudence and not
+greater desert step before him. I have often seen, with a sad heart, in
+the case of working people that manner, difficult to describe, which
+comes of being what we in Scotland sometimes call _sair hadden down_. I
+have seen the like in educated people, too. And not very many will take
+the trouble to seek out and to draw out the modest merit that keeps
+itself in the shade. The energetic, successful people of this world are
+too busy in pushing each for himself to have time to do _that_. You will
+find that people with abundant confidence, people who assume a good
+deal, are not unfrequently taken at their own estimate of themselves. I
+have seen a Queen's Counsel walk into court, after the case in which he
+was engaged had been conducted so far by his junior, and conducted
+as well as mortal could conduct it. But it was easy to see that the
+complacent air of superior strength with which the Queen's Counsel took
+the management out of his junior's hands conveyed to the jury, (a common
+jury,) the belief that things were now to be managed in quite different
+and vastly better style. And have you not known such a thing as that a
+family, not a whit better, wealthier, or more respectable than all
+the rest in the little country town or the country parish, do yet, by
+carrying their heads higher, (no mortal could say why,) gradually elbow
+themselves into a place of admitted social superiority? Everybody knows
+exactly what they are, and from what they have sprung; but somehow,
+by resolute assumption, by a quiet air of being better than their
+neighbors, they draw ahead of them, and attain the glorious advantage
+of one step higher on the delicately graduated social ladder of the
+district. Now it is manifest, that, if such people had sense to see
+their true position, and the absurdity of their pretensions, they would
+assuredly not have gained that advantage, whatever it may be worth.
+
+But sense and feeling are sometimes burdens in the race of life; that
+is, they sometimes hold a man back from grasping material advantages
+which he might have grasped, had he not been prevented by the possession
+of a certain measure of common sense and right feeling. I doubt not, my
+friend, that you have acquaintances who can do things which you could
+not do for your life, and who by doing these things push their way in
+life. They ask for what they want, and never let a chance go by them.
+And though they may meet many rebuffs, they sometimes make a successful
+venture. Impudence sometimes attains to a pitch of sublimity; and at
+that point it has produced a very great impression upon many men. The
+incapable person who started for a professorship has sometimes got it.
+The man who, amid the derision of the county, published his address to
+the electors, has occasionally got into the House of Commons. The vulgar
+half-educated preacher, who without any introduction asked a patron for
+a vacant living in the Church, has now and then got the living. And
+however unfit you may be for a place, and however discreditable may have
+been the means by which you got it, once you have actually held it for
+two or three years people come to acquiesce in your holding it. They
+accept the fact that you are there, just as we accept the fact that any
+other evil exists in this world, without asking why, except on very
+special occasions. I believe, too, that, in the matter of worldly
+preferment, there is too much fatalism in many good men. They have a
+vague trust that Providence will do more than it has promised. They are
+ready to think, that, if it is God's will that they are to gain such a
+prize, it will be sure to come their way without their pushing. That is
+a mistake. Suppose you apply the same reasoning to your dinner. Suppose
+you sit still in your study and say, "If I am to have dinner to-day, it
+will come without effort of mine; and if I am not to have dinner to-day,
+it will not come by any effort of mine; so here I sit still and do
+nothing." Is not _that_ absurd? Yet that is what many a wise and good
+man practically says about the place in life which would suit him, and
+which would make him happy. Not Turks and Hindoos alone have a tendency
+to believe in their _Kismet_. It is human to believe in that. And we
+grasp at every event that seems to favor the belief. The other evening,
+in the twilight, I passed two respectable-looking women who seemed like
+domestic servants; and I caught one sentence which one said to the other
+with great apparent faith. "You see," she said, "if a thing's to come
+your way, it'll no gang by ye!" It was in a crowded street; but if
+it had been in my country parish, where everyone knew me, I should
+certainly have stopped the women, and told them, that, though what they
+said was quite true, I feared they were understanding it wrongly, and
+that the firm belief we all hold in God's Providence which reaches to
+all events, and in His sovereignty which orders all things, should be
+used to help us to be resigned, after we have done our best and failed,
+but should never be used as an excuse for not doing our best. When we
+have set our mind on any honest end, let us seek to compass it by every
+honest means; and if we fail after having used every honest means,
+_then_ let us fall back on the comfortable belief that things are
+ordered by the Wisest and Kindest; _then_ is the time for the _Fiat
+Voluntas Tua_.
+
+You would not wish, my friend, to be deprived of common sense and of
+delicate feeling, even though you could be quite sure that once _that_
+drag-weight was taken off, you would spring forward to the van, and make
+such running in the race of life as you never made before. Still, you
+cannot help looking with a certain interest upon those people who, by
+the want of these hindering influences, are enabled to do things and
+say things which you never could. I have sometimes looked with no small
+curiosity upon the kind of man who will come uninvited, and without
+warning of his approach, to stay at another man's house: who will stay
+on, quite comfortable and unmoved, though seeing plainly he is not
+wanted: who will announce, on arriving, that his visit is to be for
+three days, and who will then, without farther remark, and without
+invitation of any kind, remain for a month or six weeks: and all
+the while sit down to dinner every day with a perfectly easy and
+unembarrassed manner. You and I, my reader, would rather live on much
+less than sixpence a day than do all this. We _could not_ do it. But
+some people not merely can do it, but can do it without any appearance
+of effort. Oh, if the people who are victimized by these horse-leeches
+of society could but gain a little of the thickness of skin which
+characterizes the horse-leeches, and bid them be off, and not return
+again till they are invited! To the same pachydermatous class belong
+those individuals who will put all sorts of questions as to the private
+affairs of other people, but carefully shy off from any similar
+confidence as to their own affairs: also those individuals who borrow
+small sums of money and never repay them, but go on borrowing till the
+small sums amount to a good deal. To the same class may be referred
+the persona who lay themselves out for saying disagreeable things, the
+"candid friends" of Canning, the "people who speak their mind," who form
+such pests of society. To find fault is to right-feeling men a very
+painful thing; but some take to the work with avidity and delight. And
+while people of cultivation shrink, with a delicate intuition, from
+saying any thing which may give pain or cause uneasiness to others,
+there are others who are ever painfully treading upon the moral corns of
+all around them. Sometimes this is done designedly: as by Mr. Snarling,
+who by long practice has attained the power of hinting and insinuating,
+in the course of a forenoon call, as many unpleasant things as may
+germinate into a crop of ill-tempers and worries which shall make the
+house at which he called uncomfortable all that day. Sometimes it
+is done unawares, as by Mr. Boor, who, through pure ignorance and
+coarseness, is always bellowing out things which it is disagreeable
+to some one, or to several, to hear. Which was it, I wonder, Boor or
+Snarling, who once reached the dignity of the mitre, and who at prayers
+in his house uttered this supplication on behalf of a lady visitor who
+was kneeling beside him: "Bless our friend, Mrs. ----: give her a little
+more common sense; and teach her to dress a little less like a tragedy
+queen than she does at present"?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But who shall reckon up the countless circumstances which lie like a
+depressing burden on the energies of men, and make them work at that
+disadvantage which we have thought of under the figure of _carrying
+weight in life?_ There are men who carry weight in a damp, marshy
+neighborhood, who, amid bracing mountain air might have done things
+which now they will never do. There are men who carry weight in an
+uncomfortable house: in smoky chimneys: in a study with a dismal
+look-out: in distance from a railway-station: in ten miles between them
+and a bookseller's shop. Give another hundred a year of income, and the
+poor struggling parson who preaches dull sermons will astonish you
+by the talent he will exhibit when his mind is freed from the dismal
+depressing influence of ceaseless scheming to keep the wolf from the
+door. Let the poor little sick child grow strong and well, and with
+how much better heart will its father face the work of life! Let the
+clergyman who preached, in a spiritless enough way, to a handful of
+uneducated rustics, be placed in a charge where weekly he has to address
+a large cultivated congregation, and, with the new stimulus, latent
+powers may manifest themselves which no one fancied he possessed, and he
+may prove quite an eloquent and attractive preacher. A dull, quiet
+man, whom you esteemed as a blockhead, may suddenly be valued very
+differently when circumstances unexpectedly call out the solid qualities
+he possesses, unsuspected before. A man devoid of brilliancy may on
+occasion show that he possesses great good sense, or that he has the
+power of sticking to his task in spite of discouragement. Let a man be
+placed where dogged perseverance will stand him in stead, and you may
+see what he can do when he has but a chance. The especial weight which
+has held some men back, the thing which kept them from doing great
+things and attaining great fame, has been just this: that they were not
+able to say or to write what they have thought and felt. And, indeed,
+a great poet is nothing more than the one man in a million who has the
+gift to express that which has been in the mind and heart of multitudes.
+If even the most commonplace of human beings could write all the poetry
+he has felt, he would produce something that would go straight to the
+hearts of many.
+
+It is touching to witness the indications and vestiges of sweet and
+admirable things which have been subjected to a weight which has
+entirely crushed them down,--things which would have come out into
+beauty and excellence, if they had been allowed a chance. You may
+witness one of the saddest of all the losses of Nature in various old
+maids. What kind hearts are there running to waste! What pure and gentle
+affections blossom to be blighted! I dare say you have heard a young
+lady of more than forty sing, and you have seen her eyes fill with tears
+at the pathos of a very commonplace verse. Have you not thought that
+there was the indication of a tender heart which might have made some
+good man happy, and, in doing so, made herself happy, too? But it was
+not to be. Still, it is sad to think that sometimes upon cats and dogs
+there should be wasted the affection of a kindly human being! And you
+know, too, how often the fairest promise of human excellence is never
+suffered to come to fruit. You must look upon gravestones to find the
+names of those who promised to be the best and noblest specimens of
+the race. They died in early youth,--perhaps in early childhood. Their
+pleasant faces, their singular words and ways, remain, not often talked
+of, in the memories of subdued parents, or of brothers and sisters now
+grown old, but never forgetting how _that_ one of the family, that
+was as the flower of the flock, was the first to fade. It has been a
+proverbial saying, you know, even from heathen ages, that those whom the
+gods love die young. It is but an inferior order of human beings that
+makes the living succession to carry on the human race.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHY HAS THE NORTH FELT AGGRIEVED WITH ENGLAND?
+
+
+We have chosen a guarded and passionless wording for a topic on which
+we wish to offer a few frankly spoken, but equally passionless remarks.
+With the bitterness and venom and exaggeration of statement which both
+English and American papers have interchanged in reference to matters of
+opinion and matters of feeling connected with our national troubles we
+do not now intermeddle. We would not imitate it: we regret it, and
+on our own side we are ashamed of it. We have read editorials and
+communications in our own papers so grossly vituperative and stinging in
+the rancor of their spirit, that it would not have surprised us, if some
+Englishmen, of a certain class, had organized a hostile association
+against us in revenge for our truculent defiance. The real spirit of
+bullyism, of the cockpit and the pugilistic ring, has been exhibited in
+this interchange of newspaper opinion. The more is the reason why we
+should not overlook or be blind to the real grievances in the case, nor
+fail to give expression to them in the strongest way of which their
+emphatic, but unembittered, statement will admit. Whether the London
+"Times" is or is not an authoritative vehicle for the utterance of
+average English opinion, and an index, in its general tone, of the
+prevailing sentiment of that people, is a question which, so far from
+wishing to decide, we must decline to entertain, as mainly irrelevant to
+our present purpose. As a matter of fact, however, if we did accept that
+print as an authority and a standard in English opinion, we should throw
+more of temper than we hope to prevent escaping through our words into
+the remarks which are to follow. That paper evidently represents the
+opinion of one class, perhaps of more than one class of Englishmen. An
+intelligent American reader of its comments on our affairs can always
+read it, as even the best-informed Englishman cannot, with the skill and
+ability to discern its spirit, often covertly mean, and to detect its
+misrepresentations, some of the grossest of which are made the basis of
+its arguments and inferences. From the very opening of our strife to the
+last issue of that print which has crossed the water, its comments and
+records relating to our affairs have presented a most ingenious and
+mischievous combination of everything false, ill-tempered, malignant,
+and irritating. It is at present exercising itself upon the financial
+arrangements of our Government, and uttering prophecies, falsified
+before they have come to our knowledge, about the inability or the
+unwillingness of our loyal people to furnish the necessary money.
+
+But enough of the London "Times." We have in view matters not identified
+with the spirit and comments of a single newspaper, however influential.
+We have in view graver and more comprehensive facts,--facts, too, more
+significant of feelings and opinion. Stating our point in general terms,
+which we shall reduce to some particulars before we close, we affirm
+frankly and emphatically, that the North, we might even say this Nation,
+as a government standing in solemn treaty relations with Great Britain,
+has just cause of complaint and offence at the prevailing tone and
+spirit of the English people, and press, and mercantile classes, towards
+us, in view of the rebellion which is convulsing our land. That tone
+and spirit have not been characterized by justice, magnanimity, or
+true sympathy with a noble and imperilled cause; they have not been in
+keeping with the professions and avowed principles of that people; they
+have not been consistent with the former intimations of English opinion
+towards us, as regards our position and our duty; and they have sadly
+disappointed the hopes on whose cheering support we had relied when the
+dark hours which English influence had helped to prepare for us should
+come.
+
+Before we proceed to our specifications, let us meet the suggestion
+often thrown out, that we have been unduly and morbidly sensitive to
+English opinion in this matter; and let us gratefully allow for the
+exceptions that may require to be recognized in the application of our
+charges against the English people or press as a whole. It has been
+said that we have shown a timid and almost craven sensitiveness to the
+opinions pronounced abroad upon our national struggle, especially those
+pronounced by our own kinsfolk of England. It is urged, that a strong
+and prosperous and united people, if conscious of only a rightful cause,
+and professing the ability to maintain it, should be self-reliant,
+independent of foreign judgment, and ready to trust to time and the sure
+candor and fulness of the expositions which it brings with it, to set us
+right before the eyes of the world. But what if another nation, supposed
+to be friendly, known even to have recommended and urged upon us
+the very cause for which we are contending, represents it in such a
+contumelious and disheartening way as to show us that we have not even
+her sympathy? Further, what if there is a spirit and a tone of treatment
+towards us which suggests the possibility that at some critical moment
+she may interfere in a way that will embarrass us and encourage our
+enemies? The sensitiveness of a people to the possible power of mischief
+that may lie against them in the hands of a jealous neighbor, ready to
+be used at the will or caprice of its possessor, may indicate timidity
+or weakness. But Great Britain, knowing very well what the feeling is,
+ought to understand that it may consist with real strength, courage, and
+right purposes. It is notorious now to all the civilized world, as
+a fact often ludicrously and sometimes lugubriously set forth, that
+millions of sturdy English folk have lived for many years, and live at
+this hour, in a state of quaking trepidation as to the designs of a
+single man of "ideas" across their Channel. What bulletin have the
+English people ever read from day to day with such an intermittent pulse
+as that with which they peruse quotations from the "Moniteur"? The
+English people, whatever might have been true of them once, are now
+the last people in the world--matched and overawed as they are by the
+French--to charge upon another people a timid sensitiveness for even the
+slightest intimations of foreign feeling and possible intentions.
+
+We must allow also for exceptions to the sweep of the specific charges
+under which we shall express our grievances at the general course of
+English treatment towards us. There have been messages in many private
+letters from Englishmen and Englishwomen of high public and of dignified
+private station, there have been editorials and communications in a few
+English papers, there have been brief utterances in Parliament, and
+from leading speakers at political, mercantile, literary, and religious
+assemblies, which have shown a full appreciation of the import of our
+present strife, and have conveyed to us in words of most precious and
+grateful encouragement the assurance that many hearts are beating with
+ours across the sea. That the truculence and venom of some of our own
+papers may have repressed the feeling and the utterance of this same
+sympathy in many individuals and ways where it might otherwise have
+manifested itself is not unnatural, and is very probable. We acknowledge
+most gratefully the cheer and the inspiration which have come to us from
+every word, wish, and act from abroad that has recognized the stake of
+our conflict; and we will take for granted the real existence and the
+glowing heartiness of much of the same which has not been expressed, or
+has not reached us. Farther even than this we will go in tempering or
+qualifying the utterance of our grievances. We will take for granted
+that very much of the coldness, or antipathy, or contemptuousness, or
+misrepresentation which we have recognized in the general treatment of
+us and our cause by Englishmen is to be accounted to actual ignorance
+or a very partial understanding of our real circumstances and of the
+conditions of the conflict, and of the relations of parties to it. De
+Tocqueville is universally regarded among us as the only foreigner
+who ever divined the theoretical and the practical method of our
+institutions. Englishmen, English statesmen even, have never penetrated
+to the mystery of them. Many intelligent British travellers have seemed
+to wish to do so, and to have tried to do so. But the study bothers
+them, the secret baffles them. They give it up with a gruff impatience
+which writes on their features the sentence, "You have no right to have
+such complicated and unintelligible arrangements in your governments,
+State and Federal: they are quite un-English." Our foreign kinsfolk seem
+unwilling to realize the extent of our domain, and the size of some
+of our States as compared with their own island, and incapable of
+understanding how different institutions, forms, limitations, and
+governmental arrangements may exist in the several States, independently
+of, or in subordination to, the province and administration of the
+Federal Government. Nearly every English journal which undertakes
+to refer to our affairs will make ludicrous or serious blunders,
+if venturing to enter into details. The "Edinburgh Review" kindly
+volunteered to be the champion of American institutions and products in
+opposition to the extreme Toryism of the "Quarterly." Sydney Smith took
+us, our authors and early enterprises, under his special patronage,
+and he wrote many favorable articles of that character. One would have
+supposed, that, in the necessary preparation for such labors, he would
+have acquired some geographical, statistical, and other rudimentary
+knowledge about us, enough to have kept him from gross blunders.
+Unluckily, for him and for us, for the sake of getting here on his money
+double the interest which he could get at home, and not considering
+that the greater the promised profit the greater the risk, he made
+investments in some of our stock companies and bonds. When these
+investments proved disastrous, he raved and fumed, calling upon our
+Government--which had nothing more to do with the matter than had the
+English Parliament--to make good his losses.
+
+We are tempted for a moment to drop the graver thread of our theme to
+relate an anecdote in illustration of our present point. It happened a
+few years ago that we had as a household guest for two or three weeks an
+English gentleman, well-informed, courteous, and excellent, who had been
+for several years the editor of a London paper. On the day after his
+domestication with us, which was within the first week of his arrival
+at New York, sitting where we are now writing, after breakfast, he
+announced that "he had a commission to execute for a friend, with a
+person residing in Springfield." Opening his note-book, he handed us a
+slip of paper bearing the gentleman's name and address, "Springfield,
+Ohio." Furnishing him with writing-materials, we were about turning to
+our own occupation, when, suddenly, with a quick exclamation, as if
+recalling something, he said, "Sure, I have been in Springfield. I
+remember a short, a very short time was allowed for dinner, as I came
+from New York." We explained, or tried to explain to him, that the
+Springfield through which he had passed and the Springfield to which he
+was writing were in different States widely separated, and that there
+were also several other "Springfields." To this he demurred, protesting
+that it made matters quite confusing to foreigners to have the same
+names repeated in different parts of the Country. In vain did we suggest
+that all confusion was avoided by adding the abbreviated name of the
+State. No! "It was very confusing." Suddenly, a thought occurred to
+us, and, refreshing our memory by a glance at the Index of our English
+"Road-Book," we suggested triumphantly that names were repeated for
+different localities in England: thus, there are four Ashfords, two
+Dorchesters, six Hortons, seven Newports, etc., etc. Our guest, with an
+air and vehemence that quite outvied our triumph, exclaimed,--"Oh! but
+they are in different shi_rrr_hes, in different shi_rrr_hes!" Sure
+enough, one of his own _shires_ is a larger thing to an Englishman than
+one of our States. He lives on an island which is to him larger than all
+the rest of the world, though any one starting from the centre of it, on
+a fast horse, unless he crossed the border into Scotland, could scarcely
+ride in any direction twenty-four hours without getting overboard.
+
+To the actual ignorance or obfuscation of mind of the majority of the
+English people, as regards our country and its institutions, we are
+doubtless to refer much of the ill-toned and seemingly unfriendly
+comments made upon our affairs in their organs. Thus, it is intimated
+to us by many English writers, that they regard the North now as
+simply undertaking to patch up a Union founded and sustained by mean
+compromises, an object which has already led us into many humiliating
+concessions,--and that the moment we announce that we are striking a
+blow for Liberty, we shall have their sympathy without stint or measure.
+No Englishman who really understood our affairs would talk in that way.
+One of the chief lures which instigated and encouraged the Southern
+rebellion was the assurance, adroitly insinuated by the leading traitors
+into their duped followers, that opposition by the rest of the country
+to their schemes would take the form of an anti-slavery crusade, in
+which form the opposition would be put down by the combined force of
+those who did not belong to the Republican party. They were deceived.
+Opposition to them took the form of a rallying by all parties to the
+defence of the Constitution, the maintenance of the Union. For any
+anti-slavery zeal to have attempted to divert the aroused patriotism of
+the land to a breach of one of its fundamental constitutional provisions
+would have been treacherous and futile. The majority of our enlisted
+patriotic soldiers would have laid down their arms. If the leadings of
+Providence shall direct the thickening strife into an exterminating
+crusade against slavery, doubtless our patriots will wait on Providence.
+But we could not have started in our stern work avowing that as an
+object of our own. And as to the meanness of our concessions and
+compromises for Union, we have to consider what woes and wrongs that
+Union has averted. Has England no discreditable passages in her own
+Parliamentary history? Have her attempts at governing large masses of
+men, Christian and heathen, Roman Catholic and Protestant, and of all
+sects, privileged and oppressed, never led her into any truckling or
+tyrannical legislation, any concessions or compromises of ideal or
+abstract right?
+
+But we must come to our specifications, introducing them with but a
+single other needful suggestion. We have not to complain of any acts or
+formal measures of the English Government against us,--nor even of the
+omission of any possible public manifestation which might have turned
+to our encouragement or service. But it will be admitted that we have
+grievances to complain of, if the tone and the strain of English opinion
+and sentiment have been such as to inspirit the South and to dispirit
+the North. If English comments have palliated or justified the original
+and the incidental measures of the Rebellion,--if they have been zealous
+to find or to exaggerate excuses for it, to overstate the apparent or
+professed grounds of it, to wink at the meannesses and outrages by which
+it has thriven,--if they have perverted or misrepresented the real
+issue, have ridiculed or discouraged the purposes of its patriotic
+opponents, have embarrassed or impeded their hopes of success, or have
+prejudged or foreclosed the probable result,--it will be admitted, we
+say, that we have grievances against those who have so dealt by us in
+the hour of our dismay and trial. And it is an enormous aggravation of
+the disappointment or the wrong which we are bearing, that it is visited
+upon us by England just as we have initiated measures for at least
+restraining and abating the dominant power of that evil institution for
+our complicity in the support of which she has long been our unsparing
+censor. We complain generally of the unsympathizing and contemptuous
+tone of England towards us,--of the mercurial standard by which she
+judges our strife,--of the scarcely qualified delight with which she
+parades our occasional ill-successes and discomfitures,--of the baste
+which she has made to find tokens of a rising despotism or a military
+dictatorship in those measures of our Government which are needful
+and consistent with the exigencies of a state of warfare, such as the
+suspension, on occasions, of the _habeas corpus_, the suppression of
+disloyal publications, the employment of spies, and the requisition of
+passports,--and finally, of the contemptible service to which England
+has tried to put our last tariff, and of her evident unwillingness to
+have us find or furnish the finances of our war. Not to deal, however,
+with generalities, we proceed to make three distinct points of an
+argument that crowds us with materials.
+
+Foremost among the grievances which we at the North may allege against
+our brethren across the water--foremost, both in time and in the harmful
+influence of its working--we may specify this fact, that the English
+press, with scarce an exception, made haste, in the very earliest stages
+of the Southern Rebellion, to judge and announce the hopeless partition
+of our Union, as an event accomplished and irrevocable. The way in which
+this judgment was reached and pronounced, the time and circumstances of
+its utterance, and the foregone conclusions which were drawn from it,
+gave to it a threatening and mischievous agency, only less prejudicial
+to our cause, we verily believe, than would have been an open alliance
+between England and the enemies of the Republic. This haste to announce
+the positive and accomplished dissolution of our National Union was
+forced most painfully upon our notice in the darkest days of our opening
+strife. Those who undertook to guide and instruct English opinion in
+the matter had easy means of informing themselves about the strangely
+fortuitous and deplorable, though most opportune and favoring
+combination of circumstances under which "Secession" was initiated and
+strengthened. They knew that the Administration, then in its last days
+of power, was half-covertly, half-avowedly in sympathy and in active
+cooperation with the cause of rebellion. The famous "Ostend Conference"
+had had its doings and designs so thoroughly aired in the columns of the
+English press, that we cannot suppose either the editors or the readers
+ignorant of the spirit or intentions of those who controlled the policy
+of that Administration. Early information likewise crossed the water to
+them of the discreditable and infamous doings and plottings of members
+of the Cabinet, evidently in league with the fomenting treachery. They
+knew that the head of the Navy Department had either scattered our
+ships of war to the ends of the earth, or had moored them in helpless
+disability at our dockyards,--that the head of the War Department had
+been plundering the arsenals of loyal States to furnish weapons for
+intended rebellion,--that the head of the Treasury Department was
+purloining its funds,--and that the President himself, while allowing
+national forts to be environed by hostile batteries, had formally
+announced that both Secession itself and all attempts to resist it were
+alike unconstitutional,--the effect of which grave opinion was to
+let Secession have its way till _Coercion_ would seem to be not only
+unconstitutional, but unavailing. Our English kinsfolk also knew that
+our prominent diplomatic agents abroad, representing solemn treaty
+relations with them of this nation as a unit, under sacred oaths of
+loyalty to it, and living on generous grants from its Treasury, were
+also in more or less of active sympathy with traitorous schemes. So far,
+it must be owned, there was little in the promise of whatever might grow
+from these combined enormities to engage the confidence or the good
+wishes of true-hearted persons on either side of the water.
+
+But whatever power of mischief lay in this marvellous combination of
+evil forces, so malignly working together, the Administration in which
+they found their life and whose agencies they employed was soon to yield
+up its fearfully desecrated trust. A new order of things, representing
+at least the spirit and purpose of that philanthropy and public
+righteousness to which our English brethren had for years been prompting
+us, was to come in with a new Administration, already constitutionally
+recognized, but not as yet put into power. It was asking but little of
+intelligent foreigners of our own blood and language, that they should
+make due allowance for that recurring period in the terms of our
+Government--as easily turned to mischievous influences as is an
+interregnum in a monarchy--by which there is a lapse of four months
+between the election and the inauguration of our Chief Magistrate. A
+retiring functionary may work and plan and provide an immense amount of
+disabling, annoying, and damaging experience to be encountered by his
+successor. That successor may at a distance, or close at hand, be an
+observer of all this influence; but whether it be simply of a partisan
+or of a malignant character, he is powerless to resist it, and good
+taste and the proprieties of his position seem to suggest that he make
+no public recognition of it. Every Chief Magistrate of this Republic,
+before its present head, acceded to office with its powers and dignities
+and facilities and trusts unimpaired by his predecessor. We have thought
+that among the thorns of the pillow on which a certain "old public
+functionary" lays his head, as he watches the dismal working of elements
+which he had more power than any other to have dispelled, not the
+least sharp one must be that which pierces him with the thought of the
+difference between the position which his predecessors prepared for him
+and that which he prepared for his successor. Not among the least of
+the claims which that successor has upon the profound and respectful
+sympathy of all good men everywhere is the fact that there has been no
+public utterance of complaining or reproachful words from his lips,
+reflecting upon his predecessor, or even asking indulgence on the score
+of the shattered and almost wrecked fabric of which we have put him in
+charge. We confess that we have looked through the English papers for
+months for some magnanimous and high-souled tribute of this sort to the
+Man who thus nobly represents a sacred and imperilled cause. If such
+tribute has been rendered, it has escaped our notice.
+
+Now, as we are reflecting upon the tone and spirit of the English press
+at the opening of the Rebellion, we have to recall to the minds of our
+readers the fact, that in all its early stages, even down to and almost
+after the proclamation of the President summoning a volunteer force to
+resist it, we ourselves, at the North, utterly refused to consider the
+Seceders as in earnest. We may have been stupid, besotted, infatuated
+even, in our blindness and incredulity. But none the less did we, that
+is, the great majority of us, regard all the threats and measures of the
+South as something less formidable and actual than open war and probable
+or threatening revolution. We were persuaded that the people of the
+South had been wrought up by artful and ambitious leaders to wild alarm
+that the new Administration would visit outrages upon them and try to
+turn them into a state of vassalage. Utterly unconscious as we were of
+any purpose to trespass upon or reduce their fullest constitutional
+rights, we knew how grossly our intentions were misrepresented to them.
+We applied the same measure to the distance between their threats and
+the probability that they would carry them out which we knew ought to be
+applied to the difference between our supposed and our real
+intentions. In a word,--for this is the simple truth,--we regarded the
+manifestations of the seceding and rebelling States--or rather of the
+leaders and their followers in them--as in part bluster and in part a
+warning of what might ensue, though it would not be likely to ensue when
+their eyes were open to the truth. We were met by bold defiance, by
+outrageous abuse, and with an almost overwhelming venting of falsehoods.
+There was boastfulness, arrogance, assured claims of sufficient
+strength, and daring prophecies of success, enough to have made any
+cause triumphant, if triumph comes through such means. Still we were
+incredulous, perhaps foolishly and culpably so,--but incredulous, and
+unintimidated, and confident, none the less. We believed that wise,
+forbearing, and temperate measures of the new Administration would
+remove all real grievances, dispel all false alarms, and at least leave
+open the way to bloodless methods of preserving the Union. Part of our
+infatuation consisted in our seeing so plainly the infatuation of the
+South, while we did not allow for the lengths of wild and reckless folly
+into which it might drive them. We could see most plainly that either
+success in their schemes, or failure through a struggle to accomplish
+them, would be alike ruinous to them; that no cause standing on the
+basis and contemplating the objects recognized by them could possibly
+prosper, so long as the throne of heaven had a sovereign seated upon it.
+Full as much, then, from our conviction that the South would not insist
+upon doing itself such harm as from any fear of what might happen to
+us, did we refuse to regard Secession as a fixed fact. At the period of
+which we are speaking, there was probably not a single man at the North,
+of well-furnished and well-balanced mind--who stood clear in heart
+and pocket of all secret or interested bias toward the South--that
+deliberately recognized the probability of the dissolution of the Union.
+Very few such men will, indeed, recognize that possibility now, except
+as they recognize the possibility of the destruction of an edifice of
+solid blocks and stately columns by the grinding to powder of each large
+mass of the fabric, so that no rebuilding could restore it.
+
+This was the state of mind and feeling with which we, who had so much at
+stake and could watch every pulsation of the excitement, contemplated
+the aspect of our opening strife. But with the first echo from abroad of
+its earliest announcements here came the most positive averments in the
+English papers, with scarcely a single exception, that the knell of this
+Union had struck. We had fallen asunder, our bond was broken, we had
+repudiated our former league or fellowship, and henceforth what had been
+a unit was to be two or more fragments, in peaceful or hostile relations
+as the case might be, but never again One. It would but revive for us
+the first really sharp and irritating pangs of this dismal experience,
+to go over the files of papers for those extracts which were like
+vinegar to our eyes as we first read them. Their substance is repeated
+to us in the sheets which come by every steamer. There were, of course,
+variations of tone and spirit in these evil prognostications and these
+raven-like croaks. Sometimes there was a vein of pity, and of that kind
+of sorrow which we feel and of that other kind which we express for
+other people's troubles. Sometimes there was a start of surprise, an
+ejaculation of amazement, or even profound dismay, at the calamity which
+had come upon us. In others of these newspaper comments there was
+that unmistakable superciliousness, that goading contemptuousness
+of self-conceit and puffy disdain, which John Bull visits on all
+"un-English" things, especially when they happen under their unfortunate
+aspects. In not a few of these same comments there was a tone of
+exultation, malignant and almost diabolical, as at the discomfiture of
+a hated and dangerous rival. We have read at least three English
+newspapers for each week that has passed since our troubles began; we
+have been readers of these papers for a score of years. In not one of
+them have we met the sentence or the line which pronounces hopefully,
+with bold assurance, for the renewed life of our Union. In by far the
+most of them there is reiterated the most positive and dogged averment
+that there is no future for us. We are not unmindful of the manliness
+and stout cheer with which a very few of them have avowed their wish and
+faith that the Rebels may be utterly discomfited and held up before the
+world in their shame and friendlessness, and have coupled with these
+utterances words of warm sympathy and approval for the North. But these
+ill-wishes for the one party and these good wishes for the other
+party are independent of anything but utter hopelessness as to the
+preservation or the restoration of the Union.
+
+Now some may suggest that we make altogether too much of what so far
+is but the expression of an opinion, and, at worst, of an unfavorable
+opinion,--an opinion, too, which may yet prove to be correct. But the
+giving of an opinion on some matters has all the effect of taking a
+side, and often helps much to decide the stake. On very many accounts,
+this expression of English opinion, at the time it was uttered and with
+such emphasis, was most unwarranted and most mischievous. It is very
+easy to distribute its harmful influence upon our interests and
+prospects into three very different methods, all of which combined to
+injure or obstruct the Northern cause,--the National cause. Thus, this
+opinion of the hopelessness of our resistance of the men of our
+Union was of great value to the Rebels as an encouragement under any
+misgivings they might have; it was calculated to prejudice our position
+in the eyes of the world; and it had a tendency to dispirit many among
+ourselves. A word upon each of these points.--How quickening must it
+have been to the flagging hopes or determination of the Rebels to read
+in the English journals that they were sure of success, that the result
+was already registered, that they had gained their purpose simply by
+proposing it! Nor was it possible to regard this opinion as not carrying
+with it some implication that the cause of the Rebels was a just one,
+and was sure of success, if for other reasons, for this, too, among
+them, namely, that it was just. Why else were the Rebels so sure of a
+triumph? Was it because of their superior strength or resources? A very
+little inquiry would have set aside that suggestion. Was it because
+of the nobleness of their cause? A very frank avowal from the
+Vice-President of the assumed Confederacy announced to liberty-loving
+Englishmen that that cause was identified with a slavocracy. Or was
+the Rebel cause to succeed through the dignity and purity of the means
+enlisted in its service? It was equally well known on both sides of the
+water by what means and appliances of fraud, perfidy, treachery, and
+other outrages, the schemes of the Rebellion were initiated and pursued.
+If, in spite of all these negatives, the English press prophesies
+success to the Rebels, was not the prophecy a great comfort and spur
+to them?--Again, this prophecy of our sure discomfiture prejudiced us
+before the world. It gave a public character and aspect of hopelessness
+to our cause; it invited coldness of treatment towards us; it seemed to
+warn off all nations from giving us aid or comfort; and it virtually
+affirmed that any outlay of means or life by us in a cause seen to be
+impracticable would be reckless, sanguinary, cruel, and inhuman.--And,
+once more, to those among ourselves who are influenced by evil
+prognostications, it was most dispiriting to be told, as if by cool,
+unprejudiced observers from outside, that no uprising of patriotism, no
+heroism of sacrifice, no combination of wisdom and power would be of any
+avail to resist a foreordained catastrophe.--In these three harmful
+ways of influence, the ill-omened opinion reiterated from abroad had
+a tendency to fulfil itself. The whole plea of justification offered
+abroad for the opinion is given in the assertion that those who have
+once been bitterly alienated can never be brought into true harmony
+again, and that it is impossible to govern the unwilling as equals.
+England has but to read the record of her own strifes and battles and
+infuriated passages with Scotland and Ireland,--between whom and herself
+alienations of tradition, prejudice, and religion seemed to make harmony
+as impossible as the promise of it is to these warring States,--England
+has only to refresh her memory on these points, in order to relieve us
+of the charge of folly in attempting an impossibility. So much for the
+first grievance we allege against our English brethren.
+
+Another of our specifications of wrong is involved in that already
+considered. If English opinion decided that our nationality must
+henceforth be divided, it seemed also to imply that we ought to divide
+according to terms dictated by the Seceders. This was a precious
+judgment to be pronounced against us by a sister Government which
+was standing in solemn treaty relations with us as a unit in our
+nationality! What did England suppose had become of our Northern
+manhood, of the spirit of which she herself once felt the force? There
+was something alike humiliating and exasperating in this implied advice
+from her, that we should tamely and unresistingly submit to a division
+of continent, bays, and rivers, according to terms defiantly and
+insultingly proposed by those who had a joint ownership with ourselves.
+How would England receive such advice from us under like circumstances?
+But we must cut short the utterance of our feelings on this point, that
+we may make another specification,--
+
+Which is, that our English critics see only, or chiefly, in the fearful
+and momentous conflict in which we are engaged, "a bursting of the
+bubble of Democracy"! Shall we challenge now the intelligence or the
+moral principle, the lack of one or the other of which is betrayed
+in this sneering and malignant representation--this utter
+misrepresentation--of the catastrophe which has befallen our nation?
+Intelligent Englishmen know full well that the issue raised among us
+does not necessarily touch or involve at a single point the principles
+of Democracy, but stands wide apart and distinct from them. We might
+with as much propriety have said that the Irish Rebellion and the Indian
+Mutiny showed "the bursting of the bubble of Monarchy." The principles
+of Democracy stand as firm and find our people as loyal to them in every
+little town-meeting and in every legislature of each loyal State in the
+Union as they did in the days of our first enthusiastic and successful
+trial of them. Supposing even that the main assumption on which so many
+Englishmen have prematurely vented their scorn were a fact; we cannot
+but ask if the nation nearest akin to us, and professing to be guided
+in this century by feelings which forbid a rejoicing over others' great
+griefs, has no words of high moral sympathy, no expressions of regretful
+disappointment in our calamities? Is it the first or the most emphatic
+thing which it is most fitting for Christian Englishmen to say over the
+supposed wreck of a recently noble and promising country, the prospered
+home of thirty millions of God's children,--that "a bubble has burst"?
+We might interchange with our foreign "comforters" a discussion by
+arguments and facts as to whether a monarchy or a democracy has about it
+more of the qualities of a bubble, but the debate would be irrelevant
+to our present purpose. We believe that Democracy in its noblest and
+all-essential and well-proved principles will survive the shock which
+has struck upon our nation, whatever the result of that shock may yet
+prove to be. We believe, further, that the principles of Democracy will
+come out of the struggle which is trying, not themselves, but something
+quite distinct from them, with a new affirmation and vindication. But
+let that be as it may, we are as much ashamed for England's sake as
+we are aggrieved on our own account that from the vehicles of public
+sentiment in "the foremost realm in the world for all true culture,
+advanced progress, and the glorious triumphs of liberty and religion,"
+what should be a profoundly plaintive lament over our supposed ruin
+is, in reality, a mocking taunt and a hateful gibe over our failure in
+daring to try an "un-English" experiment.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The following precious utterances of John Bull moralizing,
+which might have been spoken of the Thugs in India, or some provincial
+Chinese enterprise, are extracted from the cotton circular of Messrs.
+Neill, Brothers, addressed to their correspondents, and dated,
+Manchester, Aug. 21. We find the circular copied in a _religious_
+newspaper published in London, without any rebuke. "The North will have
+to learn the limited extent of her powers as compared with the
+gigantic task she has undertaken. One and perhaps two defeats will be
+insufficient to reverse the false education of a lifetime. Many lessons
+will probably be necessary, and, meantime, any success the Northern
+troops may obtain will again inflame the national vanity, and the
+lessons of adversity will need to be learned over again. More effect
+will probably be produced by sufferings at home, by the ruin of the
+higher classes and pauperization of the lower, and by the general
+absorption of the floating capital of the country"! There, good reader,
+what think you of the cotton moralizing of a comfortable factor,
+dwelling in immaculate England, dealing with us in cotton, and with the
+Chinese in opium?]
+
+The stately "Quarterly Review," in its number for July, uses a little
+more of dignity in wording the title of an article upon our affairs
+thus,--"Democracy on its Trial"; but it makes up for the waste of
+refinement upon its text by a lavish indulgence in scurrility and
+falsehood in its comments. As a specimen, take the following. Living
+here in this goodly city of Boston, and knowing and loving well its
+ways and people, we are asked to credit the following story, which the
+Reviewer says he heard from "a well-known traveller." The substance of
+the story is, that a Boston merchant proposed to gild the lamp over his
+street-door, but was dissuaded from so doing by the suggestion of a
+friend, that by savoring of aristocracy the ornamented gas-burner would
+offend the tyrannical people and provoke violence against it! This, the
+latest joke in the solemn Quarterly, has led many of its readers here to
+recall the days of Madame Trollope and the Reverend Mr. Fiddler, those
+veracious and "well-known travellers." There are, we are sorry to say,
+many gilded street-lamps, burnished and blazing every night, in Boston.
+But instead of standing before the houses of our merchants, they
+designate quite a different class of edifices. Our merchants, as a
+general thing, would object, both on the score of good taste and on
+grounds of disagreeable association with the signal, to raise such an
+ornament before the doors of their comfortable homes. The common people,
+however, so far from taking umbrage at the spectacle, would be rather
+gratified by the generosity of our grandees in being willing to show
+some of their finery out of doors. This would be the feeling especially
+of that part of our population which is composed of foreigners, who have
+been used to the sight of such demonstrations in their native countries,
+which are not democracies. In fact, we suspect that the reason why
+English "flunkeys" hate American "flunkeyism," with its laced coachmen,
+etc., is because mere money, by aping the insignia of rank, its gewgaws
+and trumpery, shows too plainly how much of the rank itself depends upon
+the fabrics and demonstrations through which it sets itself forth. We
+can conceive that an English nobleman travelling in this country, who
+might chance in one of our cities to see a turn-out with its outriders,
+tassels, and crests, almost or quite as fine as his own, if he were
+informed that it belonged to a plebeian who had grown vastly rich
+through some coarse traffic, might resolve to reduce all the display
+of his own equipage the moment he reached home. The labored and
+mean-spirited purpose of the writer of the aforesaid article in the
+Quarterly, and of other writers of like essays, is to find in our
+democracy the material and occasion of everything of a discreditable
+sort which occurs in our land. Now we apprehend, not without some means
+of observation and inquiry, that the state and features of society in
+Great Britain and in all our Northern regions are almost identically the
+same, or run in parallelisms, by which we might match every phenomenon,
+incident, prejudice, and folly, every good and every bad trait and
+manifestation in the one place with something exactly like it in the
+other. During a whole score of years, as we have read the English
+journals and our own, the thought has over and over again suggested
+itself to us that any one who had leisure and taste for the task might
+cut out from each series of papers respectively, for a huge commonplace
+book, matters of a precisely parallel nature in both countries. A simple
+difference in the names of men and of places would be all that would
+appear or exist. Every noble and every mean and every mixed exhibition
+of character,--every act of munificence and of baseness,--every
+narrative of thrilling or romantic interest,--every instance and example
+of popular delusion, humbug, man-worship, breach of trust, domestic
+infelicity, and of cunning or astounding depravity and hypocrisy,--every
+religious, social, and political excitement,--every panic,--and every
+accident even, from carelessness or want of skill,--each and all these
+have their exact parallels, generally within the same year of time in
+Great Britain and in our own country. The crimes and the catastrophes,
+in each locality, have seemed almost repetitions of the same things on
+either continent. Munificent endowments of charitable institutions, zeal
+in reformatory enterprises and in the correction of abuses, have shown
+that the people of both regions stand upon the same plane of humanity
+and practical Christian culture. The same great frauds have indicated
+in each the same amount of rottenness in men occupying places of trust.
+Both regions have had the same sort of unprincipled "railway kings" and
+bankers, similar railroad disasters, similar cases of the tumbling
+down of insecure walls, and of wife-poisoning. A Chartist insurrection
+enlists a volunteer police in London, and an apprehended riot among
+foreigners is met by a similar precaution in one of our cities. An
+intermittent controversy goes on in England about the interference of
+religion with common education, and Boston or New York is agitated at
+the same time with the question about the use of the Bible in the public
+schools. Boston rowdies mob an English intermeddler with the ticklish
+matters of our national policy, and English rowdies mob an Austrian
+Haynau. England goes into ecstasies over the visit of a Continental
+Prince, and our Northern States repeat the demonstration over the visit
+of a British Prince. The Duke of Wellington alarms his fellow-subjects
+by suggesting that their national defences would all prove insufficient
+against the assaults of a certain terrible Frenchman, and an American
+cabinet official echoes the suggestion that England may, perhaps, try
+her strength in turn against us. There are evidently a great many
+bubbles in this world, and, for all that we know to the contrary, they
+are all equally liable to burst. Some famous ones, bright in royal
+hues, have burst within the century. Some more of the same may, not
+impossibly, suffer a collapse before the century has closed. So that,
+for this matter, "the bubble of Democracy" must take its chance with the
+rest.
+
+We have one more specification to make under our general statement
+of reasons why the North feels aggrieved with the prevailing tone of
+sentiment and comment in the English journals in reference to our great
+calamity. We protest against the verdict which finds expression in all
+sorts of ways and with various aggravations, that, in attempting to
+rupture our Union, and to withdraw from it on their own terms, at their
+own pleasure, the seceding States are but repeating the course of the
+old Thirteen Colonies in declaring themselves independent, and sundering
+their ties to the mother country. There is evidently the rankling of an
+old smart in this plea for rebels, which, while it is not intended to
+justify rebellion in itself, is devised as a vindication of rebels
+against rebels. There is manifest satisfaction and a high zest, and
+something of the morally awful and solemnly remonstrative, in the way in
+which the past is evoked to visit its ghostly retribution upon us. The
+old sting rankles in the English breast. She is looking on now to see us
+hoist by our own petard. These pamphlet pages, with their circumscribed
+limits and their less ambitious aims, do not invite an elaborate dealing
+with the facts of the case, which would expose the sophistical, if not
+the vengeful spirit of this English plea, as for rebels against rebels.
+A thorough exposition of the relations which the present Insurrection
+bears to the former Revolution would demand an essay. The relations
+between them, however, whether stated briefly or at length, would be
+found to be simply relations of difference, without one single point
+of resemblance, much less of coincidence. We can make but the briefest
+reference to the points of contrast and unlikeness between the two
+things, after asserting that they have no one common feature. It might
+seem evasive in us to suggest to our English critics that they should
+refresh their memories about the causes and the justification of our
+Revolution by reading the pages of their own Burke. We are content to
+rest our case on his argument, simply affirming that on no one point
+will it cover the alleged parallelism of the Southern Rebellion.
+
+The relations of our States to each other and to the Union are quite
+unlike those in which the Colonies stood to England. England claimed by
+right of discovery and exploration the soil on which her Colonies here
+were planted, though she had rival claimants from the very first. A
+large number of the Colonists never had any original connection with
+England, and owed her no allegiance. Holland, Sweden, and other
+countries furnished much of the first stock of our settlers, who thought
+they were occupying a wild part of God's earth rather than a portion of
+the English dominions. The Colonies were not planted at public charge,
+by Government cost or enterprise. The English exiles, with but slender
+grounds of grateful remembrance of the land they had left, brought with
+them their own private means, subdued a wilderness, extinguished the
+aboriginal titles, and slowly and wearily developed the resources of the
+country. Often in their direst straits did they decline to ask aid from
+England, lest they might thereby furnish a plea for her interference
+with their internal affairs. Several of the Colonies from the first
+acted upon their presumed independence, and resolved on the frank
+assertion of it as soon as they might dare the venture. That time for
+daring happened to be contemporaneous with a tyrannical demand upon them
+for tribute without representation. Thus the relations of the Colonies
+to England were of a hap-hazard, abnormal, incidental, and always
+unsettled character. They might be modified or changed without any
+breach of contract. They might be sundered without perjury or perfidy.
+
+How unlike in all respects are the relations of these States to each
+other and to the Union! Drawn together after dark days and severe
+trials,--solemnly pledged to each other by the people whom the Union
+raised to a full citizenship in the Republic,--bound by a compact
+designed to be without limitation of time,--lifted by their
+consolidation to a place and fame and prosperity which they would never
+else have reached,--mutually necessary to each other's thrift and
+protection,--making a nation adapted by its organic constitution to the
+region of the earth which it occupies,--and now, by previous memories
+and traditions, by millions of social and domestic alliances, knit by
+heart-strings the sundering of which will be followed by a flow of the
+life-blood till all is spent,--these terms are but a feeble setting
+forth of the relations of these States to each other and to the Union.
+Some of these States which have been voted out of the Union by lawless
+Conventions owe their creation to the Union. Their very soil has been
+paid for out of the public treasury. Indeed, the Union is still in debt
+under obligations incurred by their purchase.
+
+How striking, too, is the contrast between the character and method of
+the proceedings which originated and now sustain the Rebellion, and
+those which initiated and carried through the Revolution! The Rebellion
+exhibits to us a complete inversion of the course of measures which
+inaugurated the Revolution. "Secession" was the invention of ambitious
+leaders, who overrode the forms of law, and have not dared to submit
+their votes and their doings to primary meetings of the people whom
+they have driven with a despotic tyranny. In the Revolution the
+people themselves were the prime movers. Each little country town and
+municipality of the original Colonies, that has a hundred years of
+history to be written, will point us boastfully to entries in its
+records showing how it _instructed_ its representatives first to
+remonstrate against tyranny, and then to resist it by successive
+measures, each of which, with its limitations and its increasing
+boldness, was dictated by the same people. The people of Virginia,
+remembering the ancient precedent which won them their renown,
+_intended_ to follow it in an early stage of our present strife. They
+allowed a Convention to assemble, under the express and rigid condition,
+that, if it should see fit to advise any measure which would affect the
+relations of their State to the Union, a reference should be made of it,
+prior to any action, to the will of the people. The Convention covertly
+and treacherously abused its trust. In secret session it authorized
+measures on the strength of which the Governor of the State proceeded
+to put it into hostile relations with the Union. When the foregone
+conclusion was at last farcically submitted to the people, a perjured
+Senator of the National Congress notified such of them as would not
+ratify the will of the Convention, that they must leave the State.
+
+Once more, in our Revolution, holders of office and of lucrative trusts
+in the interest of England were to a man loyal to the Home Government,
+and our independence was effected without any base appliances. In the
+work of secession and rebellion, the very officials and sworn guardians
+of our Government have been the foremost plotters. They have used their
+opportunities and their trusts for the most perfidious purposes. Nothing
+but perjury in the very highest places could have initiated secession
+and rebellion, and to this very moment they derive all their vigor in
+the council-chamber and on the field from forsworn men, most of whom
+have been trained from their childhood, nurtured, instructed, and fed,
+and all of whom have been fostered in their manhood, and gifted with
+their whole power for harming her, by the kindly mother whose life they
+are assailing. If the Man with the Withered Hand had used the first
+thrill of life and vigor coming into it by the word of the Great
+Physician to aim a blow at his benefactor, his ingratitude would have
+needed to stand recorded only until this year of our Lord, to have been
+matched by deeds of men who have thrown this dear land of ours into
+universal mourning. Yet our English brethren would try to persuade
+us that these men are but repeating the course and the deeds of the
+American Revolution!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE WILD ENDIVE.
+
+
+  Only the dusty common road,
+    The glaring weary heat;
+  Only a man with a soldier's load,
+    And the sound of tired feet.
+
+  Only the lonely creaking hum
+    Of the Cicada's song;
+  Only a fence where tall weeds come
+    With spikèd fingers strong.
+
+  Only a drop of the heaven's blue
+    Left in a way-side cup;
+  Only a joy for the plodding few
+    And eyes that look not up.
+
+  Only a weed to the passer-by,
+    Growing among the rest;--
+  Yet something clear as the light of the sky
+    It lodges in my breast.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
+
+
+In the month of August, 1620, a Dutch man-of-war from Guinea entered
+James River and sold "twenty negars." Such is the brief record left by
+John Rolfe, whose name is honorably associated with that of Pocahontas.
+This was the first importation of the kind into the country, and the
+source of existing strifes. It was fitting that the system which from
+that slave-ship had been spreading over the continent for nearly two
+centuries and a half should yield for the first time to the logic of
+military law almost upon the spot of its origin. The coincidence may not
+inappropriately introduce what of experience and reflection the writer
+has to relate of a three-months' soldier's life in Virginia.
+
+On the morning of the 22d of May last, Major-General Butler, welcomed
+with a military salute, arrived at Fortress Monroe, and assumed the
+command of the Department of Virginia. Hitherto we had been hemmed up in
+the peninsula of which the fort occupies the main part, and cut off from
+communication with the surrounding country. Until within a few days our
+forces consisted of about one thousand men belonging to the Third and
+Fourth Regiments of Massachusetts militia, and three hundred regulars.
+The only movement since our arrival on the 20th of April had been
+the expedition to Norfolk of the Third Regiment, in which it was
+my privilege to serve as a private. The fort communicates with the
+main-land by a dike or causeway about half a mile long, and a wooden
+bridge, perhaps three hundred feet long, and then there spreads out a
+tract of country, well wooded and dotted over with farms. Passing from
+this bridge for a distance of two miles northwestward, you reach a creek
+or arm of the bay spanned by another wooden bridge, and crossing it you
+are at once in the ancient village of Hampton, having a population
+of some fifteen hundred inhabitants. The peninsula on which the fort
+stands, the causeway, and the first bridge described, are the property
+of the United States. Nevertheless, a small picket-guard of the
+Secessionists had been accustomed to occupy a part of the bridge,
+sometimes coming even to the centre, and a Secession flag waved in sight
+of the fort. On the 13th of May, the Rebel picket-guard was driven from
+the bridge, and all the Government property was taken possession of by a
+detachment of two companies from the Fourth Regiment, accompanied by a
+dozen regulars with a field-piece, acting under the orders of Colonel
+Dimick, the commander of the post. They retired, denouncing vengeance
+on Massachusetts troops for the invasion of Virginia. Our pickets then
+occupied the entire bridge and a small strip of the main-land beyond,
+covering a valuable well; but still there was no occupation in force of
+any but Government property. The creation of a new military department,
+to the command of which a major-general was assigned, was soon to
+terminate this isolation. On the 13th of May the First Vermont Regiment
+arrived, on the 24th the Second New York, and two weeks later our forces
+numbered nearly ten thousand.
+
+On the 23d of May General Butler ordered the first reconnoitring
+expedition, which consisted of a part of the Vermont Regiment, and
+proceeded under the command of Colonel Phelps over the dike and bridge
+towards Hampton. They were anticipated, and when in sight of the second
+bridge saw that it had been set on fire, and, hastening forward,
+extinguished the flames. The detachment then marched into the village. A
+parley was held with a Secession officer, who represented that the men
+in arms in Hampton were only a domestic police. Meanwhile the white
+inhabitants, particularly the women, had generally disappeared. The
+negroes gathered around our men, and their evident exhilaration was
+particularly noted, some of them saying, "Glad to see you, Massa,"
+and betraying the fact, that, on the approach of the detachment, a
+field-piece stationed at the bridge had been thrown into the sea. This
+was the first communication between our army and the negroes in this
+department.
+
+The reconnoissance of the day had more important results than were
+anticipated. Three negroes, owned by Colonel Mallory, a lawyer of
+Hampton and a Rebel officer, taking advantage of the terror prevailing
+among the white inhabitants, escaped from their master, skulked during
+the afternoon, and in the night came to our pickets. The next morning,
+May 24th, they were brought to General Butler, and there, for the first
+time, stood the Major-General and the fugitive slave face to face. Being
+carefully interrogated, it appeared that they were field-hands, the
+slaves of an officer in the Rebel service, who purposed taking them to
+Carolina to be employed in military operations there. Two of them
+had wives in Hampton, one a free colored woman, and they had several
+children in the neighborhood. Here was a new question, and a grave one,
+on which the Government had as yet developed no policy. In the absence
+of precedents or instructions, an analogy drawn from international
+law was applied. Under that law, contraband goods, which are directly
+auxiliary to military operations, cannot in time of war be imported by
+neutrals into an enemy's country, and may be seized as lawful prize when
+the attempt is made so to import them. It will be seen, that, accurately
+speaking, the term applies exclusively to the relation between a
+belligerent and a neutral, and not to the relation between belligerents.
+Under the strict law of nations, all the property of an enemy may be
+seized. Under the Common Law, the property of traitors is forfeit. The
+humaner usage of modern times favors the waiving of these strict rights,
+but allows,--without question, the seizure and confiscation of all
+such goods as are immediately auxiliary to military purposes. These
+able-bodied negroes, held as slaves, were to be employed to build
+breastworks, to transport or store provisions, to serve as cooks or
+waiters, and even to bear arms. Regarded as property, according to their
+master's claim, they could be efficiently used by the Rebels for the
+purposes of the Rebellion, and most efficiently by the Government in
+suppressing it. Regarded as persons, they had escaped from communities
+where a triumphant rebellion had trampled on the laws, and only the
+rights of human nature remained, and they now asked the protection of
+the Government, to which, in prevailing treason, they were still loyal,
+and which they were ready to serve as best they could.
+
+The three negroes, being held contraband of war, were at once set to
+work to aid the masons in constructing a new bakehouse within the fort.
+Thenceforward the term "contraband" bore a new signification, with which
+it will pass into history, designating the negroes who had been held as
+slaves, now adopted under the protection of the Government. It was used
+in official communications at the fort. It was applied familiarly to the
+negroes, who stared somewhat, inquiring, "What d' ye call us that
+for?" Not having Wheaton's "Elements" at hand, we did not attempt an
+explanation. The contraband notion was adopted by Congress in the Act
+of July 6th, which confiscates slaves used in aiding the Insurrection.
+There is often great virtue in such technical phrases in shaping public
+opinion. They commend practical action to a class of minds little
+developed in the direction of the sentiments, which would be repelled by
+formulas of a broader and nobler import. The venerable gentleman,
+who wears gold spectacles and reads a conservative daily, prefers
+confiscation to emancipation. He is reluctant to have slaves declared
+freemen, but has no objection to their being declared contrabands. His
+whole nature rises in insurrection when Beecher preaches in a sermon
+that a thing ought to be done because it is a duty, but he yields
+gracefully when Butler issues an order commanding it to be done because
+it is a military necessity.
+
+On the next day, Major John B. Cary, another Rebel officer, late
+principal of an academy in Hampton, a delegate to the Charleston
+Convention, and a seceder with General Butler from the Convention at
+Baltimore, came to the fort with a flag of truce, and, claiming to act
+as the representative of Colonel Mallory, demanded the fugitives.
+He reminded General Butler of his obligations under the Federal
+Constitution, under which he claimed to act. The ready reply was, that
+the Fugitive-Slave Act could not be invoked for the reclamation of
+fugitives from a foreign State, which Virginia claimed to be, and she
+must count it among the infelicities of her position, if so far at least
+she was taken at her word.
+
+The three pioneer negroes were not long to be isolated from their race.
+There was no known channel of communication between them and their old
+comrades, and yet those comrades knew, or believed with the certainty of
+knowledge, how they had been received. If inquired of whether more were
+coming, their reply was, that, if they were not sent back, others would
+understand that they were among friends, and more would come the next
+day. Such is the mysterious spiritual telegraph which runs through the
+slave population. Proclaim an edict of emancipation in the hearing of a
+single slave on the Potomac, and in a few days it will be known by his
+brethren on the Gulf. So, on the night of the Big Bethel affair, a squad
+of negroes, meeting our soldiers, inquired anxiously the way to "the
+freedom fort."
+
+The means of communicating with the fort from the open country became
+more easy, when, on the 24th of May, (the same day on which the first
+movement was made from Washington into Virginia,) the Second New York
+Regiment made its encampment on the Segar farm, lying near the bridge
+which connected the fort with the main-land, an encampment soon enlarged
+by the First Vermont and other New York regiments. On Sunday morning,
+May 26th, eight negroes stood before the quarters of General Butler,
+waiting for an audience.
+
+They were examined in part by the Hon. Mr. Ashley, M.C. from Ohio, then
+a visitor at the fort. On May 27th, forty-seven negroes of both sexes
+and all ages, from three months to eighty-five years, among whom were
+half a dozen entire families, came in one squad. Another lot of a dozen
+good field-hands arrived the same day; and then they continued to come
+by twenties, thirties, and forties. They were assigned buildings outside
+of the fort or tents within. They were set to work as servants to
+officers, or to store provisions landed from vessels,--thus relieving
+us of the fatigue duty which we had previously done, except that of
+dragging and mounting columbiads on the ramparts of the fort, a service
+which some very warm days have impressed on my memory.
+
+On the 27th of May, the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, the First
+Vermont, and some New York regiments made an advance movement and
+occupied Newport News, (a promontory named for Captain Christopher
+Newport, the early explorer,) so as more effectually to enforce the
+blockade of James River. There, too, negroes came in, who were employed
+as servants to the officers. One of them, when we left the fort, more
+fortunate than his comrades, and aided by a benevolent captain, eluded
+the vigilance of the Provost Marshal, and is now the curiosity of a
+village in the neighborhood of Boston.
+
+It was now time to call upon the Government for a policy in dealing with
+slave society thus disrupted and disorganized. Elsewhere, even under
+the shadow of the Capitol, the action of military officers had been
+irregular, and in some cases in palpable violation of personal rights.
+An order of General McDowell excluded all slaves from the lines.
+Sometimes officers assumed to decide the question whether a negro was a
+slave, and deliver him to a claimant, when, certainly in the absence of
+martial law, they had no authority in the premises, under the Act of
+Congress,--that power being confided to commissioners and marshals. As
+well might a member of Congress or a State sheriff usurp the function.
+Worse yet, in defiance of the Common Law, they made color a presumptive
+proof of bondage. In one case a free negro was delivered to a claimant
+under this process, more summary than any which the Fugitive-Slave Act
+provides. The colonel of a Massachusetts regiment showed some practical
+humor in dealing with a pertinacious claimant who asserted title to a
+negro found within his lines, and had brought a policeman along with
+him to aid in enforcing it. The shrewd colonel, (a Democrat he is,)
+retaining the policeman, put both the claimant and claimed outside of
+the lines together to try their fleetness. The negro proved to be the
+better gymnast and was heard of no more. This capricious treatment of
+the subject was fraught with serious difficulties as well as personal
+injuries, and it needed to be displaced by an authorized system.
+
+On the 27th of May, General Butler, having in a previous communication
+reported his interview with Major Cary, called the attention of the War
+Department to the subject in a formal despatch,--indicating the hostile
+purposes for which the negroes had been or might be successfully used,
+stating the course he had pursued in employing them and recording
+expenses and services, and suggesting pertinent military, political, and
+humane considerations. The Secretary of War, under date of the 30th of
+May, replied, cautiously approving the course of General Butler, and
+intimating distinctions between interfering with the relations of
+persons held to service and refusing to surrender them to their alleged
+masters, which it is not easy to reconcile with well-defined views of
+the new exigency, or at least with a desire to express them. The note
+was characterized by diplomatic reserve which it will probably be found
+difficult long to maintain.
+
+The ever-recurring question continued to press for solution. On the 6th
+of July the Act of Congress was approved, declaring that any person
+claiming the labor of another to be due to him, and permitting such
+party to be employed in any military or naval service whatsoever against
+the Government of the United States, shall forfeit his claim to such
+labor, and proof of such employment shall thereafter be a full answer
+to the claim. This act was designed for the direction of the civil
+magistrate, and not for the limitation of powers derived from military
+law. That law, founded on _salus republicae_, transcends all codes,
+and lies outside of forms and statutes. John Quincy Adams, almost
+prophesying as he expounded, declared, in 1842, that under it slavery
+might be abolished. Under it, therefore, Major-General Fremont, in a
+recent proclamation, declared the slaves of all persons within his
+department, who were in arms against the Government, to be freemen, and
+under it has given title-deeds of manumission. Subsequently President
+Lincoln limited the proclamation to such slaves as are included in the
+Act of Congress, namely, the slaves of Rebels used in directly hostile
+service. The country had called for Jacksonian courage, and its first
+exhibition was promptly suppressed. If the revocation was made in
+deference to protests from Kentucky, it seems, that, while the loyal
+citizens of Missouri appeared to approve the decisive measure, they were
+overruled by the more potential voice of other communities who professed
+to understand their affairs better than they did themselves. But if, as
+is admitted, the commanding officer, in the plenitude of military power,
+was authorized to make the order within his department, all human beings
+included in the proclamation thereby acquired a vested title to their
+freedom, of which neither Congress nor President could dispossess them.
+No conclusive behests of law necessitating the limitation, it cannot
+rest on any safe reasons of military policy. The one slave who carries
+his master's knapsack on a march contributes far less to the efficiency
+of the Rebel army than the one hundred slaves who hoe corn on his
+plantation with which to replenish its commissariat. We have not yet
+emerged from the fine-drawn distinctions of peaceful times. We may
+imprison or slaughter a Rebel, but we may not unloose his hold on a
+person he has claimed as a slave. We may seize all his other property
+without question, lands, houses, cattle, jewels; but his asserted
+property in man is more sacred than the gold which overlay the Ark of
+the Covenant, and we may not profane it. This reverence for things
+assumed to be sacred, which are not so, cannot long continue. The
+Government can well turn away from the enthusiast, however generous his
+impulses, who asks the abolition of slavery on general principles of
+philanthropy, for the reason that it already has work enough on its
+hands. It may not change the objects of the war, but it must of
+necessity at times shift its tactics and its instruments, as the
+exigency demands. Its solemn and imperative duty is to look every
+issue, however grave and transcendent, firmly in the face; and having
+ascertained upon mature and conscientious reflection what is necessary
+to suppress the Rebellion, it must then proceed with inexorable purpose
+to inflict the blows where Rebellion is the weakest and under which it
+must inevitably fall.
+
+On the 30th of July, General Butler, being still unprovided with
+adequate instructions,--the number of contrabands having now reached
+nine hundred,--applied to the War Department for further directions. His
+inquiries, inspired by good sense and humanity alike, were of the most
+fundamental character, and when they shall have received a full answer
+the war will be near its end. Assuming the slaves to have been the
+property of masters, he considers them waifs abandoned by their
+owners, in which the Government as a finder cannot, however, acquire a
+proprietary interest, and they have therefore reverted to the normal
+condition of those made in God's image, "if not free-born, yet
+free-manumitted, sent forth from the hand that held them, never to
+return." The author of that document may never win a victor's laurels
+on any renowned field, but, depositing it in the archives of the
+Government, he leaves a record in history which will outlast the
+traditions of battle or siege. It is proper to add, that the answer of
+the War Department, so far as its meaning is clear, leaves the General
+uninstructed as to all slaves not confiscated by the Act of Congress.
+
+The documentary history being now completed, the personal narrative of
+affairs at Fortress Monroe is resumed.
+
+The encampment of Federal troops beyond the peninsula of the fort and in
+the vicinity of the village of Hampton was immediately followed by an
+hegira of its white inhabitants, burning, as they fled, as much of the
+bridge as they could. On the 28th of May, a detachment of troops entered
+the village and hoisted the stars and stripes on the house of Colonel
+Mallory. Picket-guards occupied it intermittently during the month of
+June. It was not until the first day of July that a permanent encampment
+was made there, consisting of the Third Massachusetts Regiment, which
+moved from the fort, the Fourth, which moved from Newport News, and the
+Naval Brigade, all under the command of Brigadier-General Pierce,--the
+camp being informally called Camp Greble, in honor of the lieutenant of
+that name who fell bravely in the disastrous affair of Big Bethel.
+Here we remained until July 16th, when, our term of enlistment having
+expired, we bade adieu to Hampton, its ancient relics, its deserted
+houses, its venerable church, its trees and gardens, its contrabands,
+all so soon to be wasted and scattered by the torch of Virginia Vandals.
+We passed over the bridge, the rebuilding of which was completed the day
+before, marched to the fort, exchanged our rifle muskets for an older
+pattern, listened to a farewell address from General Butler, bade
+good-bye to Colonel Dimick, and embarked for Boston. It was during this
+encampment at Hampton, and two previous visits, somewhat hurried, while
+as yet it was without a permanent guard, that my personal knowledge of
+the negroes, of their feelings, desires, aspirations, capacities, and
+habits of life was mainly obtained.
+
+A few words of local history and description may illustrate the
+narrative. Hampton is a town of considerable historic interest. First
+among civilized men the illustrious adventurer Captain John Smith with
+his comrades visited its site in 1607, while exploring the mouth of
+James River to find a home for the first colonists. Here they smoked the
+calumet of peace with an Indian tribe. To the neighboring promontory,
+where they found good anchorage and hospitality, they gave the name of
+Point Comfort, which it still bears. Hampton, though a settlement was
+commenced there in 1610, did not become a town until 1705. Hostile
+fleets have twice appeared before it. The first time was in October,
+1775, when some tenders sent by Lord Dunmore to destroy it were repulsed
+by the citizens, aided by the Culpepper riflemen. Then and there was the
+first battle of the Revolution in Virginia. Again in June, 1813, it was
+attacked by Admiral Cockburn and General Beckwith, and scenes of pillage
+followed, dishonorable to the British soldiery. Jackson, in his address
+to his army just before the Battle of New Orleans, conjured his soldiers
+to remember Hampton. Until the recent conflagration, it abounded in
+ancient relics. Among them was St. John's Church, the main body of which
+was of imported brick, and built at the beginning of the eighteenth
+century. The fury of Secession irreverently destroyed this memorial of
+antiquity and religion, which even a foreign soldiery had spared. One
+inscription in the graveyard surrounding the church is as early as 1701,
+and even earlier dates are found on tombstones in the fields a mile
+distant. The Court-House, a clumsy old structure, in which was the
+law-office of Colonel Mallory, contained judicial records of a very
+early colonial period. Some, which I examined, bore date of 1634.
+Several old houses, with spacious rooms and high ornamented ceilings,
+gave evidence that at one time they had been occupied by citizens of
+considerable taste and rank. A friend of mine found among the rubbish of
+a deserted house an English illustrated edition of "Paradise Lost,"
+of the date of 1725, and Boyle's Oxford edition of "The Epistles of
+Phalaris," famous in classical controversy, printed in 1718. The
+proximity of Fortress Monroe, of the fashionable watering-place of Old
+Point, and of the anchorage of Hampton Roads, has contributed to the
+interest of the town. To this region came in summer-time public men
+weary of their cares, army and navy officers on furlough or retired, and
+the gay daughters of Virginia. In front of the fort, looking seaward,
+was the summer residence of Floyd; between the fort and the town was
+that of John Tyler. President Jackson sought refuge from care and
+solicitation at the Rip Raps, whither he was followed by his devoted
+friend, Mr. Blair. So at least a contraband informed me, who said he had
+often seen them both there.
+
+Nevertheless, the town bore no evidence of thrift. It looked as though
+it were sleepy and indolent in the best of times, having oysters for its
+chief merchandise. The streets were paved, but the pavements were of
+large irregular stones, and unevenly laid. Few houses were new, and,
+excepting St. John's Church, the public edifices were mean. All these
+have been swept away by the recent conflagration, a waste of property
+indefensible on any military principles. The buildings might have
+furnished winter-quarters for our troops, but in that climate they were
+not necessary for that purpose, perhaps not desirable, or, if required,
+could be easily replaced by temporary habitations constructed of
+lumber imported from the North by sea. But the Rebel chiefs had thrown
+themselves into heroic attitudes, and while playing the part of
+incendiaries, they fancied their action to be as sublime as that of the
+Russians at Moscow. With such a precedent of Vandalism, no ravages of
+our own troops can hereafter be complained of.
+
+The prevailing exodus, leaving less than a dozen white men behind,
+testifies the political feelings of the people. Only two votes were
+thrown against the ordinance of Secession. Whatever of Union sentiment
+existed there had been swept away by such demagogues as Mallory, Cary,
+Magruder, Shiels, and Hope. Hastily as they left, they removed in most
+cases all their furniture, leaving only the old Virginia sideboard, too
+heavy to be taken away. In a few exceptional cases, from the absence of
+the owner or other cause, the house was still furnished; but generally
+nothing but old letters, torn books, newspapers, cast-off clothing,
+strewed the floors. Rarely have I enjoyed the hours more than when
+roaming from cellar to garret these tenantless houses. A deserted
+dwelling! How the imagination is fascinated by what may have there
+transpired of human joy or sorrow,--the solitary struggles of the soul
+for better things, the dawn and the fruition of love, the separations
+and reunions of families, the hearth-stone consecrated by affection and
+prayer, the bridal throng, the birth of new lives, the farewells to the
+world, the funeral train.
+
+But more interesting and instructive were the features of slave-life
+which here opened to us. The negroes who remained, of whom there may
+have been three hundred of all ages, lived in small wooden shanties,
+generally in the rear of the master's house, rarely having more than one
+room on the lower floor, and that containing an open fireplace where the
+cooking for the master's family was done, tables, chairs, dishes, and
+the miscellaneous utensils of household life. The masters had taken with
+them, generally, their waiting-maids and house-servants, and had
+desired to carry all their slaves with them. But in the hasty
+preparations,--particularly where the slaves were living away from
+their master's close, or had a family,--it was difficult to remove them
+against their will, as they could skulk for a few hours and then go
+where they pleased. Some voluntarily left their slaves behind, not
+having the means to provide for them, or, anticipating a return at no
+distant day, desired them to stay and guard the property. The slaves who
+remained lived upon the little pork and corn-meal that were left and the
+growing vegetables. They had but little to do. The women looked after
+their meagre household concerns, but the men were generally idle,
+standing in groups, or sitting in front of the shanties talking with the
+women. Some began to serve our officers as soon as we were quartered in
+the town,--while a few others set up cake-stands upon the street.
+
+It was necessary for the protection of the post that some breastworks
+should be thrown up, and a line was planned extending from the old
+cemetery northward to the new one, a quarter of a mile distant. Our own
+troops were disinclined to the labor, their time being nearly expired,
+and they claiming that they had done their share of fatigue duty both
+at the fort and at Newport News. A member of Brigadier-General Pierce's
+staff--an efficient officer and a humane gentleman--suggested the
+employment of the contrabands and the furnishing of them with rations,
+an expedient best for them and agreeable to us. He at once dictated
+a telegram to General Butler in these words:--"Shall we put the
+contrabands to work on the intrenchments, and will you furnish them with
+rations?" An affirmative answer was promptly received on Monday morning,
+July 8th, and that was the first day in the course of the war in which
+the negro was employed upon the military works of our army. It therefore
+marks a distinct epoch in its progress and in its relations to the
+colored population. The writer--and henceforth his narrative must
+indulge in the frequent use of the first person--was specially detailed
+from his post as private in Company L of the Third Regiment to collect
+the contrabands, record their names, ages, and the names of their
+masters, provide their tools, superintend their labor, and procure their
+rations. My comrades smiled, as I undertook the novel duty, enjoying
+the spectacle of a Massachusetts Republican converted into a Virginia
+slave-master. To me it seemed rather an opportunity to lead them from
+the house of bondage never to return. For, whatever may be the general
+duty to this race, to all such as we have in any way employed to aid our
+armies our national faith and our personal honor are pledged. The
+code of a gentleman, to say nothing of a higher law of rectitude,
+necessitates protection to this extent. Abandoning one of these faithful
+allies, who, if delivered up, would be reduced to severer servitude
+because of the education he had received and the services he had
+performed, probably to be transported to the remotest slave region as
+now too dangerous to remain near its borders, we should be accursed
+among the nations of the earth. I felt assured that from that hour,
+whatsoever the fortunes of the war, every one of those enrolled
+defenders of the Union had vindicated beyond all future question, for
+himself, his wife, and their issue, a title to American citizenship, and
+become heir to all the immunities of Magna Charta, the Declaration of
+Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.
+
+Passing through the principal streets, I told the contrabands that when
+they heard the court-house bell, which would ring soon, they must go to
+the court-house yard, where a communication would be made to them. In
+the mean time I secured the valuable services of some fellow-privates,
+one for a quarter-master, two others to aid in superintending at the
+trenches, and the orderly-sergeant of my own company, whose expertness
+in the drill was equalled only by his general good sense and business
+capacity. Upon the ringing of the bell, about forty contrabands came to
+the yard. A second exploration added to the number some twenty or
+more, who had not heard the original summons. They then came into the
+building, where they were called to order and addressed. I had argued to
+judges and juries, but I had never spoken to such auditors before in a
+court-room. I told them that the colored men had been employed on the
+breastworks of the Rebels, and we needed their aid,--that they would
+be required to do only such labor as we ourselves had done,--that they
+should be treated kindly, and no one should be obliged to work beyond
+his capacity, or if unwell,--and that they should be furnished in a day
+or two with full soldiers' rations. I told them that their masters
+had said they were an indolent people,--that I did not believe the
+charge,--that I was going home to Massachusetts soon and should be glad
+to report that they were as industrious as the whites. They generally
+showed no displeasure, some even saying, that, not having done much for
+some time, it was the best thing for them to be now employed. Four or
+five men over fifty years old said that they suffered from rheumatism,
+and could not work without injury. Being confirmed by the by-standers,
+they were dismissed. Other old men said they would do what they could,
+and they were assured that no more would be required of them. Two of
+them, provided with a bucket and dipper, were detailed to carry water
+all the time along the line of laborers. Two young men fretted a little,
+and claimed to be disabled in some way. They were told to resume their
+seats, and try first and see what they could do,--to the evident
+amusement of the rest, who knew them to be indolent and disposed to
+shirk. A few showed some sulkiness, but it all passed away after the
+first day, when they found that they were to be used kindly. One
+well-dressed young man, a carpenter, feeling a little better than his
+associates, did not wear a pleasant face at first. Finding out his
+trade, we set him to sawing the posts for the intrenchments, and he was
+entirely reconciled. Free colored men were not required to work; but
+one volunteered, wishing, as he said, to do his part. The contrabands
+complained that the free colored men ought to be required to work on the
+intrenchments as well as they. I thought so too, but followed my orders.
+A few expressed some concern lest their masters should punish them for
+serving us, if they ever returned. One inquired suspiciously why we took
+the name of his master. My reply was, that it was taken in order to
+identify them,--an explanation with which he was more satisfied than I
+was myself. Several were without shoes, and said that they could not
+drive the shovel into the earth. They were told to use the picks. The
+rest of the forenoon being occupied in registering their names and ages,
+and the names of their masters, they were dismissed to come together on
+the ringing of the bell, at two, P.M.
+
+It had been expressly understood that I was to have the exclusive
+control and supervision of the negroes, directing their hours of labor
+and their rests, without interference from any one. The work itself was
+to be planned and superintended by the officers of the Third and Fourth
+Regiments. This exclusive control of the men was necessarily confided
+to one, as different lieutenants detailed each day could not feel a
+responsibility for their welfare. One or two of these, when rests were
+allowed the negroes, were somewhat disgusted, saying that negroes
+could dig all the time as well as not. I had had some years before an
+experience with the use of the shovel under a warm sun, and knew better,
+and I wished I could superintend a corps of lieutenants and apply their
+own theory to themselves.
+
+At two, P.M., the contrabands came together, answered to their names,
+and, each taking a shovel, a spade, or a pick, began to work upon the
+breastworks farthest from the village and close to the new cemetery. The
+afternoon was very warm, the warmest we had in Hampton. Some, used only
+to household or other light work, wilted under the heat, and they were
+told to go into the cemetery and lie down. I remember distinctly a
+corpulent colored man, down whose cheeks the perspiration rolled and who
+said he felt badly. He also was told to go away and rest until he was
+better. He soon came back relieved, and there was no more faithful
+laborer among them all during the rest of the time. Twice or three times
+in the afternoon an intermission of fifteen minutes was allowed to all.
+Thus they worked until six in the evening, when they were dismissed for
+the day. They deposited their tools in the court-house, where each one
+of his own accord carefully put his pick or shovel where he could find
+it again,--sometimes behind a door and sometimes in a sly corner or
+under a seat, preferring to keep his own tool. They were then informed
+that they must come together on the ringing of the bell the next morning
+at four o'clock. They thought that too early, but they were assured
+that the system best for their health would be adopted, and they would
+afterwards be consulted about changing it. The next morning we did not
+rise quite so early as four, and the bell was not rung till some minutes
+later. The contrabands were prompt, their names had been called, and
+they had marched to the trenches, a quarter of a mile distant, and were
+fairly at work by half-past four or a quarter before five. They did
+excellent service during the morning hours, and at seven were dismissed
+till eight. The roll was then called again, absences, if any, noted,
+and by half-past eight they were at their post. They continued at the
+trenches till eleven, being allowed rests, and were then dismissed until
+three, P.M., being relieved four hours in the middle of the day, when,
+the bell being rung and the roll called, they resumed their work and
+continued till six, when they were dismissed for the day. Such were the
+hours and usual course of their labor. Their number was increased some
+half dozen by fugitives from the back-country, who came in and asked to
+be allowed to serve on the intrenchments.
+
+The contrabands worked well, and in no instance was it found necessary
+for the superintendents to urge them. There was a public opinion among
+them against idleness, which answered for discipline. Some days they
+worked with our soldiers, and it was found that they did more work, and
+did the nicer parts--the facings and dressings--better. Colonels Packard
+and Wardrop, under whose direction the breastworks were constructed, and
+General Butler, who visited them, expressed satisfaction at the work
+which the contrabands had done. On the 14th of July, Mr. Russell, of the
+London "Times," and Dr. Bellows, of the Sanitary Commission, came to
+Hampton and manifested much interest at the success of the experiment.
+The result was, indeed, pleasing. A subaltern officer, to whom I had
+insisted that the contrabands should be treated with kindness, had
+sneered at the idea of applying philanthropic notions in time of war. It
+was found then, as always, that decent persons will accomplish more when
+treated at least like human beings. The same principle, if we will but
+credit our own experience and Mr. Rarey, too, may with advantage be
+extended to our relations with the beasts that serve us.
+
+Three days after the contrabands commenced their work, five days'
+rations were served to them,--a soldier's ration for each laborer, and
+half a ration for each dependant. The allowance was liberal,--as a
+soldier's ration, if properly cooked, is more than he generally needs,
+and the dependant for whom a half-ration was received might be a wife
+or a half-grown child. It consisted of salt beef or pork, hard bread,
+beans, rice, coffee, sugar, soap, and candles, and where the family was
+large it made a considerable pile. The recipients went home, appearing
+perfectly satisfied, and feeling assured that our promises to them would
+be performed. On Sunday fresh meat was served to them in the same manner
+as to the troops.
+
+There was one striking feature in the contrabands which must not be
+omitted. I did not hear a profane or vulgar word spoken by them during
+my superintendence, a remark which it will be difficult to make of any
+sixty-four white men taken together anywhere in our army. Indeed, the
+greatest discomfort of a soldier, who desires to remain a gentleman in
+the camp, is the perpetual reiteration of language which no decent lips
+would utter in a sister's presence. But the negroes, so dogmatically
+pronounced unfit for freedom, were in this respect models for those who
+make high boasts of civility of manners and Christian culture. Out of
+the sixty-four who worked for us, all but half a dozen were members of
+the Church, generally the Baptist. Although without a pastor, they held
+religious meetings on the Sundays which we passed in Hampton, which were
+attended by about sixty colored persons and three hundred soldiers. The
+devotions were decorously conducted, bating some loud shouting by one
+or two excitable brethren, which the better sense of the rest could not
+suppress. Their prayers and exhortations were fervent, and marked by a
+simplicity which is not infrequently the richest eloquence. The soldiers
+behaved with entire propriety, and two exhorted them with pious unction,
+as children of one Father, ransomed by the same Redeemer.
+
+To this general propriety of conduct among the contrabands intrusted to
+me there was only one exception, and that was in the case of Joe ----;
+his surname I have forgotten. He was of a vagrant disposition, and an
+inveterate shirk. He had a plausible speech and a distorted imagination,
+and might be called a demagogue among darkies. He bore an ill
+physiognomy,--that of one "fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." He
+was disliked by the other contrabands, and had been refused admission to
+their Church, which he wished to join in order to get up a character.
+Last, but not least, among his sins, he was accustomed to boat his wife,
+of which she accused him in my presence; whereupon he justified himself
+on the brazen assumption that all husbands did the same. There was no
+good reason to believe that he had already been tampered with by Rebels;
+but his price could not be more than five dollars. He would be a
+disturbing element among the laborers on the breastworks, and he was a
+dangerous person to be so near the lines; we therefore sent him to the
+fort. The last I heard of him, he was at the Rip Raps, bemoaning his
+isolation, and the butt of our soldiers there, who charged him with
+being a "Secesh," and confounded him by gravely asserting that they were
+such themselves and had seen him with the "Secesh" at Yorktown. This was
+the single goat among the sheep.
+
+On Monday evening, July 15th, when the contrabands deposited their tools
+in the court-house, I requested them to stop a moment in the yard. I
+made each a present of some tobacco, which all the men and most of the
+women use. As they gathered in a circle around me, head peering over
+head, I spoke to them briefly, thanking them for their cordial work and
+complimenting their behavior, remarking that I had heard no profane or
+vulgar word from them, in which they were an example to us,--adding that
+it was the last time I should meet them, as we were to march homeward in
+the morning, and that I should bear to my people a good report of their
+industry and morals. There was another word that I could not leave
+without speaking. Never before in our history had a Northern man,
+believing in the divine right of all men to their liberty, had an
+opportunity to address an audience of sixty-four slaves and say what the
+Spirit moved him to utter,--and I should have been false to all that is
+true and sacred, if I had let it pass. I said to them that there was one
+more word for me to add, and that was, that every one of them was as
+much entitled to his freedom as I was to mine, and I hoped they would
+all now secure it. "Believe you, boss," was the general response, and
+each one with his rough gravelly hand grasped mine, and with tearful
+eyes and broken utterances said, "God bless you!" "May we meet in
+Heaven!" "My name is Jack Allen, don't forget me!" "Remember me, Kent
+Anderson!" and so on. No,--I may forget the playfellows of my childhood,
+my college classmates, my professional associates, my comrades in arms,
+but I will remember you and your benedictions until I cease to breathe!
+Farewell, honest hearts, longing to be free! and may the kind Providence
+which for-gets not the sparrow shelter and protect you!
+
+During our encampment at Hampton, I occupied much of my leisure time
+in conversations with the contrabands, both at their work and in their
+shanties, endeavoring to collect their currents of thought and feeling.
+It remains for me to give the results, so far as any could be arrived
+at.
+
+There were more negroes of unmixed African blood than we expected
+to find. But many were entirely bleached. One man, working on the
+breastworks, owned by his cousin, whose name he bore, was no darker than
+white laborers exposed by their occupation to the sun, and could not be
+distinguished as of negro descent. Opposite our quarters was a young
+slave woman who had been three times a mother without ever having been
+a wife. You could not discern in her three daughters, either in color,
+feature, or texture of hair, the slightest trace of African lineage.
+They were as light-faced and fair-haired as the Saxon slaves whom the
+Roman Pontiff, Gregory the Great, met in the markets of Rome. If they
+were to be brought here and their pedigree concealed, they could readily
+mingle with our population and marry white men, who would never suspect
+that they were not pure Caucasians.
+
+From the best knowledge I could obtain, the negroes in Hampton had
+rarely been severely whipped. A locust-tree in front of the jail had
+been used for a whipping-post, and they were very desirous that it
+should be cut down. It was used, however, only for what are known
+there as flagrant offences, like running away. Their masters, when in
+ill-temper, had used rough language and inflicted chance blows, but no
+one ever told me that he had suffered from systematic cruelty or been
+severely whipped, except Joe, whose character I have given. Many of them
+bore testimony to the great kindness of their masters and mistresses.
+
+Separations of families had been frequent. Of this I obtained definite
+knowledge. When I was registering the number of dependants, preparatory
+to the requisition for rations, the answer occasionally was, "Yes, I
+have a wife, but she is not here." "Where is she?" "She was sold off two
+years ago, and I have not heard of her since." The husband of the woman
+who took care of the quarters of General Pierce had been sold away from
+her some years before. Such separations are regarded as death, and the
+slaves re-marry. In some cases the bereft one--so an intelligent negro
+assured me--pines under his bereavement and loses his value; but so
+elastic is human nature that this did not appear to be generally the
+case. The same answer was given about children,--that they had been sold
+away. This, in a slave-breeding country, is done when they are about
+eight years old. Can that be a mild system of servitude which permits
+such enforced separations? Providence may, indeed, sunder forever those
+dearest to each other, and the stricken soul accepts the blow as the
+righteous discipline of a Higher Power; but when the bereavement is
+the arbitrary dictate of human will, there are no such consolations to
+sanctify grief and assuage agony.
+
+There is a universal desire among the slaves to be free. Upon this point
+my inquiries were particular, and always with the same result. When
+we said to them, "You don't want to be free,--your masters say you
+don't,"--they manifested much indignation, answering, "We do want to be
+free,--we want to be for ourselves." We inquired further, "Do the house
+slaves who wear their master's clothes want to be free?" "We never heard
+of one who did not," was the instant reply. There might be, they said,
+some half-crazy one who did not care to be free, but they had never seen
+one. Even old men and women, with crooked backs, who could hardly walk
+or see, shared the same feeling. An intelligent Secessionist, Lowry by
+name, who was examined at head-quarters, admitted that a majority of the
+slaves wanted to be free. The more intelligent the slave and the better
+he had been used, the stronger this desire seemed to be. I remember one
+such particularly, the most intelligent one in Hampton, known as "an,
+influential darky" ("darky" being the familiar term applied by the
+contrabands to themselves). He could read, was an exhorter in the
+Church, and officiated in the absence of the minister. He would have
+made a competent juryman. His mistress, he said, had been kind to him,
+and had never spoken so harshly to him as a captain's orderly in the
+Naval Brigade had done, who assumed one day to give him orders. She had
+let him work where he pleased, and he was to bring her a fixed sum, and
+appropriate the surplus to his own use. She pleaded with him to go away
+with her from Hampton at the time of the exodus, but she would not force
+him to leave his family. Still he hated to be a slave, and he talked
+like a philosopher about his rights. No captive in the galleys of
+Algiers, not Lafayette in an Austrian dungeon, ever pined more for free
+air. He had saved eighteen hundred dollars of his surplus earnings in
+attending on visitors at Old Point, and had spent it all in litigation
+to secure the freedom of his wife and children, belonging to another
+master, whose will had emancipated them, but was contested on the ground
+of the insanity of the testator. He had won a verdict, but his lawyers
+told him they could not obtain a judgment upon it, as the judge was
+unfavorable to freedom.
+
+The most frequent question asked of one who has had any means of
+communication with the contrabands during the war is in relation to
+their knowledge of its cause and purposes, and their interest in it. One
+thing was evident,--indeed, you could not talk with a slave who did not
+without prompting give the same testimony,--that their masters had been
+most industrious in their attempts to persuade them that the Yankees
+were coming down there only to get the land,--that they would kill the
+negroes and manure the ground with them, or carry them off to Cuba or
+Hayti and sell them. An intelligent man who had belonged to Colonel
+Joseph Segar--almost the only Union man at heart in that region, and who
+for that reason, being in Washington at the time the war began, had not
+dared to return to Hampton--served the staff of General Pierce. He bore
+the highest testimony to the kindness of his master, who, he said, told
+him to remain,--that the Yankees were the friends of his people, and
+would use them well. "But," said David,--for that was his name,--"I
+never heard of any other master who talked that way, but they all told
+the worst stories about the Yankees, and the mistresses were more
+furious even than the masters." David, I may add, spite of his good
+master, longed to be free.
+
+The masters, in their desperation, had within a few months resorted
+to another device to secure the loyalty of their slaves. The colored
+Baptist minister had been something of a pet among the whites, and had
+obtained subscriptions from some benevolent citizens to secure the
+freedom of a handsome daughter of his who was exposed to sale on an
+auction block, where her beauty inspired competition. Some leading
+Secessionists, Lawyer Hope for one, working somewhat upon his gratitude
+and somewhat upon his vanity, persuaded him to offer the services of
+himself and his sons, in a published communication, to the cause of
+Virginia and the Confederate States. The artifice did not succeed. He
+lost his hold on his congregation, and could not have safely remained
+after the whites left. He felt uneasy about his betrayal, and tried to
+restore himself to favor by saying that he meant no harm to his people;
+but his protestations were in vain. His was the deserved fate of those
+in all ages who, victims of folly or bribes, turn their backs on their
+fellows.
+
+Notwithstanding all these attempts, the negroes, with rare exceptions,
+still believed that the Yankees were their friends. They had learned
+something in Presidential elections, and they thought their masters
+could not hate us as they did, unless we were their friends. They
+believed that the troubles would somehow or other help them, although
+they did not understand all that was going on. They may be pardoned
+for their want of apprehension, when some of our public men, almost
+venerable, and reputed to be very wise and philosophical, are bewildered
+and grope blindly. They were somewhat perplexed by the contradictory
+statements of our soldiers, some of whom, according to their wishes,
+said the contest was for them, and others that it did not concern them
+at all and they would remain as before. If it was explained to them,
+that Lincoln was chosen by a party who were opposed to extending
+slavery, but who were also opposed to interfering with it in
+Virginia,--that Virginia and the South had rebelled, and we had come to
+suppress the rebellion,--and although the object of the war was not to
+emancipate them, yet that might be its result,--they answered, that they
+understood the statement perfectly. They did not seem inclined to fight,
+although willing to work. More could not be expected of them while
+nothing is promised to them. What latent inspirations they may have
+remains to be seen. They had at first a mysterious dread of fire-arms,
+but familiarity is rapidly removing that.
+
+The religious element of their life has been noticed. They said they
+had prayed for this day, and God had sent Lincoln in answer to their
+prayers. We used to overhear their family devotions, somewhat loud
+according to their manner, in which they prayed earnestly for our
+troops. They built their hopes of freedom on Scriptural examples,
+regarding the deliverance of Daniel from the lions' den, and of the
+Three Children from the furnace, as symbolic of their coming freedom.
+One said to me, that masters, before they died, by their wills sometimes
+freed their slaves, and he thought that a _type_ that they should become
+free.
+
+One Saturday evening one of them asked me to call and see him at his
+home the next morning. I did so, and he handed me a Bible belonging
+to his mistress, who had died a few days before, and whose bier I had
+helped to carry to the family vault. He wanted me to read to him the
+eleventh chapter of Daniel. It seemed, that, as one of the means of
+keeping them quiet, the white clergymen during the winter and spring
+had read them some verses from it to show that the South would prevail,
+enforcing passages which ascribed great dominion to "the king of the
+South," and suppressing those which subsequently give the supremacy to
+"the king of the North." A colored man who could read had found the
+latter passages and made them known. The chapter is dark with mystery,
+and my auditor, quite perplexed as I read on, remarked, "The Bible is a
+very mysterious book." I read to him also the thirty-fourth chapter of
+Jeremiah, wherein the sad prophet of Israel records the denunciations
+by Jehovah of sword, pestilence, and famine against the Jews for not
+proclaiming liberty to their servants and handmaids. He had not known
+before that there were such passages in the Bible.
+
+The conversations of the contrabands on their title to be regarded as
+freemen showed reflection. When asked if they thought themselves fit for
+freedom, and if the darkies were not lazy, their answer was, "Who
+but the darkies cleared all the land round here? Yes, there are lazy
+darkies, but there are more lazy whites." When told that the free blacks
+had not succeeded, they answered that the free blacks have not had a
+fair chance under the laws,--that they don't dare to enforce their
+claims against white men,--that a free colored blacksmith had a thousand
+dollars due to him from white men, but he was afraid to sue for any
+portion of it. One man, when asked why he ought to be free, replied,--"I
+feed and clothe myself and pay my master one hundred and twenty dollars
+a year; and the one hundred and twenty dollars is just so much taken
+from me, which ought to be used to make me and my children comfortable."
+Indeed, broken as was their speech and limited as was their knowledge,
+they reasoned abstractly on their rights as well as white men. Locke or
+Channing might have fortified the argument for universal liberty from
+their simple talk. So true is it that the best thoughts which the human
+intellect has produced have come, not from affluent learning or ornate
+speech, but from the original elements of our nature, common to all
+races of men and all conditions in life; and genius the highest and most
+cultured may bend with profit to catch the lowliest of human utterances.
+
+There was a very general desire among the contrabands to know how to
+read. A few had learned; and these, in every instance where we inquired
+as to their teacher, had been taught on the sly in their childhood by
+their white playmates. Others knew their letters, but could not "put
+them together," as they said. I remember of a summer's afternoon seeing
+a young married woman, perhaps twenty-five years old, seated on a
+door-step with her primer before her, trying to make progress.
+
+In natural tact and the faculty of getting a livelihood the contrabands
+are inferior to the Yankees, but quite equal to the mass of the Southern
+population. It is not easy to see why they would be less industrious, if
+free, than the whites, particularly as they would have the encouragement
+of wages. There would be transient difficulties at the outset, but no
+more than a bad system lasting for ages might be expected to leave
+behind. The first generation might be unfitted for the active duties and
+responsibilities of citizenship; but this difficulty, under generous
+provisions for education, would not pass to the next. Even now they are
+not so much behind the masses of the whites. Of the Virginians who took
+the oath of allegiance at Hampton, not more than one in fifteen could
+write his name, and the rolls captured at Hatteras disclose an equally
+deplorable ignorance. The contrabands might be less addicted than the
+now dominant race to bowie-knives and duels, think less of the value
+of bludgeons as forensic arguments, be less inhospitable to innocent
+sojourners from Free States, and have far inferior skill in robbing
+forts and arsenals, plundering the Treasury, and betraying the country
+at whose crib they had fattened; but mankind would forgive them for not
+acquiring these accomplishments of modern treason. As a race, they may
+be less vigorous and thrifty than the Saxon, but they are more social,
+docile, and affectionate, fulfilling the theory which Channing held in
+relation to them, if advanced to freedom and civilization.
+
+If in the progress of the war they should be called to bear arms, there
+need be no reasonable apprehension that they would exhibit the ferocity
+of savage races. Unlike such, they have been subordinated to civilized
+life. They are by nature a religious people. They have received an
+education in the Christian faith from devout teachers of their own and
+of the dominant race. Some have been taught (let us believe it) by
+the precepts of Christian masters, and some by the children of those
+masters, repeating the lessons of the Sabbath-school. The slaveholders
+assure us that they have all been well treated. If that be so, they have
+no wrongs to avenge. Associated with our army, they would conform to
+the stronger and more disciplined race. Nor is this view disproved by
+servile insurrections. In those cases, the insurgents, without arms,
+without allies, without discipline, but throwing themselves against
+society, against government, against everything, saw no other escape
+than to devastate and destroy without mercy in order to get a foothold.
+If they exterminated, it was because extermination was threatened
+against them. In the Revolution, in the army at Cambridge, from the
+beginning to the close of the war, against the protests of South
+Carolina by the voice of Edward Rutledge, but with the express sanction
+of Washington,--ever just, ever grateful for patriotism, whencesoever
+it came,--the negroes fought in the ranks with the white men, and they
+never dishonored the patriot cause. So also at the defence of New
+Orleans they received from General Jackson a noble tribute to their
+fidelity and soldier-like bearing. Weighing the question historically
+and reflectively, and anticipating the capture of Richmond and New
+Orleans, there need be more serious apprehension of the conduct of
+some of our own troops recruited in large cities than of a regiment of
+contrabands officered and disciplined by white men.
+
+But as events travel faster than laws or proclamations, already in
+this war with Rebellion the two races have served together. The same
+breastworks have been built by their common toil. True and valiant, they
+stood side by side in the din of cannonade, and they shared as comrades
+in the victory of Hatteras. History will not fail to record that on the
+28th day of August, 1861, when the Rebel forts were bombarded by the
+Federal army and navy, under the command of Major-General Butler and
+Commodore Stringham, fourteen negroes, lately Virginia slaves, now
+contraband of war, faithfully and without panic worked the after-gun of
+the upper deck of the Minnesota, and hailed with a victor's pride the
+Stars and Stripes as they again waved on the soil of the Carolinas.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD.
+
+
+  Along a river-side, I know not where,
+  I walked last night in mystery of dream;
+  A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair,
+  To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam
+  Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.
+
+  Pale fire-flies pulsed within the meadow mist
+  Their halos, wavering thistle-downs of light;
+  The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst,
+  Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright,
+  Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night.
+
+  Then all was silent, till there smote my ear
+  A movement in the stream that checked my breath:
+  Was it the slow plash of a wading deer?
+  But something said, "This water is of Death!
+  The Sisters wash a Shroud,--ill thing to hear!"
+
+  I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three,
+  Known to the Greek's and to the Norseman's creed,
+  That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree,
+  Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede,
+  One song: "Time was, Time is, and Time shall be."
+
+  No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed,
+  But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow,
+  To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed;
+  Something too deep for joy, too high for sorrow,
+  Thrilled in their tones and from their faces gleamed.
+
+  "Still men and nations reap as they have strawn,"--
+  So sang they, working at their task the while,--
+  "The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn:
+  For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queen's Isle?
+  O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn?
+
+  "Or is it for a younger, fairer corse,
+  That gathered States for children round his knees,
+  That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse,
+  The forest-feller, linker of the seas,
+  Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?
+
+  "What make we, murmur'st thou, and what are we?
+  When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud,
+  The time-old web of the implacable Three:
+  Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud?
+  Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it; why not he?"
+
+  "Is there no hope?" I moaned. "So strong, so fair!
+  Our Fowler, whose proud bird would brook erewhile
+  No rival's swoop in all our western air!
+  Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file,
+  For him, life's morn-gold bright yet in his hair?
+
+  "Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames!
+  I see, half-seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned
+  The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims
+  Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands?
+  Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names?"
+
+  "When grass-blades stiffen with red battle-dew,
+  Ye deem we choose the victors and the slain:
+  Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true
+  To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain?
+  Yet here the victory is, if ye but knew.
+
+  "Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,--
+  These two are strong, but stronger yet the third,--
+  Obedience, the great tap-root, that still,
+  Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,
+  Though the storm's ploughshare spend its utmost skill.
+
+  "Is the doom sealed for Hesper? 'T is not we
+  Denounce it, but the Law before all time:
+  The brave makes danger opportunity;
+  The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime,
+  Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be?
+
+  "Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat
+  To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw?
+  Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet
+  Than wisdom? held Opinion's wind for law?
+  Then let him hearken for the headsman's feet!
+
+  "Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock,
+  States climb to power by; slippery those with gold
+  Down which they stumble to eternal mock:
+  No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold,
+  Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block.
+
+  "We sing old sagas, songs of weal and woe,
+  Mystic because too cheaply understood;
+  Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know,
+  See Evil weak, see only strong the Good,
+  Yet hope to balk Doom's fire with walls of tow.
+
+  "Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is,
+  That offers choice of glory and of gloom;
+  The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his.--
+  But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb
+  Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss."
+
+  "But not for him," I cried, "not yet for him,
+  Whose large horizon, westering, star by star
+  Wins from the void to where on ocean's rim
+  The sunset shuts the world with golden bar,--
+  Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim!
+
+  "His shall be larger manhood, saved for those
+  That walk unblenching through the trial-fires;
+  Not suffering, but faint heart is worst of woes,
+  And he no base-born son of craven sires,
+  Whose eye need droop, confronted with his foes.
+
+  "Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win
+  Death's royal purple in the enemy's lines:
+  Peace, too, brings tears; and 'mid the battle-din,
+  The wiser ear some text of God divines;
+  For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin.
+
+  "God, give us peace!--not such as lulls to sleep,
+  But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit!
+  And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,
+  Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit,
+  And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap!"
+
+  So said I, with clenched hands and passionate pain,
+  Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side:
+  Again the loon laughed, mocking; and again
+  The echoes bayed far down the night, and died,
+  While waking I recalled my wandering brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_Sermons preached in the Chapel of Harvard College._ By JAMES WALKER,
+D.D. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo.
+
+The great reputation which Dr. Walker has long enjoyed, as one of the
+most impressive pulpit orators of the country, will suffer little
+diminution by the publication of these specimens of his rare powers of
+statement, argument, and illustration. To the general reader, they are,
+to be sure, deprived of the fascination of his voice and manner; but
+as the peculiarities of his elocution have their source in the
+peculiarities of his mental and moral organization, it will be found
+that the style and structure of these printed sermons suggest the mule
+of their delivery, which is simply the emphatic utterance of emphatic
+thought. The Italicized words, with which the volume abounds, palpably
+mark the results of thinking, and arrest attention because they are not
+less emphasized by the intellect than by the type. In reflecting Dr.
+Walker's mind, the work at the same time reflects his manner.
+
+Every reader of these sermons will be struck by their thorough
+reasonableness,--a reasonableness which does not exclude, but includes,
+the deepest and warmest religious sensibility. Moral and religious
+feeling pervades every statement; but the feeling is still confined
+within a flexible framework of argument, which, while it enlarges with
+every access of emotion, is always an outlying boundary of thought,
+beyond which passion does not pass. Light continually asserts itself as
+more comprehensive in its reach than heat; and the noblest spiritual
+instincts and impulses are never allowed unchecked expression as
+sentiments, but have to submit to the restraints imposed by principles.
+Even in the remarkable sermon entitled, "The Heart more than the Head,"
+it will be found that it is the head which legitimates the action of
+the heart. The sentiments are exalted above the intellect by a process
+purely intellectual, and the inferiority of the reason is shown to be
+a principle essentially reasonable. Thus, throughout the volume, the
+author's mental insight into the complex phenomena of our spiritual
+nature is always accompanied by a mental oversight of its actual and
+possible aberrations. A sound, large, "round-about" common sense, keen,
+eager, vigilant, sagacious, encompasses all the emotional elements of
+his thought. He has a subtile sense of mystery, but he is not a mystic.
+The most marvellous workings of the Divine Spirit he apprehends under
+the conditions of Law, and even in the raptures of devotion he never
+forgets the relation of cause and effect.
+
+The style of these sermons is what might be expected from the character
+of the mind it expresses. If Dr. Walker were not a thinker, it is plain
+that he could never have been a rhetorician. He has no power at all as
+a writer, if writing be considered an accomplishment which can be
+separated from earnest thinking. Words are, with him, the mere
+instruments for the expression of things; and he hits on felicitous
+words only under that impatient stress of thought which demands exact
+expression for definite ideas. All his words, simple as they are, are
+therefore fairly earned, and he gives to them a force and significance
+which they do not bear in the dictionary. The mind of the writer is felt
+beating and burning beneath his phraseology, stamping every word with
+the image of a thought. Largeness of intellect, acute discrimination,
+clear and explicit statement, masterly arrangement of matter, an
+unmistakable performance of the real business of expression,--these
+qualities make every reader of the sermons conscious that a mind of
+great vigor, breadth, and pungency is brought into direct contact
+with his own. The almost ostentatious absence of "fine writing" only
+increases the effect of the plain and sinewy words.
+
+If we pass from the form to the substance of Dr. Walker's teachings, we
+shall find that his sermons are especially characterized by practical
+wisdom. A scholar, a moralist, a metaphysician, a theologian, learned
+in all the lore and trained in the best methods of the schools, he is
+distinguished from most scholars by his broad grasp of every-day life.
+It is this quality which has given him his wide influence as a preacher,
+and this is a prominent charm of his printed sermons. He brings
+principles to the test of facts, and connects thoughts with things. The
+conscience which can easily elude the threats, the monitions, and the
+appeals of ordinary sermonizers, finds itself mastered by his mingled
+fervor, logic, and practical knowledge. Every sermon in the present
+volume is good for use, and furnishes both inducements and aids to the
+formation of manly Christian character. There is much, of course, to
+lift the depressed and inspire the weak; but the great peculiarity of
+the discourses is the resolute energy with which they grapple with the
+worldliness and sin of the proud and the strong.
+
+
+_The Monks of the West, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard_. By the COUNT
+DE MONTALEMBERT, Member of the French Academy. Authorized Translation.
+Volumes I. and II. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons. 1861. 8vo.
+pp. xii. and 515, 549.
+
+These volumes form the first instalment of a work in which one of the
+great lights of the Romish Church in our day proposes to recount the
+glories of Western Monasticism, and to narrate the lives of some of the
+remarkable men who successively passed from the cloister to the Papal
+throne, or in positions scarcely less conspicuous permanently affected
+the history of the Church. His original design, however, does not appear
+to have extended beyond writing the life of St. Bernard of Clairvaux,
+which he intended to make in some measure a complement to his life of
+St. Elizabeth of Hungary. But he judged rightly, that, in order to
+exhibit the character and influence of that remarkable man under all
+their various aspects, it was needful at the outset to retrace the early
+history of monastic institutions in the West, and to show how far
+they tended to prepare the way for such a man. Only a part of this
+preliminary task has been accomplished as yet; but enough has been done
+to show in what spirit the historian has approached his subject, how
+thoroughly he has explored the original sources of information, and
+what will probably be the real worth of his labors. For such a
+work Montalembert possesses adequate and in some respects peculiar
+qualifications. His learning, eloquence, and candor will be conceded by
+every one who is familiar with his previous writings or with his public
+life; and at the same time he unites a passionate love of liberty,
+everywhere apparent in his book, with a zeal for the Church, worthy of
+any of the monks whom he commemorates. While his narrative is always
+animated and picturesque, and often rises into passages of fervid
+eloquence, he has conducted his researches with the unwearied
+perseverance of a mere antiquary, and has exhausted every source of
+information. "Every word which I have written," he says, "has been drawn
+from original and contemporary sources; and if I have quoted facts
+or expressions from second-hand authors, it has never been without
+attentively verifying the original or completing the text. A single
+date, quotation, or note, apparently insignificant, has often cost me
+hours and sometimes days of labor. I have never contented myself with
+being approximately right, nor resigned myself to doubt until every
+chance of arriving at certainty was exhausted." To the spirit and temper
+in which the book is written no well-founded exception can be taken; but
+considerable abatement must be made from the author's estimate of
+the services rendered by the monks to Christian civilization, and no
+Protestant will accept his views as to the permanent worth of monastic
+institutions. With this qualification, and with some allowance for
+needless repetitions, we cannot but regard his work as a most attractive
+and eloquent contribution to ecclesiastical history.
+
+About half of the first volume is devoted to a General Introduction,
+explanatory of the origin and design of the work, but mainly intended to
+paint the character of monastic institutions, to describe the happiness
+of a religious life, and to examine the charges brought against the
+monks. These topics are considered in ten chapters, filled with curious
+details, and written with an eloquence and an earnestness which it is
+difficult for the reader to resist. Following this we have a short and
+brilliant sketch of the social and political condition of the Roman
+Empire after the conversion of Constantine, exhibiting by a few masterly
+touches its wide-spread corruption, the feebleness of its rulers, and
+the utter degradation of the people. The next two books treat of the
+Monastic Precursors in the East as well as in the West, and present a
+series of brief biographical sketches of the most famous monks, from
+St. Anthony, the father of Eastern monasticism, to St. Benedict,
+the earliest legislator for the monasteries of the West. Among the
+illustrious men who pass before us in this review, and all of whom are
+skilfully delineated, are Basil of Caesarea and his friend Gregory
+Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Athanasius, Martin of Tours,
+and the numerous company of saints and doctors nurtured in the great
+monastery of Lerins. And though an account of the saintly women who have
+led lives of seclusion would scarcely seem to be included under the
+title of Montalembert's work, he does not neglect to add sketches of the
+most conspicuous of them,--Euphrosyne, Pelagia, Marcella, Furia, and
+others. These preliminary sketches fill the last half of the first
+volume.
+
+The Fourth Book comprises an account of the Life and Rule of St.
+Benedict, and properly opens the history which Montalembert proposes
+to narrate. It presents a sufficiently minute sketch of the personal
+history of Benedict and his immediate followers; but its chief merit is
+in its very ample and satisfactory exposition of the Benedictine Rule.
+The next book traces the history of monastic institutions in Italy and
+Spain during the sixth and seventh centuries, and includes biographical
+notices of Cassiodorus, the founder of the once famous monastery of
+Viviers in Calabria, of St. Gregory the Great, of Leander, Bishop of
+Seville, and his brother Isidore, of Ildefonso of Toledo, and of many
+others of scarcely less renown in the early monastic records. The Sixth
+Book is devoted to the monks under the first Merovingians, and is
+divided into five sections, treating respectively of the conquest
+of Gaul by the Franks, of the arrival of St. Maur in Anjou and the
+propagation of the Benedictine rule there, of the relations previously
+existing between the monks and the Merovingians, of St. Radegund and her
+followers, and of the services of the monks in clearing the forests
+and opening the way for the advance of civilization. The Seventh Book
+records the life of St. Columbanus, and describes at much length his
+labors in Gaul, as well as those of his disciples, both in the great
+monastery of Luxeuil and in the numerous colonies which issued from it
+and spread over the whole neighborhood, bringing the narrative down
+to the close of the seventh century. At this point the portion of
+Montalembert's work now published terminates, leaving, we presume,
+several additional volumes to follow. For their appearance we shall look
+with much interest. If the remainder is executed in the same spirit as
+the portion now before us, and is marked by the same diligent study of
+the original authorities and the same persuasive eloquence, it will form
+one of the most valuable of the many attractive monographs which we
+owe to the French historians of our time, and will be read with equal
+interest by Catholics and Protestants.
+
+
+_Eighty Years' Progress of the United States, showing the Various
+Channels of Industry and Education through which the People of the
+United States have arisen from a British Colony to their Present
+National Importance_. Illustrated with over Two Hundred Engravings. New
+York: 51 John Street. Worcester: L. Stebbins. Two Volumes. 8vo.
+
+A vast amount of useful information is treasured up in these two
+national volumes. Agriculture, commerce and trade, the cultivation of
+cotton, education, the arts of design, banking, mining, steam, the
+fur-trade, etc., are subjects of interest everywhere, and the present
+writers seem to be specially competent for the task they have assumed.
+If the household library should possess such books more frequently, less
+ignorance would prevail on topics concerning which every American ought
+to be well-informed. Woful silence usually prevails when a foreigner
+asks for statistics on any point connected with our industrial progress,
+and very few take the trouble to get at facts which are easy enough
+to be had with a little painstaking. We are glad to see so much good
+material brought together as we find in these two well-filled volumes.
+
+
+_Electro-Physiology and Electro-Therapeutics: Showing the Rules and
+Methods for the Employment of Galvanism in Nervous Diseases_, etc.
+Second Edition, with Additions. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861.
+
+At a time when the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile of the medical
+world is pretty thoroughly breached, if not thrown down, and quackery
+and imposture are tolerated as necessary evils, it is agreeable to meet
+with a real work of science, emanating from the labors of a regular
+physician, concerning the influences exerted by electricity on the human
+body, both in health and disease.
+
+Electricity is one of the great powers of Nature, pervading all matter,
+existing in all mineral, vegetable, and animal bodies, not only acting
+in the combinations of the elements and molecules, but also serving as a
+means for their separation from each other. This imponderable fluid or
+power, whatever it may be, whether one or two, or a polarization of one
+force into the states + and -, is one of the most active agencies known
+to man, and although not capable of being weighed in the balance, is not
+found wanting anywhere in Nature. It courses in great currents beneath
+our feet, in the solid rocks of the earth, penetrating to the very
+interior of the globe, while it also rushes through our atmosphere in
+lurid flashes, and startles us with the crash and roar of heaven's
+artillery. It gives magnetic polarity to the earth, and directs the
+needle by its influence; for magnetic attraction is only an effect of
+the earth's thermo-electricity, excited by the sun's rays acting in
+a continuous course. Both animal and vegetable life are dependent on
+electric forces for their development; and many of their functions,
+directly or indirectly, result from their agency.
+
+If this force controls to a great degree the living functions of our
+organs in their healthy action, it must be that it is concerned in those
+derangements and lesions which constitute disease and abnormal actions
+or disorders. It must have a remedial and the opposite effect, according
+as it is applied.
+
+Is such a gigantic power to be left in the hands of charlatans, or shall
+it be reserved for application by scientific physicians? This is a
+question we must meet and answer practically.
+
+It may be asked why a force of this nature has been so long neglected by
+practising physicians. The answer is very simple, and will be recognized
+as true by all middle-aged physicians in this country.
+
+For the past fifty years it has been customary to state in lectures in
+our medical colleges, that "chemistry has nothing to do with medicine";
+and since our teachers knew nothing of the subject themselves, they
+denounced such knowledge as unnecessary to the physician. Electricity,
+the great moving power in all chemical actions, shared the fate of
+chemistry in general, and met with condemnation without trial. A young
+physician did not dare to meddle with chemicals or with any branch of
+natural or experimental science for fear of losing his chance of medical
+employment by sinking the doctor among his gallipots.
+
+Electricity, thus neglected, fell into the hands of irregular
+practitioners, and was as often used injuriously as beneficially, and
+more frequently without any effect. The absurd pretensions of galvanic
+baths for the extraction of mercury from the system will be remembered
+by most of our citizens, and the shocking practice of others is not
+forgotten.
+
+It was therefore earnestly desired by medical practitioners who
+themselves were not by education competent to manage electric and
+galvanic machinery, that some medical man of good standing, who had
+made a special study of this subject, should undertake the treatment of
+diseases requiring the use of electricity. Dr. Garratt was induced
+to undertake this important duty, and he has prepared a work on this
+practice which embraces all that has appeared in the writings of others,
+both in this country and Europe, while he has, from his own researches
+and rich experience, added much new matter of great practical value.
+Among his original contributions we note,--
+
+1st. A definite, systematic method for the application of Galvanic and
+Faradaic currents of electricity to the human organism, for curing or
+aiding in the cure of given classes of diseases. (See pages 475, 479,
+and 669 to 706; also Chap. 5, p. 280.)
+
+2d. Improvements in the methods of applying electricity, as stated on
+pages 293 to 296, and 300, 329, and 332, which we have not room to copy.
+
+3d. He has introduced the term Faradaic current to represent the induced
+current, first discovered by Professor Henry, and so much extended in
+application by Faraday.
+
+4th. The determination of several definite points in sentient and
+mixed nerves, often the seats of neuralgic pain,--thus correcting Dr.
+Valleix's painful points.
+
+5th. The treatment of uterine, and some other female disorders, by means
+of the induced galvanic current (pages 612 to 621).
+
+A careful examination of this book shows it to contain a very full
+_résumé_ of the best which have been written on the subjects embraced
+under the medical applications of electricity in its various modes of
+development, and a careful analysis of the doctrines of others; while
+the author has given frankly an account of cases in which he has failed,
+as of those in which he has been successful. He does not offer electric
+treatment as a panacea for "all the ills which flesh is heir to," but
+shows how far and in what cases it proves beneficial. He has shown that
+there is a right and a wrong way of operating, and that mischief may be
+done by an unskilful hand, while one who is well qualified by scientific
+knowledge and practical experience may do much good, and in many
+diseases,--more especially in those of the nerves, such as neuralgia
+and partial paralysis, in which remarkable cures have been effected. We
+commend this work to the attention of medical gentlemen, and especially
+to students of medicine who wish to be posted up in the novel methods
+of treating diseases. It is also a book which all scientific men may
+consult with advantage, and which will gratify the curiosity of the
+general scholar.
+
+
+_Memoir of Edward Forbes, F.R.S., Late Regius Professor of Natural
+History in the University of Edinburgh_. By GEORGE WILSON, M.D.,
+F.R.S.E., and ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F.R.S.E., etc. Cambridge and London:
+MacMillan & Co.
+
+Dr. Wilson did not live to finish the memoir which he so ably began.
+The great naturalist, Edward Forbes, deserved the best from his
+contemporaries, and we are glad to have the combined labors of such
+distinguished men as Wilson and Geikie put forth in commemoration of
+him. The chair of Natural History at Edinburgh was honored by him
+whose biography is now before us. His advent to that eminent post was
+everywhere hailed with a unanimity that augured well for his career, and
+no one could have been chosen to succeed the illustrious Jameson for
+whom there could have been more enthusiasm. His admitted genius and the
+range of his acquirements fully entitled him to the office, and all who
+know him looked forward to brilliant accomplishments in his varied paths
+of science. Death closed the brief years of this earnest student at the
+early age of thirty-nine. Cut off in the prime of his days, with his
+powers and purposes but partially unfolded, he yet shows grandly among
+the best men of his time.
+
+
+
+
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+
+Great Expectations. By Charles Dickens. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson &
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+the Forms of Words, and First Lessons in Reading. By George W. Collord,
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+
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+Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 354. $1.25.
+
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+
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+
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+York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 405. $1.00.
+
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+J.A. Jacobs, A.M. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 18mo. pp. 330. 50 cts.
+
+First Lessons in Greek: the Beginner's Companion-Book to Hadley's
+Grammar. By James Morris Whiton. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp.
+120. 75 cts.
+
+Precaution. A Novel. By J. Fenimore Cooper. With a Discourse on the
+Life, Genius, and Writings of the Author, by William Cullen Bryant.
+Illustrated from Drawings by F.O.C. Darley. New York. W.A. Townsend &
+Co. 12mo. pp. 485. $1.50.
+
+Eighty Years' Progress of the United States, showing the Various
+Channels of Industry and Education through which the People of the
+United States have arisen from a British Colony to their Present
+National Importance. Illustrated with over Two Hundred Engravings. New
+York and Worcester. L. Stebbins. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 457, 455. $5.00.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 8, ISSUE
+49, NOVEMBER, 1861***
+
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