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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:02 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:02 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11465-0.txt b/11465-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07e9dda --- /dev/null +++ b/11465-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8581 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11465 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS + +VOL. VI.--DECEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVIII + + + + + + + +THE UNITED STATES AND THE BARBARY STATES. + +Speak of the relations between the United States and the Barbary +Regencies at the beginning of the century, and most of our countrymen +will understand the War with Tripoli. Ask them about that Yankee crusade +against the Infidel, and you will find their knowledge of it limited to +Preble's attack. On this bright spot in the story the American mind is +fixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twenty +years. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes the +shape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to pay +tribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle in +the maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patriotic +delusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha was +simply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason; +but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to. + +The burning of the Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are much +too fine a subject for rhetorical pyrotechnics to have escaped lecturers +and orators of the Fourth-of-July school. We have all heard, time and +again, how Preble, Decatur, Trippe, and Somers cannonaded, sabred, and +blew up these pirates. We have seen, in perorations glowing with pink +fire, the Genius of America, in full naval uniform, sword in hand, +standing upon a quarter-deck, his foot upon the neck of a turbaned Turk, +while over all waves the flag of Freedom. + +The Moorish sketch is probably different. In it, Brother Jonathan must +appear with his liberty-cap in one hand and a bag of dollars in the +other, bowing humbly before a well-whiskered Mussulman, whose shawl is +stuck full of poniards and pistols. The smooth-faced unbeliever begs +that his little ships may be permitted to sail up and down this coast +unmolested, and promises to give these and other dollars, if his +Highness, the Pacha, will only command his men to keep the peace on the +high-seas. This picture is not so generally exhibited here; but it is +quite as correct as the other, and as true to the period. + +The year after Preble's recall, another New-England man, William Eaton, +led an army of nine Americans from Egypt to Derne, the easternmost +province of Tripoli,--a march of five hundred miles over the Desert. He +took the capital town by storm, and would have conquered the whole +Regency, if he had been supplied with men and money from our fleet. +"Certainly," says Pascal Paoli Peek, a non-commissioned officer of +marines, one of the nine, "certainly it was one of the most +extraordinary expeditions ever set on foot." Whoever reads the story +will be of the same opinion as this marine with the wonderful name. +Never was the war carried into Africa with a force so small and with +completer success. Yet Eaton has not had the luck of fame. He was nearly +forgotten, in spite of a well-written Life by President Felton, in +Sparks's Collection, until a short time since; when he was placed before +the public in a somewhat melodramatic attitude, by an article in a New +York pictorial monthly. It is not easy to explain this neglect. We know +that our Temple of Fame is a small building as yet, and that it has a +great many inhabitants,--so many, indeed, that worthy heroes may easily +be overlooked by visitors who do not consult the catalogue. But a man +who has added a brilliant page to the _Gesta Dei per Novanglos_ deserves +a conspicuous niche. A brief sketch of his doings in Africa will give a +good view of the position of the United States in Barbary, in the first +years of the Republic. + +Sixty years ago, civilized Europe not only tolerated the robbery, the +murder, and the carrying into captivity of her own people, but actually +recognized this triple atrocity as a privilege inherent to certain +persons of Turkish descent and Mahometan religion inhabiting the +northern coast of Africa. England or France might have put them down by +a word long before; but, as the corsairs chiefly ravaged the defenceless +coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, the two great powers had no +particular interest in crushing them. And there was always some jealous +calculation of advantage, some pitiful project of turning them to future +account, which prevented decisive action on the part of either nation. +Then the wars which followed the French Revolution kept Europe busy at +home and gave the Barbary sailors the opportunity of following their +calling for a few years longer with impunity. The English, with large +fleets and naval stations in the Mediterranean, had nothing to fear from +them, and were, probably, not much displeased with the contributions +levied upon the commerce of other nations. Barbary piracy was a +protective tax in favor of British bottoms. French merchantmen kept at +home. Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland tried to outbid one another +for the favor of the Dey, Bey, and Pacha, and were robbed and enslaved +whenever it suited the interests of their Highnesses. The Portuguese +kept out of the Mediterranean, and protected their coast by guarding the +Straits of Gibraltar. + +Not long before the French Revolution, a new flag in their waters had +attracted the greedy eyes of the Barbarians. When they learned that it +belonged to a nation thousands of miles away, once a colony of England, +but now no longer under her protection, they blessed Allah and the +Prophet for sending these fish to their nets; and many Americans were +made to taste the delights of the Patriarchal Institution in the +dockyards of Algiers. As soon as the Federal Government was fairly +established, Washington recommended to Congress to build a fleet for the +protection of citizens in the Mediterranean. But the young nation needed +at first all its strength to keep itself upright at home; and the +opposition party professed a theory, that it would be safer and cheaper +for the United States to give up ships altogether, and to get other +people to carry for them. Consequently the plan of negotiating was +resorted to. Agents were sent to Algiers to ransom the captives and to +obtain a treaty by presents and the payment of a fixed tribute. Such a +treaty was made in the summer of 1796. In March of the succeeding year, +the Dey showed so much ill-temper at the backwardness of our payments, +that Joel Barlow, the American Commissioner, thought it necessary to +soothe his Highness by the promise of a frigate to be built and equipped +in the United States. Thus, with Christian meekness, we furnished the +Mussulman with a rod for our own backs. These arrangements cost the +United States about a million of dollars, all expenses included. + +Having pacified Algiers, Mr. Barlow turned his attention to Tunis. +Instead of visiting the Bey in person, he appointed a European merchant, +named Famin, residing in Tunis, agent to negotiate a treaty for the +United States. Of Famin Mr. Barlow knew nothing, but considered his +French birth and the recommendation of the French Consul for Algiers +sufficient proofs of his qualifications. Besides attending to his own +trade, Monsieur Famin was in the habit of doing a little business for +the Bey, and took care to make the treaty conform to the wishes of his +powerful partner. The United States were to pay for the friendship and +forbearance of Tunis one hundred and seven thousand dollars in money, +jewels, and naval stores. Tunisian cargoes were to be admitted into +American ports on payment of three per cent; the same duty to be levied +at Tunis on American shipments. If the Bey saluted an American +man-of-war, he was to receive a barrel of powder for every gun fired. +And he reserved the right of taking any American ship that might be in +his harbor into his service to carry despatches or a cargo to any port +in the Mediterranean. + +When the treaty reached the United States, the Senate refused to ratify +it. President Adams appointed Eaton, formerly a captain in the army, +Consul for Tunis, with directions to present objections to the articles +on the tariff, salutes, and impressment of vessels. Mr. Cathcart, Consul +for Tripoli, was joined with him in the commission. They sailed in the +United States brig Sophia, in December, 1798, and convoyed the ship Hero +laden with naval stores, an armed brig, and two armed schooners. These +vessels they delivered to the Dey of Algiers "for arrearages of +stipulation and present dues." The offerings of his Transatlantic +tributaries were pleasing to the Dey. He admitted the Consuls to an +audience. After their shoes had been taken en off at the door of the +presence-chamber, they were allowed to advance and kiss his hand. This +ceremony over, the Sophia sailed for Tunis. + +Here the envoys found a more difficult task before them. The Bey had +heard of the ships and cargoes left at Algiers, and asked at once, Where +were all the good things promised to him by Famin? The Consuls presented +President Adam's letter of polite excuses, addressed to the Prince of +Tunis, "the well-guarded city, the abode of felicity." The Bey read it, +and repeated his question,--"Why has the Prince of America not sent the +hundred and seven thousand dollars?" The Consuls endeavored to explain +the dependence of their Bey on his Grand Council, the Senate, which +august body objected to certain stipulations in Famin's treaty. If his +Highness of Tunis would consent to strike out or modify these articles, +the Senate would ratify the treaty, and the President would send the +money as soon as possible. But the Bey was not to be talked over; he +refused to be led away from the main question,--"Where are the money, +the regalia, the naval stores?" He could take but one view of the case: +he had been trifled with; the Prince of America was not in earnest. + +Monsieur Famin, who found himself turned out of office by the +Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises +were insincere, and any expectations built upon them likely to +prove delusive. + +After some weeks spent in stormy negotiations, this modification of the +articles was agreed upon. The duty might be three or three hundred per +cent., if the Consuls wished it, but it should be reciprocal. The Bey +refused to give up the powder: fifteen barrels of powder, he said, might +get him a prize worth a hundred thousand dollars; but salutes were not +to be fired, unless demanded by the Consul on the part of the United +States. The Bey also persisted in his intention of pressing American +vessels into his service; but he waived this claim in the case of +national ships, and promised not to take merchantmen, if he could +possibly do without them. + +Convinced that no better terms could be obtained, Cathcart sailed for +Tripoli, to encounter fresh troubles, leaving Eaton alone to bear the +greediness and insolence of Tunis. The Bey and his staff were legitimate +descendants of the two daughters of the horse-leech; their daily cry +was, "Give! give!" The Bey told Eaton to get him a frigate like the one +built for the Algerines. + +"You will find I am as much to be feared as they. Your good faith I do +not doubt," he added, with a sneer, "but your presents have been +insignificant." + +"But your Highness, only a short time since, received fifty thousand +dollars from the United States." + +"Yes, but fifty thousand dollars are nothing, and you have since altered +the treaty; a new present is necessary; this is the custom." + +"Certainly," chorused the staff; "and it is also customary to make +presents to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary every time the +articles are changed, and also upon the arrival of a new Consul." + +To carry out this doctrine, the Admiral sent for a gold-headed cane, a +gold watch, and twelve pieces of cloth. The Prime Minister wanted a +double-barreled gun and a gold chain. The Aga of the Port said he would +be satisfied with some thing in the jewelry-line, simple, but rich. +Officials of low rank came in person to ask for coffee and sugar. Even +his Highness condescended to levy small contributions. Hearing that +Eaton had a Grecian mirror in his house, he requested that it might be +sent to decorate the cabin of his yacht. + +As month after month passed, and no tribute-ship arrived, the Bey's +threats grew louder and more frequent. At last he gave orders to fit out +his cruisers. Eaton sent letters of warning to the Consuls at Leghorn +and Gibraltar, and prepared to strike his flag. At the last moment the +Hero sailed into port, laden with naval stores such as never before had +been seen in Tunis. The Bey was softened. "It is well," he said; "this +looks a Lotte more like truth; but the guns, the powder, and the jewels +are not on board." + +A letter from Secretary Pickering instructed Eaton to try to divert the +Bey's mind from the jewels; but if that were impossible, to order them +in England, where they could be bought more cheaply; and to excuse the +delay by saying "that the President felt a confidence, that, on further +reflection upon all circumstances in relation to the United States, the +Bey would relinquish this claim, and therefore did not give orders to +provide the present." As the jewels had been repeatedly promised by the +United States, this weak attempt to avoid giving them was quite +consistent with the shabby national position we had taken In the +Mediterranean. It met with the success it deserved. The Bey was much too +shrewd a fellow, especially in the matter of presents, to be imposed +upon by any such Yankee pretences. The jewels were ordered in London, +and, as compensation for this new delay, the demand for a frigate was +renewed. After nearly two years of anxiety, Eaton could write home that +the prospects of peace were good. + +His despatches had not passed the Straits when the Pacha of Tripoli sent +for Consul Cathcart, and swore by "Allah and the head of his son," that, +unless the President would give him two hundred and fifty thousand +dollars for a new treaty, and an annual subsidy of twenty thousand, he +would declare war against the United States. + +These two years of petty humiliations had exasperated Eaton's bold and +fiery temper. He found some relief in horse-whipping Monsieur Famin, who +had been unceasing in his quiet annoyances, and in writing to the +Government at home despatches of a most undiplomatic warmth and +earnestness. From the first, he had advised the use of force. "If you +would have a free commerce in those seas, you must defend it. It is +useless to buy a peace. The more you give, the more the Turks will ask +for. Tribute is considered an evidence of your weakness; and contempt +stimulates cupidity. _Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange_. What are +you afraid of? The naval strength of the Regencies amounts to nothing. +If, instead of sending a sloop with presents to Tunis, you will consign +to me a transport with a thousand trusty marines, well officered, under +convoy of a forty-four-gun frigate, I pledge myself to surprise Porto +Farina and destroy the Bey's arsenal. As to Tripoli, two frigates and +four gun-boats would bring the Pacha to terms. But if you yield to his +new demands, you must make provision to pay Tunis double the amount, and +Algiers in proportion. Then, consider how shameful is your position, if +you submit. 'Tributary to the pitiful sand-bank of Tripoli?' says the +world; and the answer is affirmative, without a blush. Habit reconciles +mankind to everything, even humiliation, and custom veils disgrace. But +what would the world say, if Rhode Island should arm two old +merchantmen, put an Irish renegade into one and a Methodist preacher in +another, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Seignior? The +idea is ridiculous; but it is exactly as consistent as that Tripoli +should say to the American nation,--'Give me tribute, or tremble under +the chastisement of my navy!'" + +This was sharp language for a Consul to hold to a Secretary of State; +but it was as meekly borne as the other indignities which came +from Barbary. + +An occurrence in Algiers completes the picture of "Americans in the +Mediterranean" in the year 1800. In October, the United States ship +Washington, Captain Bainbridge, lay in that port, about to sail for +home. The Dey sent for Consul O'Brien, and laid this alternative before +him: either the Washington should take the Algerine Ambassador to +Constantinople, or he, the Dey, would no longer hold to his friendship +with the United States. O'Brien expostulated warmly, but in vain. He +thought it his duty to submit. The Ambassador, his suite, amounting to +two hundred persons, their luggage and stores, horses, sheep, and horned +cattle, and their presents to the Sultan, of lions, tigers, and +antelopes, were sent on board. The Algerine flag was hoisted at the +main, saluted with seven guns, and the United States ship Washington +weighed anchor for Constantinople. + +Eaton's rage boiled over when he heard of this freak of the Dey. He +wrote to O'Brien,--"I frankly own, I would have lost the peace, and been +myself impaled, rather than have yielded this concession. Will nothing +rouse my country?"[1] + +When the news reached America, Mr. Jefferson was President. He was not +roused. He regretted the affair; but hoped that time, and a more correct +estimate of interest, would produce justice in the Dey's mind; and he +seemed to believe that the majesty of pure reason, more potent than the +music of Orpheus, + + "Dictas ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque + leones," + +would soften piratical Turks. Mr. Madison's despatch to O'Brien on the +subject is written in this spirit. "The sending to Constantinople the +national ship-of-war, the George Washington, by force, under the +Algerine flag, and for such a purpose, has deeply affected the +sensibility, not only of the President, but of the people of the United +States. Whatever temporary effects it may have had favorable to our +interest, the indignity is of so serious a nature, _that it is not +impossible that it may be deemed necessary, on a fit occasion, to revive +the question._ Viewing it in this light, the President wishes that +nothing may be said or done by you that may unnecessarily preclude the +competent authority from animadverting on that transaction in any way +that a vindication of the national honor may be thought to prescribe." + +Times have changed since then, and our national spirit with them. The +Secretary's Quaker-like protest offers a ludicrous contrast to the +wolf-to-lamb swagger of our modern diplomacy. What faithful Democrat of +1801 would have believed that the day would come of the Kostza affair, +of the African right-of-search quarrel, the Greytown bombardment, and +the seizure of Miramon's steamers? + +It is clear that our President and people were in no danger of being led +into acts of undue violence by "deeply affected sensibility" or the +"vindication of the national honor," when a violent blow aimed by the +Pacha of Tripoli at their Mediterranean trade roused them to a show of +self-defence. Early in May he declared war against the United States, +although Consul Cathcart offered him ten thousand dollars to leave the +American flag-staff up for a short time longer. Even then, if Mr. +Jefferson could have consulted no one but himself, not a ship would have +sailed from these shores. But the merchants were too powerful for him; +they insisted upon protection in the Mediterranean. A squadron of three +frigates and a sloop under Commodore Dale was fitted out and despatched +to Gibraltar; and the nations of the earth were duly notified by our +diplomatic agents of our intentions, that they might not be alarmed by +this armada. + +In June of this year a fire broke out in the palace at Tunis, and fifty +thousand stand of arms were destroyed. The Bey sent for Eaton; he had +apportioned his loss among his friends, and it fell to the United States +to furnish ten thousand stand without delay. + +"It is only the other day," said Eaton, "that you asked for eighty +twenty-four pounders. At this rate, when are our payments to have +an end?" + +"Never," was the answer. "The claims we make are such as we receive from +all friendly nations, every two or three years; and you, like other +Christians, will be obliged to conform to it." + +Eaton refused to state the claim to his Government. The Bey said, Very +well, he would write himself; and threatened to turn Eaton out of +the Regency. + +At this juncture Commodore Dale arrived at Gibraltar. The Bey paid us +the compliment of believing that he had not been sent so far for +nothing, and allowed Eaton a few months' respite. + +Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale's hands were +tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of +dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be +accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by +active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure[2] +made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on +this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young +sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep +the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, +captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed +and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on +board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found +it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate +distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according +to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having +gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season +with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all. + +There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public +or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might. +Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis +perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had +measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no +reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his +tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but +did not mollify him. + +"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you +sent to the Dey of Algiers." + +Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we +would fight rather than yield to such extortion. + +The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe. "We find it all puff; we +see how you carry on the war with Tripoli." + +"But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just +received these valuable jewels?" + +"Not at all. We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a +year. You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you +settled the treaty. We have waited all this time, but you have made us +no consideration for this forbearance. Nor have we as yet received any +evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, +notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an +expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us. His Excellency, my +master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take +with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of +friendship." + +Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the +President, if he wanted a frigate. For his part, he would never transmit +so outrageous a demand. "Then," retorted the Bey, "I will send you home, +and the letter with you." + +The letter was composed by the dragoman and forwarded to the United +States, but Eaton was allowed to remain. + +Disgusted with the shameful position of our affairs in the +Mediterranean, Eaton requested Mr. Madison to recall him, unless more +active operations against the enemy should be resolved upon. "I can no +longer talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a +grimace of contempt and ridicule ... The operations of our squadron this +season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as +well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates +with ------ in command ... If further concessions are to be made here, I +desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our +presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his +avarice to new demands." + +The display of latent force by the United States fleet, from which our +Government had expected so much, increased the insolence of the Bey of +Tunis to such a point that Eaton was obliged to withdraw from his post, +and a new war seemed inevitable. The Americans had declared Tripoli +blockaded; but, as their ships were seldom on the coast, little +attention was paid to them. It happened, however, that a Tunisian +vessel, bound for Tripoli, was captured when attempting to enter the +harbor, and declared a prize. Shortly after, Commodore Morris anchored +off Tunis and landed to visit the Consul. The Bey, who held the correct +doctrine on the subject of paper blockades, pronounced the seizure +illegal and demanded restitution. During his stay on shore, the +Commodore had several interviews with the Bey's commercial agent in +relation to this prize question. The behavior of that official was so +offensive that the Commodore determined to go on board his ship without +making the usual farewell visit at Court. As he was stepping into his +boat from the mole, he was arrested by the commercial agent for a debt +of twenty-two thousand dollars, borrowed by Eaton to assist Hamet +Caramanli in his expedition against Tripoli. Eaton remonstrated +indignantly. He alone was responsible for the debt; he had given +abundant security, and was willing to pay handsomely for further +forbearance. In vain; the agent would take nothing but the money. Eaton +hurried to the palace to ask the Bey if this arrest was by his order. +The Bey declined to answer or to interfere. There was no help for it; +the Commodore was caught. To obtain permission to embark, he was obliged +to get the money from the French Consul-General, and to promise +restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at +liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to +protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the +flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him +again to quit his court,--this time peremptorily,--adding, that the +United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial +to Barbary interests." + +Eaton arrived in Boston on the 5th of May, 1803. The same season Preble +sailed into the Mediterranean, with the Constitution, "a bunch of pine +boards," as she was then called in derision, poorly fitted out, and +half-manned; and with three other vessels in no better condition. But +here, at last, was a captain whom no cautious or hesitating instructions +could prevent from doing the work set before him to the best of his +ability. Sword in hand, he maintained the principle of "Death before +tribute," so often and so unmeaningly toasted at home; and it was not +his fault, if he did not establish it. At all events, he restored the +credit of our flag in the Mediterranean. + +When the news reached home of the burning of the Philadelphia, of the +attack of the fireships, and of the bombardment of Tripoli, the blood of +the nation was up. Arch-democratic scruples as to the expediency, +economy, or constitutionality of public armed ships were thenceforth +utterly disregarded. Since then, it has never been a question whether +the United States should have a navy or not. To Preble fairly belongs +the credit of establishing it upon a permanent footing, and of heading +the roll of daring and skilful officers the memory of whose gallantry +pervades the service and renders it more effective than its ships +and its guns. + +The Administration yielded to the popular feeling, and attempted to +claim for themselves the credit of these feats of arms, which they had +neither expected nor desired. A new fleet was fitted out, comprising our +whole navy except five ships. Here again the cloven foot became visible. +Preble, who had proved himself a captain of whom any nation might be +proud, was superseded by Commodore Barron, on a question of seniority +etiquette, which might have been easily settled, had the Government so +wished it. + +Eaton had spent a year at home, urging upon the authorities, whenever +the settlement of his accounts took him to Washington, more effective +measures against Tripoli,--and particularly an alliance with Hamet +Caramanli, the Ex-Pacha, who had been driven from his throne by his +brother Jusuf, a much more able man. In spite of his bitter flings at +their do-nothing policy, the Administration sent him out in the fleet, +commissioned as General Agent for the Barbary Regencies, with the +understanding that he was to join Hamet and assist him in an attack upon +Derne. His instructions were vague and verbal; he had not even a letter +to our proposed ally. Eaton was aware of his precarious position; but +the hazardous adventure suited his enterprising spirit, and he +determined to proceed in it. "If successful, for the public,--if +unsuccessful, for myself," he wrote to a friend, quoting from his +classical reminiscences; "but any personal risk," he added, with a +rhetorical flourish, "is better than the humiliation of treating with a +wretched pirate for the ransom of men who are the rightful heirs +of freedom." + +He sailed in the John Adams, in June, 1804. The President, Congress, +Essex, and Constellation were in company. On the 5th of September the +fleet anchored at Malta. In a few weeks the plan of the expedition was +settled, and the necessary arrangements made, with the consent and under +the supervision of Barron. Eaton then went on board the United States +brig Argus, Captain Isaac Hull, detached specially on this service by +the Commodore, and sailed for Alexandria, to hunt up Hamet and to +replace him upon a throne. + +On the 8th of December, Eaton and his little party, Lieutenant Blake, +Midshipmen Mann and Danielson, of the navy, and Lieutenant O'Bannon of +the marines, arrived in Cairo. Here they learned that Hamet had taken +service with the rebel Mamlouk Beys and was in command of an Arab force +in Upper Egypt. A letter from Preble to Sir Alexander Ball insured the +Americans the hearty good wishes of the English. They were lodged in the +English house, and passed for United States naval officers on a +pleasure-trip. In this character they were presented to the Viceroy by +Dr. Mendrici, his physician, who had known Eaton intimately in Tunis, +and was much interested in this enterprise. The recommendation of the +Doctor obtained a private audience for Eaton. He laid his plans frankly +before his Highness, who listened favorably, assured him of his +approval, and ordered couriers to be sent to Hamet, bearing a letter of +amnesty and permission to depart from Egypt. + +The messengers returned with an answer. The Ex-Pacha was unwilling to +trust himself within the grasp of the Viceroy; he preferred a meeting at +a place near Lake Fayoum, (Maeris,) on the borders of the Desert, about +one hundred and ninety miles from the coast. Regardless of the danger of +travelling in this region of robbery and civil war, Eaton set off at +once, accompanied by Blake, Mann, and a small escort. After a ride of +seventy miles, they fell in with a detachment of Turkish cavalry, who +arrested them for English spies. This accident they owed to the zeal of +the French Consul, M. Drouette, who, having heard that they were on good +terms with the English, thought it the duty of a French official to +throw obstacles in their way. Luckily the Turkish commandant proved to +be a reasonable man. He listened to their story and sent off a courier +to bring Hamet to them. The Pacha soon arrived. He expressed an entire +willingness to be reinstated upon his throne by the Americans, and to do +what he could for himself with his followers and friendly Arab tribes in +the province of Derne. In case of success, he offered brilliant +advantages to the United States. A convention was drawn up in this +sense, signed by him as legitimate Pacha of Tripoli, and by Eaton, as +agent for the United States. + +The original plan was to proceed to Derne in the Argus; but the Turkish +Governor of Alexandria refused to permit so large a force to embark at +that port; and Hamet himself showed a strong disinclination to venture +within the walls of the enemy. The only course left was to march over +the Desert. Eaton adopted it with his usual vigor. The Pacha and his men +were directed to encamp at the English cut, between Aboukir Bay and Lake +Mareotis. Provisions were bought, men enlisted, camels hired, and a few +Arabs collected together by large promises and small gifts. The party, +complete, consisted of the Americans already mentioned, Farquhar, an +Englishman, Pascal Paoli Peck, whose name we take pleasure in writing +again, with six men of his corps, twenty-five artillery-men of all +nations, principally Levanters, and thirty-eight Greeks. The followers +of the Pacha, hired Arabs, camel-drivers, servants, and vagabonds, made +up their number to about four hundred. + +On the 8th of March, 1805, Eaton advanced into the Desert westward, +towards the famous land of Cyrene, like Aryandes the Persian, and Amrou, +general of the Caliph Omar. The little army marched along slowly, "on +sands and shores and desert wildernesses," past ruins of huge +buildings,--relics of three civilizations that had died out,--mostly +mere stones to Eaton, whose mind was too preoccupied by his wild +enterprise to speculate much on what others had done there before him. +Want of water, scarcity of provisions, the lazy dilatoriness of the +Arabs, who had never heard of the American axiom, "Time is money," gave +him enough to think of. But worse than these were the daily outbreaks of +the ill-feeling which always exists between Mussulman and Christian. The +Arabs would not believe that Christians could be true friends to +Mussulmans. They were not satisfied with Eaton's explanations of the +similarity between the doctrines of Islam and of American, but tried +again and again to make him repeat the soul-saving formula, "_Allah +Allah Mohammed ben Allah_", and thus at once prove his sincerity and +escape hell. The Pacha himself, an irresolute, weak man, could not quite +understand why these infidels should have come from beyond the seas to +place him upon a throne. A suspicion lurked in his heart that their real +object was to deliver him to his brother as the price of a peace, and +any occurrence out of the daily routine of the march brought this +unpleasant fancy uppermost in his thoughts. On one point the Mahometan +mind of every class dwelt alway,--"How could Allah permit these dogs, +who followed the religion of the Devil, to possess such admirable +riches?" The Arabs tried hard to obtain a share of them. They yelped +about the Americans for money, food, arms, and powder. Even the brass +buttons of the infidels excited their cupidity. + +Eaton's patience, remarkable in a man of his irascible temper, many +promises, and a few threats, kept the Crescent and the Cross moving on +together in comparative peace until the 8th of April. On that day and +outbreak of ill-temper occurred so violent that the two parties nearly +came to blows. Turks were drawn up on one side, headed by +Hamet,--Americans on the other, with the Greeks and Levanters. Swords +were brandished and muskets pointed, and much abuse discharged. Nothing +but the good sense of one of the Pacha's officers and Eaton's cool +determination prevented the expedition from destroying itself on +the spot. + +Peace was at last restored, and kept until the 15th, when the army +reached the Gulf of Bomba. In this bay, known to the ancients as the +Gulf of Plataea, it is said that the Greeks landed who founded the +colony of Cyrene. Eaton had written to Captain Hull to meet him here +with the Argus, and, relying upon her stores, had made this the place of +fulfilment of many promises. Unfortunately, no Argus was to be seen. Sea +and shore were as silent and deserted as when Battus the Dorian first +saw the port from his penteconters, six hundred years or more before +Christ. A violent tumult arose. The Arabs reproached the Americans +bitterly for the imposture, and declared their intention of deserting +the cause immediately. Luckily, before these wild allies had departed, a +sail appeared upon the horizon; they were persuaded to wait a short time +longer. It was the Argus. Hull had seen the smoke of their fires and +stood in. He anchored before dark; provisions were sent on shore; and +plenty in the camp restored quiet and discipline. + +On the 23d they resumed their march, and on the 25th, at two in the +afternoon, encamped upon a hill overlooking the town of Derne. Deserters +came in with the information that two-thirds of the inhabitants were in +favor of Hamet; but that Hassan Bey, the Governor, with eight hundred +fighting-men, was determined to defend the place; Jusuf had sent fifteen +hundred men to his assistance, who were within three days' march. +Hamet's Arabs seized upon this opportunity to be alarmed. It became +necessary to promise the chiefs two thousand dollars before they would +consent to take courage again. + +Eaton reconnoitred the town. He ascertained that a ten-inch howitzer on +the terrace of the Governor's house was all he had to fear in the way of +artillery. There were eight nine-pounders mounted on a bastion looking +seaward, but useless against a land-attack. Breastworks had been thrown +up, and the walls of houses loopholed for musketry. + +The next day, Eaton summoned Hassan to surrender the place to his +legitimate sovereign, and offered to secure him his present position in +case of immediate submission.. The flag was sent back with the answer, +"My head or yours!" and the Bey followed up this Oriental message by +offering six thousand dollars for Eaton's head, and double the sum, if +he were brought in alive. + +At six o'clock on the morning of the 27th, the Argus, Nautilus, and +Hornet stood in, and, anchoring within a hundred yards of the battery, +silenced it in three-quarters of an hour. At the same time the town was +attacked on one side by Hamet, and on the other by the Americans. A hot +fire of musketry was kept up by the garrison. The Greek artillery-men +shot away the rammer of their only field-piece, after a few discharges, +rendering the gun useless. Finding that a number of his small party were +falling, Eaton ordered a charge, and led it. Dashing through a volley of +bullets, the Christians took the battery in flank, carried it, planted +the American flag, and turned the guns upon the town. Hamet soon cut his +way to the Bey's palace, and drove him to sanctuary to escape being +taken prisoner. After a lively engagement of two hours and a half, the +allies had complete possession of the town. Fourteen of the Christians +had been killed or wounded, three of them American marines. Eaton +himself received a musket-ball in his wrist. + +The Ex-Pacha had scarcely established himself in his new conquest before +Jusuf's army appeared upon the hills near the town. Hassan Bey succeeded +in escaping from sanctuary, and took the command. After several +fruitless attempts to buy over the rebel Arabs, the Bey, on the 13th of +May, made a sudden attack upon the quarter of the town held by Hamet's +forces, and drove all before him as far as the Governor's house; but a +few volleys from the nine-pounders sent him and his troops back at full +speed. Hamet's cavalry pursued, and cut down a great many of them. This +severe lesson made the Bey cautious. Henceforward he kept his men in the +hills, and contented himself with occasional skirmishing-parties. + +After this affair numerous Arabs of rank came over, and things looked +well for the cause of the legitimate Pacha. Eaton already fancied +himself marching into Tripoli under the American flag, and releasing +with his own hands the crew of the Philadelphia. He wrote to Barron of +his success, and asked for supplies of provisions, money, and men. A few +more dollars, a detachment of marines, and the fight was won. His answer +was a letter from the Commodore, informing him, "that the reigning Pacha +of Tripoli has lately made overtures of peace, which the Consul-General, +Colonel Lear, has determined to meet, viewing the present moment +propitious to such a step." With the letter came another from Lear, +ordering Eaton to evacuate Derne. Eaton sent back an indignant +remonstrance, and continued to hold the town. But on the 11th of June +the Constellation came in, bringing the news of the conclusion of peace, +and of the release of the captives, upon payment of sixty thousand +dollars. Colonel Lear wrote, that, by an article of the treaty, Hamet's +wife and children would be restored to him, on condition of his leaving +the Regency. No other provision was made for him. + +When the Ex-Pacha (Ex for the third time) heard that thenceforth he +must depend upon his own resources, he requested that he might be taken +off in the Constellation, as his life would not be safe when his +adherents discovered that his American friends had betrayed him, Eaton +took every precaution to keep the embarkation a secret, and succeeded in +getting all his men safely on board the frigate. He then, the last of +the party, stepped into a small boat, and had just time to save his +distance, when the shore was crowded with the shrieking Arabs. Finding +the Christians out of their reach, they fell upon their tents and +horses, and swept away everything of value. + +It was a rapid change of scene. Six hours before, the little American +party held Derne triumphantly against all comers from Jusuf's dominions, +and Hamet had prospects of a kingdom. Now he was a beggar, on his way to +Malta, to subsist there for a time on a small allowance from the United +States. Even his wife and children were not to be restored to him; for, +in a secret stipulation with the Pacha, Lear had waived for four years +the execution of that article of the treaty. The poor fellow had been +taken up as a convenience, and was dropped when no longer wanted. But he +was only an African Turk, and, although not black, was probably dark +enough in complexion to weaken his claims upon the good feeling and the +good faith of the United States. + +Eaton arrived at home in November of the same year,[3] disgusted with +the officers, civil and naval, who had cut short his successful +campaign, and had disregarded, as of no importance, the engagements he +had contracted with his Turkish ally. His report to the Secretary of the +Navy expressed in the most direct language his opinion of the treaty and +his contempt for the reasons assigned by Lear and Barron for their +sudden action. The enthusiastic welcome he received from his countrymen +encouraged his dissatisfaction. The American people decreed him a +triumph after their fashion,--public dinners, addresses of +congratulation, the title of Hero of Derne. He had shown just the +qualities mankind admire,--boldness, tenacity, and dashing courage. Few +could be found who did not regret that Preble had not been there to help +him onward to Tripoli and to a peace without payments. And as Eaton was +not the man to carry on a war, even of words, without throwing his whole +soul into the conflict, he proclaimed to all hearers that the Government +was guilty of duplicity and meanness, and that Lear was a compound of +envy, treachery, and ignorance. + +But this violence of language recoiled upon himself,-- + + "And so much injured more his side, + The stronger arguments he applied." + +The Administration steadily upheld Lear; and good Democrats, who saw +every measure refracted through the dense medium of party-spirit, of +course defended their leaders, and took fire at Eaton's overbearing +manner and insulting intolerance of their opinions. Thus, although the +general sentiment of the country was strongly in his favor, at +Washington he made many enemies. A resolution was introduced into the +House of Representatives to present him with a medal, or with a sword; +it was violently opposed by John Randolph and others, postponed from +time to time, and never passed. Eaton received neither promotion, nor +pecuniary compensation, nor an empty vote of thanks. He had even great +delay and difficulty in obtaining the settlement of his accounts[4] and +the repayment of the money advanced by him. + +Disappointment, debt, and hard drinking soon brought Eaton's life to a +close. He died in obscurity in 1811. Among his papers was found a list +of officers who composed a Court Martial held in Ohio by General St. +Clair in 1793. As time passed, he had noted in the margin of the paper +the fate of each man. All were either "Dead" or "Damned by brandy." His +friends might have completed the melancholy roll by writing under his +name the same epitaph. + +However wrong Eaton may have been in manners and in morals, he seems to +have been right in complaining of the treatment he received from the +Administration. The organs of the Government asserted that Eaton had +exceeded his instructions, and had undertaken projects the end of which +could not be foreseen,--that the Administration had never authorized +any specific engagement with Hamet, an inefficient person, and not at +all the man he was supposed to be,--and that the alliance with him was +much too expensive and dangerous to justify its further prosecution. +Unfortunately for this view of the case, the dealings of the United +States with Hamet dated back to the beginning of the war with Tripoli. A +diversion in his favor was no new project, but had been considered for +more than three years. Eaton and Cathcart had recommended it in 1801, +and Government approved of the plan. In 1802, when Jusuf Pacha offered +Hamet the Beyship of Benghazi and Derne, to break up these negotiations, +the United States Consuls promised him Jusuf's throne, if he would +refuse the offer, and threatened, if he accepted it, to treat him as an +enemy, and to send a frigate to prevent him from landing at Derne. +Later, when the Bey of Tunis showed some inclination to surrender Hamet +to his brother, the Consuls furnished him with the means of escape to +Malta. In 1803, he crossed over to Derne in an English brig, hoping to +receive assistance from the American fleet; but Commodore Morris left +him to his own resources; he was unable to hold his ground, and fled to +Egypt. All this was so well known at home, that members of the +Opposition in Congress jokingly accused the Administration of +undertaking to decide constitutional questions for the people +of Tripoli. + +Before the news of this flight into Egypt reached the United States, +Eaton had been instructed by the President to take command of an +expedition on the coast of Barbary in connection with Hamet. It had been +determined to furnish a few pieces of field-artillery, a thousand stand +of arms, and forty thousand dollars as a loan to the Pretender. But when +the President heard of Hamet's reverses, he withheld the supplies, and +sent Eaton out as "General Agent for the several Barbary States," +without special instructions. The Secretary of the Navy wrote at the +same time to Commodore Barron:--"With respect to the Ex-Bashaw of +Tripoli, we have no objection to your availing yourself of his +cooperation with you against Tripoli, if you shall, upon a full view of +the subject, after your arrival upon the station, consider his +cooperation expedient. The subject is committed entirely to your +discretion. In such an event, you will, it is believed, find Mr. Eaton +extremely useful to you." + +After Commodore Barron had reached his station, he did consider the +"coöperation" expedient; and ordered Hull in the Argus to Alexandria +with Eaton in search of Hamet, "the legitimate sovereign of the +reigning Bashaw of Tripoli." If Eaton succeeded in finding the Pacha, +Hull was to carry him and his suite to Derne, "or such other place as +may be determined the most proper for coöperating with the naval force +under my command against the common enemy ... You may assure the Bashaw +of the support of my squadron at Benghazi or Derne, and that I will take +the most effectual measures with the forces under my command for +cooperating with him against the usurper his brother, and for +reëstablishing him in the Regency of Tripoli. Arrangements to this +effect with him are confided to the discretion with which Mr. Eaton is +vested by the Government." + +It would seem from these extracts that Eaton derived full authority from +Barron to act in this matter, independently of his commission as +"General Agent." We do not perceive that he exceeded a reasonable +discretion in the "arrangements" made with Hamet. After so many +disappointments, the refugee could not be expected to leave a +comfortable situation and to risk his head without some definite +agreement as to the future; and the convention made with him by Eaton +did not go beyond what Hamet had a right to demand, or the instructions +of the Commodore,--even in Article II., which was afterward particularly +objected to by the Government. It ran thus:-- + +"The Government of the United States shall use their utmost exertions, +so far as comports with their own honor and interest, their subsisting +treaties, and the acknowledged law of nations, to reëstablish the said +Hamet Bashaw in the possession of his sovereignty of Tripoli against the +pretensions of Joseph Bashaw," etc. + +We should add, that Hamet, to satisfy himself of the truth of Eaton's +representations, sent one of his followers to Barron, who confirmed the +treaty; and that the Commodore, when he received Eaton's despatch, +announcing his departure from Aboukir, wrote back a warm approval of his +energy, and notified him that the Argus and the Nautilus would be sent +immediately to Bomba with the necessary stores and seven thousand +dollars in money. Barron added,--"You may depend upon the most active +and vigorous support from the squadron, as soon as the season and our +arrangements will permit us to appear in force before the +enemy's walls." + +So much for Eaton's authority to pledge the faith of the United States. +As to the question of expense: the whole cost of the expedition, up to +the evacuation of Derne, was thirty-nine thousand dollars. Eaton +asserted, and we see no reason to doubt his accuracy, that thirty +thousand more would have carried the American flag triumphantly into +Tripoli. Lear paid sixty thousand for peace. + +Hamet was set on shore at Syracuse with thirty followers. Two hundred +dollars a month were allowed him for the support of himself and of them, +until particular directions should be received from the United States +concerning him. He wrote more than once to the President for relief, +resting his claims upon Eaton's convention and the letter of the +Secretary of State read to him by Consul Cathcart in 1802. In this +letter, the Secretary declared, that, in case of the failure of the +combined attack upon Derne, it would be proper for our Government "to +restore him to the situation from, which he was drawn, or to make some +other convenient arrangement that may be more eligible to him." Hamet +asked that at least the President would restore to him his wife and +family, according to the treaty, and send them all back to Egypt. "I +cannot suppose," he wrote, "that the engagements of an American agent +would be disputed by his Government, ... or that a gentleman has pledged +towards me the honor of his country on purpose to deceive me." + +Eaton presented these petitions to the President and to the public, and +insisted so warmly upon the harsh treatment his ally had received from +the United States, that two thousand four hundred dollars were sent to +him in 1806, and again, in 1807, Davis, Consul for Tripoli, was directed +to insist upon the release of the wife and children. They were delivered +up by Jusuf in 1807, and taken to Syracuse in an American sloop-of-war. +Here ended the relations of the United States with Hamet Caramanli.[5] + +Throughout this whole African chapter, the darling economy of the +Administration was a penny-wise policy which resulted in the usual +failure. Already in 1802, Mr. Gallatin reported that two millions and a +half, in round numbers, had been paid in tribute and presents. The +expense of fitting out the four squadrons is estimated by Mr. Sabine at +three millions and a half. The tribute extorted after 1802 and the cost +of keeping the ships in the Mediterranean amount at the lowest estimate +to two millions more. Most of this large sum might have been saved by +giving an adequate force and full powers to Commodore Dale, who had +served under Paul Jones, and knew how to manage such matters. + +Unluckily for their fame, the Administration was equally parsimonious in +national spirit and pluck, and did their utmost to protect themselves +against the extravagance of such reckless fellows as Preble, Decatur, +and Eaton. In the spring of 1803, while Preble was fitting out his +squadron, Mr. Simpson, Consul at Tangier, was instructed to buy the +good-will of the Emperor of Morocco. He disobeyed his instructions, and +the Emperor withdrew his demands when he saw the American ships. About +the same time, the Secretary of State wrote to Consul Cathcart in +relation to Tripoli:-- + +"It is thought best that you should not be tied down to a refusal of +presents, whether to be included in the peace, or to be made from time +to time during its continuance,--especially as in the latter case the +title to the presents will be a motive to its continuance,--to admit +that the Bashaw shall receive in the first instance, including the +consular present, the sum of $20,000, and at the rate afterwards of +$8,000 or $10,000 a year ... The presents, whatever the amount or +purpose of them, (except the consular present, which, as usual, may +consist of jewelry, cloth, etc.,) must be made in money and not in +stores, to be biennial rather than annual; _and the arrangement of the +presents is to form no part of the public treaty, if a private promise +and understanding can be substituted._" + +After notifying Cathcart of his appointment to Tunis, the Secretary +directs him to evade the thirty-six-gun frigate, and to offer the Bey +ten thousand dollars a year for peace, to be arranged in the same +underhand way. + +Tripoli refused the money; it was not enough. The Bey of Tunis rejected +both the offer and the Consul. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson that he +considered some of Cathcart's expressions insulting, and that he +insisted upon the thirty-six-gun frigate. Mr. Jefferson answered on the +27th of January, 1804, after he knew of the insult to Morris and of the +expulsion of Eaton. Beginning with watery generalities about "mutual +friendships and the interests arising out of them," he regretted that +there should be any misconception of his motives on the part of the Bey. +"Such being our regard for you, it is with peculiar concern I learn from +your letter that Mr. Cathcart, whom I had chosen from a confidence in +his integrity, experience, and good dispositions, has so conducted +himself as to incur your displeasure. In doing this, be assured he has +gone against the letter and spirit of his instructions, which were, that +his deportment should be such as to make known my esteem and respect for +your character both personal and public, and to cultivate your +friendship by all the attentions and services he could render.... In +selecting another character to take the place of Mr. Cathcart, I shall +take care to fix on one who, I hope, will better fulfil the duties of +respect and esteem for you, and who, in so doing only, will be the +faithful representative and organ of our earnest desire that the peace +and friendship so happily subsisting between the two countries may be +firm and permanent." + +Most people will agree with Eaton, that "the spirit which dictated this +answer betrays more the inspiration of Carter's Mountain[6] than of +Bunker Hill." + +Lear, who was appointed Consul-General in 1803, was authorized by his +instructions to pay twenty thousand dollars down and ten thousand a year +for peace, and a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars a man +for ransom. + +When Barron's squadron anchored at Malta, Consul O'Brien came on board +to say that he had offered, by authority, eight thousand dollars a year +to Tunis, instead of the frigate, and one hundred and ten thousand to +Tripoli for peace and the ransom of the crew of the Philadelphia, and +that both propositions had been rejected. + +Finally, after fitting out this fourth squadron, at an expense of one +million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and with Eaton in +possession of Derne, the Administration paid sixty thousand dollars for +peace and ransom, when Preble, ten months previously, could have +obtained both for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thus they +spent two millions to save ninety thousand, and left the principle of +tribute precisely where it was before. + +What makes this business still more remarkable is, that the +Administration knew from the reports of our consuls and from the +experience of our captains that the force of the pirates was +insignificant, and that they were wretched sailors and poor shots. +Sterret took a Tripolitan cruiser of fourteen guns after an engagement +of thirty minutes; he killed or wounded fifty of her crew, and did not +lose a man, nor suffer any material damage in his hull or rigging. There +was no one killed on the American side when Decatur burned the +Philadelphia. The Constitution was under the fire of the Tripolitan +batteries for two hours without losing a man, and was equally fortunate +when she ran in a second time and lay within musket-shot of the mole, +exposed to the fire of the enemy for three-quarters of an hour. These +Tripolitan batteries mounted one hundred and fifteen guns. Three years +later, Captain Ichabod Sheffield, of the schooner Mary Ann, furnished in +person an example of the superiority of the Yankee over the Turk. Consul +Lear had just given forty-eight thousand dollars to the Dey of Algiers, +in full payment of tribute "up to date." Nevertheless, the Mary Ann, of +and from New York to Leghorn, was seized in the Straits of Gibraltar by +an Algerine corsair. A prize-crew of nine Turks was sent on board; the +captain, two men, and a boy left in her to do the work; she was ordered +to Algiers; and the pirate sailed away. Having no instructions from +Washington, Sheffield and his men determined to strike a blow for +liberty, and fixed upon their plan. Algiers was in sight, when Sheffield +hurled the "grains" overboard, and cried that he had struck a fish. Four +Turks, who were on deck, ran to the side to look over. Instantly the +Americans threw three of them into the sea. The others, hearing the +noise, hurried upon deck. In a hand-to-hand fight which followed two +more were killed with handspikes, and the remaining four were +overpowered and sent adrift in a small boat. Sheffield made his way, +rejoicing, to Naples. When the Dey heard how his subjects had been +handled, he threatened to put Lear in irons and to declare war. It cost +the United States sixteen thousand dollars to appease his wrath. + +The cruise of the Americans against Tripoli differed little, except in +the inferiority of their force, from numerous attacks made by European +nations upon the Regencies. Venice, England, France, had repeatedly +chastised the pirates in times past. In 1799, the Portuguese, with one +seventy-four-gun ship, took two Tripolitan cruisers, and forced the +Pacha to pay them eleven thousand dollars. In 1801, not long before our +expedition, the French Admiral Gaunthomme over-hauled two Tunisian +corsairs in chase of some Neapolitan vessels. He threw all their guns +overboard, and bade them beware how they provoked the wrath of the First +Consul by plundering his allies. But all of them left, as we did, the +principle of piracy or payments as they found it. At last this evil was +treated in a manner more creditable to civilization. In 1812, the +Algerines captured an American vessel, and made slaves of the crew. +After the peace with England, in 1815, Decatur, in the Guerrière, sailed +into the Mediterranean, and captured off Cape de Gat, in twenty-five +minutes, an Algerine frigate of forty-six guns and four hundred men. On +board the Guerrière, four were wounded, and no one killed. Two days +later, off Cape Palos, he took a brig of twenty-two guns and one hundred +and eighty men. He then sailed into the harbor of Algiers with his +prizes, and offered peace, which was accepted. The Dey released the +American prisoners, relinquished all claims to tribute in future, and +promised never again to enslave an American. Decatur, on our part, +surrendered his prizes, and agreed to consular presents,--a mitigated +form of tribute, similar in principle, but, at least, with another name. +From Algiers he went to Tunis, and demanded satisfaction of that Regency +for having permitted a British man-of-war to retake in their port two +prizes to Americans in the late war with England. The Bey submitted, and +paid forty-six thousand dollars. He next appeared before Tripoli, where +he compelled the Pacha to pay twenty-six thousand dollars, and to +surrender ten captives, as an indemnity for some breaches of +international law. In fifty-four days he brought all Barbary to +submission. It is true, that, the next spring, the Dey of Algiers +declared this treaty null, and fell back upon the time-honored system of +annual tribute. But it was too late. Before it became necessary for +Decatur to pay him another visit, Lord Exmouth avenged the massacre of +the Neapolitan fishermen at Bona by completely destroying the fleet and +forts of Algiers, in a bombardment of seven hours. Christian prisoners +of every nation were liberated in all the Regencies, and the +slave-system, as applied to white men, finally abolished. + +Preble, Eaton, and Decatur are our three distinguished African officers. +As Barron's squadron did not fire a shot into Tripoli, indeed never +showed itself before that port, to Eaton alone belongs the credit of +bringing the Pacha to terms which the American Commissioner was willing +to accept. The attack upon Derne was the feat of arms of the fourth +year, and finished the war. + +Ours is not a new reading of the earlier relations of the United States +with the Barbary powers. The story can be found in the Collection of +State Papers, and more easily in the excellent little books of Messrs. +Sabine and Felton. But a "popular version" despises documents. Under +the pressure of melodrama, history will drift into Napoleon's "fable +agreed upon"; and if it be true, as Emerson says, that "no anchor, no +cable, no fence, avail to keep a fact a fact," it is not at all likely +that a paper in a monthly magazine will do it. + + + * * * * * + + + +SUNSHINE. + + +I have always worked in the carpet-factories. My father and mother +worked there before me and my sisters, as long as they lived. My sisters +died first;--the one, I think, out of deep sorrow; the other from +too much joy. + +My older sister worked hard, knew nothing else but work, never thought +of anything else, nor found any joy in work, scarcely in the earnings +that came from it. Perhaps she pined for want of more air, shut up in +the rooms all day, not caring to find it in walking or in the fields, or +even in books. Household-work awaited her daily after the factory-work, +and a dark, strange religion oppressed and did not sustain her, Sundays. +So we scarcely wondered when she died. It seemed, indeed, as if she had +died long ago,--as if the life had silently passed away from her, +leaving behind a working body that was glad at last to find a rest it +had never known before. + +My other sister was far different. Very much younger, not even a shadow +of the death that had gone before weighed heavily upon her. Everybody +loved her, and her warm, flashing spirit that came out in her sunny +smile. She died in a season of joy, in the first flush of summer. She +died, as the June flowers died, after their happy summer-day of life. + +At last I was left alone, to plod the same way, every night and +morning,--out with the sunrise from the skirts of the town, over the +bridge across the stream that fell into our great river which has worked +for us so long, to the tall, grim factory-building where my work awaited +me, and home again at night. I lived on in the house we all of us had +lived in. At first it was alone in the wood. But the town crept out to +meet it, and soon but little woodland was left around it. "Gloomy +Robert" they called me, as I walked back and forth upon the same track, +seldom lifting my head to greet friend or stranger. Though I walked over +well-known ground, my thoughts were wandering in strange romances. My +evening-readings furnished the land I lived in,--seldom this Western +home, but the East, from Homer's time to the days of Haroun Alraschid. I +was so faithful at my work that my responsibilities were each year +increased; and though my brain lived in dreams, I had sufficient use of +it for my little needs each day. I never forgot to answer the wants of +the greedy machines while I was within sound of them; but away from them +I forgot all external sight and sound. I can remember in my boyhood once +I was waked from my reveries. I was walking beneath a high stone-wall, +with my eyes and head bent down as usual, when I was roused by a shower +of rose-buds that fell over my shoulders and folded arms. I heard +laughter, and looked up to see a childish face with sunny, golden curls +tumbling over it; and a surprised voice cried out, "Gloomy Robert is +looking up!" The picture of the face hung in my memory long after, with +the sound of the happy voice, as though it came out of another world. +But it remained only a picture, and I never asked myself whether that +sunny face ever made any home happy, nor did I ever listen for that +voice again from behind the high stone-wall. + +Many years of my life passed away. There were changes in the factories. +The machines grew more like human beings, and we men could act more like +machines. There were fewer of us needed; but I still held my place, and +my steadiness gave me a position. + +One day, in the end of May, I was walking early in the morning towards +the factories, as usual, when suddenly there fell across my path a +glowing beam of sunshine that lighted up the grass before me. I stopped +to see how the green blades danced in its light, how the sunshine fell +down the sloping, bank across the stream below. Whirring insects seemed +to be suddenly born in its beam. The stream flowed more gayly, the +flowers on its brim were richer in color. A voice startled me. It was +only that of one of my fellow-workmen, as he shouted, "Look at Gloomy +Robert!--there's a sunbeam in his way, and he stumbles over it!" It was +really so. I had stumbled over a beam of sunlight. I had never observed +the sunshine before. Now, what life it gave, as it gleamed under the +trees! I kept on my way, but the thought of it followed me all up the +weary stairs into the high room where the great machines were standing +silently. Suddenly, after my work began, through a high narrow window +poured a strip of sunshine. It fell across the colored threads which +were weaving diligently their work. This day the work was of an +unusually artistic nature. We have our own artists in the mills, artists +who must work under severe limitations. Within a certain space their +fancy revels, and then its lines are suddenly cut short. Nature scatters +her flowers as she pleases over the field, does not measure her groups +to see that they stand symmetrically, nor count her several daisies that +they may be sure to repeat themselves in regular order. But our artist +must fit his stems to certain angles so that their lines may be +continuous, constantly repeating themselves, the same group recurring, +yet in a hidden monotony. + +My pattern of to-day had always pleased me, for we had woven many yards +of it before,--the machines and I. There were rich green leaves and +flowers, gay flowers that shone in light and hid themselves in shade, +and I had always admired their grace and coloring. To-day they had +seemed to me cold and dusky. All my ideas that I had gained from +conventional carpet-flowers, which, woven almost beneath my hand, had +seemed to rival Nature's, all these ideas had been suddenly swept away. +My eyes had opened upon real flowers waving in real sunshine; and my +head grew heavy at the sound of the clanking machine weaving out yards +of unsunned flowers. If only that sunshine, I thought, would light up +these green leaves, put a glow on these brilliant flowers, instead of +this poor coloring which tries to look like sunshine, we might rival +Nature. But the moment I was so thinking, the rays of sunlight I have +spoken of fell on the gay threads. They seemed, before my eyes, to seize +upon the poor yellow fibres which were trying to imitate their own glow, +and, winding themselves round them, I saw the shuttle gather these rays +of sunlight into the meshes of its work. I was to stand there till noon. +So, long before I left, the gleam of sunshine had left the narrow window +and was hidden from the rest of the long room by the gray stone-walls of +another building which rose up outside. But as long as they lingered +over the machine that I was watching, I saw, as though human fingers +were placing them there, rays of sunlight woven in among the green +leaves and brilliant flowers. + +After that gleam had gone, my work grew dark and dreary, and, for the +first time, my walls seemed to me like prison-walls. I longed for the +end of my day's work, and rejoiced that the sun had not yet set when I +was free again. I was free to go out across the meadows, up the hills, +to catch the last rays of sunset. Then coming home, I stooped to pick +the flowers which grew by the wayside in the waning light. + +All that June which followed, I passed my leisure hours and leisure days +in the open air, in the woods. I chased the sunshine from the fields in +under the deep trees, where it only flickered through the leaves. I +hunted for flowers, too, beginning with the gay ones which shone with +color. I wondered how it was they could drink in so much of the sun's +glow. Then I fell to studying all the science of color and all the +theories which are woven about it. I plunged into books of chemistry, +to try to find out how it was that certain flowers should choose certain +colors out from the full beam of light. After the long days, I sat late +into the night, studying all that books could tell me. I collected +prisms, and tried, in scattering the rays, to learn the properties of +each several pencil of light. I grew very wise and learned, but never +came nearer the secret I was searching for,--why it was that the Violet, +lying so near the Dandelion, should choose and find such a different +dress to wear. It was not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at +first. My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups. The +Saint-John's-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower. I trained +the vines which had been drooping round our old house,--the gray +time-worn house; the "natural-colored house," the neighbors called it. I +thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be +scarlet, as I trained up the brilliant scarlet trumpet-flower which my +sister had planted long ago. + +So the summer passed away. My companions and neighbors did not wonder +much, that, after studying so many books, I should begin to study +flowers and botany. And November came. My occupation was not yet taken +away, for Golden-Rod and the Asters gleamed along the dusty roadside, +and still underneath the Maples there lay a sunny glow from the yellow +leaves not yet withered beneath them. + +One day I received a summons from our overseer, Mr. Clarkson, to visit +him in the evening. I went, a little disturbed, lest he might have some +complaint to make of the engrossing nature of my present occupations. +This I was almost led to believe, from the way in which he began to +speak to me. His perorations, to be sure, were apt to be far wide of his +subject; and this time, as usual, I could allow him two or three +minutes' talk before it became necessary for me to give him my +attention. + +At last it came out. I was wanted to go up to Boston about a marvellous +piece of carpet which had appeared from our mills. It had lain in the +warehouse some time, had at last been taken to Boston, and a large +portion of it had been sold, the pattern being a favorite one. But +suddenly there had been a change. In opening one of the rolls and +spreading it broadly in the show-room of Messrs. Gobelin's warehouse, it +had appeared the most wonderful carpet that ever was known. A real +sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and +dance among them as on a broad meadow. It shed a radiance which paled +the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high +windows. It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had +been obliged to ask a high price of admission for the many that flocked +to see it. They had eagerly examined the other rolls of carpeting, in +the hope of finding a repetition of the wonder, and were inclined at one +time to believe that this magical effect was owing to a new method of +lighting their apartments. But it was only in this beautiful pattern and +through a certain portion of it that this wonderful appearance was +shown. Some weeks ago they had sent to our agent to ask if he knew the +origin of this wonderful tapestry. He had consulted with the designer of +the pattern, who had first claimed the discovery of the combination of +colors by which such an effect was produced, but he could not account +for its not appearing throughout the whole work. My master had then +examined some of the workmen, and learned, in the midst of his +inquiries, what had been my late occupations and studies. + +"If," he continued, "I had been inclined to apply any of my discoveries +to the work which I superintended, he was willing, and his partners were +willing, to forgive any interference of that sort, of mine, in affairs +which were strictly their own, as long as the discoveries seemed of so +astonishing a nature." + +I am not able to give all our conversation. I could only say to my +employer, that this was no act of mine, though I felt very sure that +the sunshine which astonished them in Messrs. Gobelin's carpet-store was +the very sunbeam that shone through the window of the factory on the +27th of May, that summer. When he asked me what chemical preparation +could insure a repetition of the same wonderful effect, I could only +say, that, if sunlight were let in upon all the machines, through all +the windows of the establishment, a similar effect might be produced. He +stared at me. Our large and substantial mill was overshadowed by the +high stone-walls of the rival company. It had taken a large amount of +capital to raise our own walls; it would take a still larger to induce +our neighbors to remove theirs. So we parted,--my employer evidently +thinking that I was keeping something behind, waiting to make my profit +on a discovery so interesting to him. He called me back to tell me, +that, after working so long under his employ, he hoped I should never be +induced by higher wages or other proffers to leave for any rival +establishment. + +I was not left long in quiet. I received a summons to Boston. Mr. +Stuart, the millionnaire, had bought the wonderful carpet at an immense +price. He had visited our agent himself, had invited the designer to +dinner, and now would not be satisfied until I had made him a visit +in Boston. + +I went to his house. I passed up through broad stairways, and over +carpets such as I had never trod nor woven. I should have liked to +linger and satisfy my eyes with looking at the walls decorated with +paintings, and at the statuary, which seemed to beckon to me like moving +figures. But I passed on to the room where Mr. Stuart and his friends +awaited me. Here the first thing that struck me was the glowing carpet +across which I must tread. It was lying in an oval saloon, which had +been built, they told me, for the carpet itself. The light was admitted +only from the ceiling, which was so decorated that no clear sunlight +could penetrate it; but down below the sunbeams lay flickering in the +meadow of leaves, and shed a warm glow over the whole room. + +But my eyes directly took in many things besides the flowery ground +beneath me. At one end of the room stood a colossal bust of Juno, +smiling grandly and imperturbably, as if she were looking out from the +great far-away past. I think this would have held my looks and my +attention completely, but that Mr. Stuart must introduce me to his +friends. So I turned my glance away; but it was drawn directly towards a +picture which hung before me,--a face that drove away all recollection +of the colossal goddess. The golden hair was parted over a broad brow; +from the gentle, dreamy eyes there came a soft, penetrating glance, and +a vagueness as of fancy rested over the whole face. I scarcely heard a +word that was spoken to me as I looked upon this new charm, and I could +hardly find answers for the questions that surrounded me. + +But I was again roused from my dreamy wonderment by a real form that +floated in and sent away all visions of imagination. "My daughter," said +Mr. Stuart, and I looked up into the same dreamy eyes which had been +winning me in the picture. But these looked far beyond me, over me, +perhaps, or through me,--I could scarcely say which,--and the mouth +below them bent into a welcoming smile. While she greeted the other +guests, I had an opportunity to watch the stately grace of Mr. Stuart's +daughter, who played the part of hostess as one long accustomed to it. + +"A queen!" I had exclaimed to myself, as she entered the room, "and my +Juno!" + +The gentlemen to whom I had been introduced had been summoned earlier, +as in a learned committee, discussing the properties of the new +discovery. After the entrance of the ladies, I was requested to lead +Miss Stuart to dinner, and sat by her side through the clanging of +dishes and a similar clangor of the table-talk of tongues. + +"Speaking of light," said the Professor, turning to me, "why cannot you +bring, by your unknown chemical ways, some real sunlight into our rooms, +in preference to this metallic gas-light?" + +I turned to the windows, before which the servant had just drawn the +heavy, curtains still closer, to shut out the gleams of a glowing sunset +which had ventured to penetrate between its folds. + +"I see your answer," said Miss Stuart. "You wonder, as I do, why a +little piece of artificial sunlight should astonish us so much more than +the cheap sunlight of every day which the children play in on +the Common." + +"I think your method, Mr. Desmond," said the Chemist, "must be some +power you have found of concentrating all the rays of a pencil of light, +disposing in some way of their heating power. I should like to know if +this is a fluid agent or some solid substance." + +"I should like to see," interrupted another gentleman, "the anvil where +Mr. Desmond forges his beams. Could not we get up a party, Miss Stuart, +an evening-party, to see a little bit of sunlight struck out,--on a +moonshiny night, too?" + +"In my lectures on chemistry," began Mr. Jasper. He was interrupted by +Mr. Stuart. + +"You will have to write your lectures over again. Mr. Desmond has +introduced such new ideas upon chemistry that he will give you a chance +for a new course." + +"You forget," said the Chemist, "that the laws of science are the same +and immutable. My lectures, having once been written, are written. I +only see that Mr. Desmond has developed theories which I have myself +laid down. As our friend the Artist will tell us, sunlight is sunlight, +wherever you find it, whether you catch it on a carpet or on a +lady's face." + +"But I am quite ashamed," said Miss Stuart, "that we ladies so seldom +have the sunlight on our faces. I think we might agree to Mr. Green's +proposal to go out somewhere and see where the sunbeams really are made. +We shut them out with our curtains, and turn night into a +make-believe day." + +"But the sun is so trying!" put in Miss Lester. "Just think how much +more becoming candle-light is! There is not one of my dresses which +would stand a broad sunbeam." + +"I see," said Mr. Stuart, "that, when Mr. Desmond has perfected his +studies, we shall be able to roof over the whole of Boston with our +woven sunlight by day and gas-light by night, quite independent of fogs +and uncertain east-winds." + +So much of the dinner-conversation dwelt upon what was supposed to be +interesting to me, and a part of my profession. It was laggingly done; +for presently the talk fell into an easier flow,--a wonder about Mrs. +This, and speculation concerning Mr. That. Mr. Blank had gone to Europe +with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four +elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind. I +was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who +was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day. +In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her +personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her manner +of life, all were pulled to pieces, and discussed, dissected, and +classified, in the same way as I would handle one of the Composite. + +Miss Stuart spoke but little. She fluttered gayly over the livelier +conversation, but seemed glad to fall back into a sort of wearied +repose, where she appeared to be living in a higher atmosphere than the +rest of us. This air of repose the others seemed to be trying to reach, +when they got no farther than dulness; and some of the gentlemen, I +thought, made too great efforts in their attempts to appear bored. +Especially one of them exerted himself greatly to gape so often in the +face of a lady with whom he was striving to keep up an appearance of +conversation, that the exertion itself must have wearied him. + +After the ladies had left, the Chemist seated himself by me, that he +might, as he openly said, get out of me the secret of my sunshine. The +more I disowned the sunshine, the more he felt sure that I possessed +some secret clue to it. I need not say, that, in all my talk with these +gentlemen, I had constantly tried to show that I could claim no +influence in setting the sun's rays among the green carpeted leaves. + +I was urged to stay many days in Boston, was treated kindly, and invited +here and there. I grew to feel almost at home at Mr. Stuart's. He was +pleased to wonder at the education which I had given myself, as he +called it. I sat many long mornings in Miss Stuart's drawing-room, and +she had the power of making me talk of many things which had always been +hidden even from myself. It was hardly a sympathy with me which seemed +to unlock my inner thoughts; it was as though she had already looked +through them, and that I must needs bring them out for her use. That +same glance which I have already spoken of, which seemed to pass over +and through me, invited me to say in words what I felt she was beginning +to read with her eyes. We went together, the day before I was to leave +town, to the Gallery of Paintings. + +As we watched a fine landscape by Kensett, a stream of sunshine rested a +moment on the canvas, giving motion and color, as it were, to the +pictured sunlight. + +Miss Stuart turned to me. + +"Why will you not imprison sunlight in that way, Mr. Desmond? That would +be artistic." + +"You forget," I said, "if I could put the real sunlight into such a +picture, it would no longer be mine; I should be a borrower, not a +creator of light; I should be no more of an artist than I am now." + +"You will always refuse to acknowledge it," she said; "but you can never +persuade me that you have not the power to create a sunbeam. An +imprisoned sunbeam! The idea is absurd." + +"It is because the idea is so absurd," I said, "that, if I felt the +power were mine to imprison sunbeams, I should hardly care to repeat the +effort. The sunshine rests upon the grass, freely we say, but in truth +under some law that prevents its penetrating farther. A sunbeam existing +in the absence of the sun is, of course, an absurdity. Yet they are +there, the sunbeams of last spring, in your oval room, as I saw them one +day in May." + +"Which convinces me," said Miss Stuart, "that you are an artist. That is +not real sunshine. You have created it. You are born for an artist-life. +Do not go back to your drudgery." + +"Daily work," I answered, "must become mechanical work, if we perform it +in a servile way. A lawyer is perhaps inspired, when he is engaged in a +cause on which he thinks his reputation hangs; but, day by day, when he +goes down to the work that brings him his daily bread, he is quite as +likely to call it his drudgery as I my daily toil." + +She left her seat and walked with me towards a painting which hung not +far from us. It represented sunset upon the water. "The tender-curving +lines of creamy spray" were gathering up the beach; the light was +glistening across the waves; and shadows and light almost seemed to move +over the canvas. + +"There," said Miss Stuart, "is what I call work that is worthy. I know +there was inspiration in every touch of the brush. I know there was +happy life in the life that inspired that painting. It is worth while to +live and to show that one has been living in that way." + +"But I think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside +his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it +finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he +went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the +work,--because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy +was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The days of +drudgery hung heavily on the days of inspiration; and it was only when +he carried his heart into the most monotonous part of his work that he +found any inspiration in it, that he could feel he had accomplished +anything." We turned suddenly away into a room where we had not been +before. I could not notice the pictures that covered the walls for the +sake of one to which Miss Stuart led the way. After looking upon that, +there could be no thought of finding out any other. It possessed the +whole room. The inspiration which uplifted the eyes fell over the whole +painting. We looked at it silently, and it was not till we had left the +building that Miss Stuart said,-- + +"We have seen there something which takes away all thought of artist or +style of painting or work. I have never been able to ask myself what is +the color of the eyes of that Madonna, or of her flowing hair, or the +tone of the drapery. I see only an expression that inspires the whole +figure, gives motion to the hands, life to the eyes, thought to the +lips, and soul to the whole being." + +"The whole inspiration, the whole work," I said, "is far above us. It is +quite above me. No, I am not an artist; my fingers do not tingle for the +brush. This is an inspiration I cannot reach; it floats above me. It +moves and touches me, but shows me my own powerlessness." + +I left Boston. I went back to winter, to my old home, to my every-day's +work. My work was not monotonous; or if one tone did often recur in it, +I built upon it, out of my heart and life, full chords of music. The +vision of Margaret Stuart came before my eyes in the midst of all +mechanical labor, in all the hours of leisure, in all the dreams of +night. My life, indeed, grew more varied than ever; for I found myself +more at ease with those around me, finding more happiness than I had +ever found before in my intercourse with others. I found more of myself +in them, more sympathy in their joy or sorrow, myself more of an equal +with those around me. + +The winter months passed quickly away. Mr. Clarkson frequently showed +his disappointment because the mills no longer produced the wonder of +last year. For me, it had almost passed out of my thoughts. It seemed +but a part of the baser fabric of that vision where Margaret Stuart +reigned supreme. I saw no way to help him; but more and more, daily, +rejoiced in the outer sunshine of the world, in the fresh, glowing +spring, in the flowers of May. So I was surprised again, when, near the +close of May, after a week of stormy weather, the sunlight broke through +the window where it had shone the year before. It hung a moment on the +threads of work,--then, seeming to spurn them, fell upon the ground. + +We were weaving, alas! a strange "arabesque pattern," as it was called, +with no special form,--so it seemed to my eyes,--bringing in gorgeous +colors, but set in no shape which Nature ever produced, either above the +earth or in metals or crystals hid far beneath. How I reproached myself, +on Mr. Clarkson's account, that I had not interceded, just for this one +day of sunshine, for some pattern that Nature might be willing to +acknowledge! But the hour was past, I knew it certainly, when the next +day the sun was clouded, and for many days we did not see its +face again. + +So the time passed away. Another summer came along, and another glowing +autumn, and that winter I did not go to Boston. Mr. Clarkson let me fall +back again into my commonplace existence. I was no longer more than one +of the common workmen. Perhaps, indeed, he looked upon, me with a +feeling of disappointment, as though a suddenly discovered diamond had +turned to charcoal in his hands. Sometimes he consulted me upon chemical +matters, finding I knew what the books held, but evidently feeling a +little disturbed that I never brought out any hidden knowledge. + +This second winter seemed more lonely to me. The star that had shone +upon me seemed farther away than ever. I could see it still. It was +hopelessly distant. My Juno! For a little while I could imagine she was +thinking of me, that my little name might be associated in her memory +with what we had talked of, what we had seen together, with some of the +high things which I knew must never leave her thoughts. But this +glimmering memory of me I knew must have faded away as her life went on, +varied as it was with change of faces, sounds of music, and whirl of +excitement. Then, too, I never heard her name mentioned. She was out of +my circle, as far away from my sphere as the heroines of those old +romances that I had read so long ago; but more life-like, more warm, +more sunny was her influence still. It uplifted my work, and crowned my +leisure with joy. I blessed the happy sunshine of that 27th of May, +which in a strange way had been the clue that led to my knowledge +of her. + +The longest winter-months melt away at last into spring, and so did +these. May came with her promises and blights of promise. Recalling, +this time, how sunshine would come with the latter end of May through +the dark walls, I begged of Mr. Clarkson that a favorite pattern of mine +might be put upon the looms. Its design was imagined by one of my +companions in my later walks. He was an artist of the mills, and had +been trying to bring within the rigid lines that were required some of +the grace and freedom of Nature. He had scattered here some water-lilies +among broad green leaves. My admiration for Nature, alas! had grown only +after severe cultivation among the strange forms which we carpet-makers +indulge in with a sort of mimicry of Nature. So I cannot be a fair judge +of this, even as a work of art. I see sometimes tapestries in a meadow +studded with buttercups, and I fancy patterns for carpets when I see a +leaf casting its shadow upon a stone. So I may be forgiven for saying +that these water-lilies were dear to me as seeming like Nature, as they +were lying upon their green leaves. + +Mr. Clarkson granted my request, and for a few days, this pattern was +woven by the machine. These trial-days I was excited from my usual +calmness. The first day the sunshine did not reach the narrow window. +The second day we had heavy storm and rain. But the third day, not far +from the expected hour, the sunshine burst through the little space. It +fell upon my golden threads; it seemed directly to embrace them +joyously, to encircle them closely. The sunlight seemed to incorporate +itself with the woolly fibre, to conceal itself among the work where the +shuttle chose to hide it. I fancied a sort of laughing joy, a clatter +and dash in the machinery itself, as though there were a happy time, +where was usually only a monotonous whirl. I could scarcely contain +myself till noon. + +When I left my room, I found, on inquiry, that Mr. Clarkson was not in +the building, and was to be away all day. I went out into the air for a +free breath, and looked up into the glowing sky, yet was glad to go back +again to my machines, which I fancied would greet me with an unwonted +joy. But, as I passed towards the stairway, I glanced into one of the +lower rooms, where some of the clerks were writing. I fancied Mr. +Clarkson might be there. There were women employed in this room, and +suddenly one who was writing at a desk attracted my attention. I did not +see her face; but the impression that her figure gave me haunted me as I +passed on. Some one passing me saw my disturbed look. + +"What have you seen? a ghost?" he asked. + +"Who is writing in that room? Can you tell me?" I said. + +"You know them all," was his answer, "except the new-comer, Miss Stuart. +Have not you heard the talk of her history,--how the father has failed +and died and all that, and how the daughter is glad enough to get work +under Mr. Clarkson's patronage?" + +The bell was ringing that called me, and I could not listen to more. My +brain was whirling uncertainly, and I doubted if I ought to believe my +ears. I went back to my work more dazed and bewildered than ever in my +youthful days. I forgot the wonder of the morning. It was quite +outshone by the wonder of the afternoon. I longed for my hour of +release. I longed for a time for thought,--to learn whether what had +been told me could be true. When the time came, I hastened down-stairs; +but I found the door of the office closed. Its occupants had all gone. I +hastened through the village, turned back again, and on the bridge over +the little stream met Margaret Stuart. She was the same. It made no +difference what were her surroundings, she was the same; there was the +same wonderful glance, the same smile of repose. It made no difference +where or how I met her, she ruled me still. She greeted me with the same +air and manner as in her old home when I saw her first. + +She told me afterwards of the changes and misfortunes of the past year, +of her desire for independence, and how she found she was little able to +uphold it herself. + +"Some of my friends," she said, "were very anxious I should teach +singing,--I had such a delicious voice, which had been so well +cultivated. I could sing Italian opera-songs and the like. But I found I +could only sing the songs that pleased me, and it was doubtful whether +they would happen to suit the taste or the voice of those I should try +to teach. For, I must confess it, I have never cultivated my voice +except for my own pleasure, and never for the sake of the art. I did try +to teach music a little while, and, oh, it was hopeless! I remembered +some of our old talks about drudgery, and thought it had been a happy +thing for me, if I had ever learned how to drudge over anything. What I +mean is, I have never learned how to go through a monotonous duty, how +to give it an inspiration which would make it possible or endurable. It +would have been easier to summon up all my struggling for the sake of +one great act of duty. I did not know how to scatter it over work day +after day the same. Worse than all, in spite of all my education, I did +not know enough of music to teach it." + +She went on, not merely this evening, but afterwards, to tell me of the +different efforts she had made to earn a living for herself with the +help of kind friends. + +"At last," she said, "I bethought me of my handwriting, of the 'elegant' +notes which used to receive such praise; and when I met Mr. Clarkson one +day in Boston, I asked him what price he would pay me for it. I will +tell you that he was very kind, very thoughtful for me. He fancied the +work he had to offer would be distasteful to me; but he has made it as +agreeable, as easy to be performed, as can be done. My aunt was willing +to come here with me. She has just enough to live upon herself, and we +are likely to live comfortably together here. So I am trying that sort +of work you praised so much when you were with me; and I shall be glad, +if you can go on and show me what inspiration can bring into it." + +So day after day I saw her, and evening after evening we renewed the old +talks. The summer passed on, and the early morning found her daily at +her work, every day pursuing an unaccustomed labor. Her spirit seemed +more happy and joyous than ever. She seemed far more at home than in the +midst of crowded streets and gay, brilliant rooms. Her expression was +more earnest and spiritual than ever,--her life, I thought, gayer +and happier. + +So I thought till one evening, when we had walked far away down the +little stream that led out of the town. We stopped to look into its +waters, while she leaned against the trunk of a tree overshadowed it. We +watched the light and shade that nickered below, the shadow of the +clover-leaves, of the long reeds that hung almost across the stream. The +quiet was enhanced by the busy motion below, the bustle of little animal +life, the skimming of the water-insects, the tender rustling of the +leaves, and the gentle murmuring of the stream itself. Then I looked at +her, from the golden hair upon her head down to its shadow in the brook +below. I saw her hands folded over each other, and, suddenly, they +looked to me very thin and white and very weary. I looked at her again, +and her whole posture was one of languor and weariness,--the languor of +the body, not a weariness of the soul. There was a happy smile on the +lips, and a gleam of happiness from under the half-closed eyes. But, oh, +so tired and faint did the slender body look that I almost feared to see +the happier spirit leave it, as though it were incumbered by something +which could not follow it. + +"Margaret!" I exclaimed. "You are wearing yourself away. You were never +made for such labor. You cannot learn this sort of toil. You are of the +sunshine, to play above the dusty earth, to gladden the dreary places. +Look at my hands, that are large for work,--at my heavy shoulders, +fitted to bear the yoke. Let me work for us both, and you shall still be +the inspiration of my work, and the sunshine that makes it gold. The +work we talked of is drudgery for you; you cannot bear it." + +I think she would not agree to what I said about her work. She "had +began to learn how to find life in every-day work, just as she saw a new +sun rise every day." But she did agree that we would work together, +without asking where our sunshine came from, or our inspiration. + +So it was settled. And her work was around and within the old +"natural-colored" house, whose walls by this time were half-embowered in +vines. There was gay sunshine without and within. And the lichen was +yellow that grew on the deeply sloping roof, and we liked to plant +hollyhocks and sunflowers by the side of the quaint old building, while +scarlet honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers and gay convolvuli gladdened +the front porch. + +There was but one question that was left to be disputed between us. +Margaret still believed I was an artist, all-undeveloped. + +"Those sunbeams"-- + +"I had nothing to do with them. They married golden threads that seemed +kindred to them." + +"It is not true. Sunbeams cannot exist without the sun. Your magnetic +power, perhaps, attracted the true sunbeam, and you recreated others." + +She fancies, if I would only devote myself to Art, I might become an +American Murillo, and put a Madonna upon canvas. + +But before we carried the new sunshine into the old house, I had been +summoned again by Mr. Clarkson. Another wonderful piece of carpeting had +gone out from the works, discovered by our agent before it had left our +warehouse. It was the Water-Lily pattern,--lilies sitting among green +leaves with sunshine playing in and out and among them. So dazzling it +seemed, that it shed a light all round the darkened walls of the +warehouse. It was priceless, he thought, a perfect unique. Better, +almost, that never such a pattern should appear again. It ought to +remain the only one in the world. + +And it did so remain. The rival establishment built a new chimney to +their mill, which shut out completely all sunshine or hope of sunshine +from our narrow windows. This was accomplished before the next May, and +I showed Mr. Clarkson how utterly impossible it was for the most +determined sunbeam ever to mingle itself with our most inviting fabrics. +Mr. Clarkson pondered a long time. We might build our establishment a +story higher; we might attempt to move it. But here were solid changes, +and the hopes were uncertain. Affairs were going on well, and the +reputation of the mills was at its height. And the carpets of sunshine +were never repeated. + + + * * * * * + + + +THE TWO TONGUES. + + +Whoever would read a profound political pamphlet under the guise of a +brilliant novel may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay +overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the +curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the _prolétaire_ +in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness, +and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober truth of present +history. And we are often tempted to bind up the novel of the dashing +Parliamenteer with our copy of "Ivanhoe," that we may thus have, side by +side, from the pens of the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli and Sir +Walter Scott, the beginning and the end of these eight hundred years of +struggle between Norman rule and Saxon endurance. For let races and +families change as they will, there have ever been in England two +nations; and the old debate of Wamba and Gurth in the forest-glade by +Rotherwood is illustrated by the unconscious satires of last week's +"Punch." In Chartism, Reform-Bills, and Strikes, in the etiquette which +guards the Hesperides of West-End society, in the rigid training which +stops many an adventurer midway in his career, are written the old +characters of the forest-laws of Rufus and the Charter of John. Races +and families change, but the distinction endures, is stamped upon all +things pertaining to both. + +We in America, who boast our descent from this matrimony of Norman and +Saxon, claim also that we have blent the features of the two into one +homogeneous people. In this country, where the old has become new, and +the new is continually losing its raw lustre before the glitter of some +fresher splendor, the traces of the contest are all but obliterated. +Only our language has come to us with the brand of the fatherland upon +it. In our mother-tongue prevails the same principle of dualism, the +same conflict of elements, which not all the lethean baptism of the +Atlantic could wash out. The two nations of England survive in the two +tongues of America. + +We beg the reluctant reader not to prematurely pooh-pooh as a "miserable +mouse" this conclusion, thinking that we are only serving up again that +old story of Wamba and Gurth with an added _sauce-piquante_ from Dean +Trench. We admit that we allude to that original composition of English +past and present from a Latin and a Teutonic stock. But that is to us +not an ultimate, but a primal fact. It is the premise from which we +propose to trace out the principle now living and working in our present +speech. We commence our history with that strife of the tongues which +had at the outset also their battle of Hastings, their field of Sanilac. +There began the feud which to-day continues to divide our language, +though the descendants of the primitive stocks are inextricably mingled. + +For it is as in "Sibyl." That novel showed us the peer's descendants at +the workman's forge, while the manufacturer's grandchildren were wearing +the ermine and the strawberry-leaves. There is the constant passing to +and fro across the one border-line which never changes. Dandy Mick and +Devilsdust save a little money and become "respectable." We can follow +out their history after Mr. Disraeli leaves them. They marry Harriet and +Caroline, and contrive to educate a sharp boy or two, who will rise to +become superintendents in the mills and to speculate in cotton-spinning. +They in turn send into trade, with far greater advantages, their sons. +The new generation, still educating, and, faithful to the original +impulse, putting forth its fresh and aspiring tendrils, gets one boy +into the church, another at the bar, and keeps a third at the great +_Rouge-et-Noir_ table of commerce. Some one of their stakes has a run of +luck. Either it is my Lord Eldon who sits on the wool-sack, or the young +curate bids his Oxford laurels against a head-mastership of a public +school and covers his baldness with a mitre, or Jones Lloyd steps from +his back parlor into the carriage which is to take Lord Overstone to the +House of Peers. From the day when young Osborne, the bold London +'prentice, leaped into the Thames to fish up thence his master's +daughter, and brought back, not only the little lady, but the ducal +coronet of Leeds in prospective, to that when Thomas Newcome the elder +walked up to the same London that he might earn the "bloody hand" for +Sir Brian and Sir Barnes, English life has been full of such gallant +achievements. + +So it has been with the words these speak. The phrases of the noble +Canon Chaucer have fallen to the lips of peasants and grooms, while many +a pert Cockney saying has elbowed its sturdy way into her Majesty's High +Court of Parliament. Yet still there are two tongues flowing through our +daily talk and writing, like the Missouri and Mississippi, with distinct +and contrasted currents. + +And this appears the more strikingly in this country, where other +distinctions are lost. We have an aristocracy of language, whose +phrases, like the West-End men of "Sibyl," are effeminate, extravagant, +conventional, and prematurely worn-out. These words represent ideas +which are theirs only by courtesy and conservatism, like the law-terms +of the courts, or the "cant" of certain religious books. We have also a +plebeian tongue, whose words are racy, vigorous, and healthy, but which +men look askance at, when met in polite usage, in solemn literature, and +in sermons. Norman and Saxon are their relative positions, as in the old +time when "Ox" was for the serf who drove a-field the living animal, and +"Beef" for the baron who ate him; but their lineage is counter-crossed +by a hundred, nay, a thousand vicissitudes. + +With this aristocracy of speech we are all familiar. We do not mean with +the speech of our aristocracy, which is quite another thing, but that +which is held appropriate for "great occasions," for public parade, and +for pen, ink, and types. It is cherished where all aristocracies +flourish best,--in the "rural districts." There is a style and a class +of words and phrases belonging to country newspapers, and to the city +weeklies which have the largest bucolic circulation, which you detect in +the Congressional eloquence of the honorable member for the Fifteenth +District, Mass., and in the Common-School Reports of Boston Corner,--a +style and words that remind us of the country gentry whose titles date +back to the Plantagenets. They look so strangely beside the brisk, +dapper curtnesses in which metropolitan journals transact their daily +squabbles! We never write one of them out without an involuntary +addition of quotation-marks, as a New-Yorker puts to his introduction of +his verdant cousin the supplementary, "From the Jerseys." Their +etymological Herald's Office is kept by schoolmasters, and especially +schoolma'ams, or, in the true heraldic tongue, "Preceptresses of +Educational Seminaries." You may find them in Mr. Hobbs, Jr.'s, +celebrated tale of "The Bun-Baker of Cos-Cob," or in Bowline's thrilling +novelette of "Beauty and Booty, or The Black Buccaneer of the Bermudas." +They glitter in the train of "Napoleon and his Marshals," and look down +upon us from the heights of "The Sacred Mountains." + +Occasionally you will find them degraded from their high estate and +fallen among the riff-raff of slang. They become "seedy" words, stripped +of their old meaning, mere _chevaliers d'industrie_, yet with something +of the air noble about them which distinguishes them from the born +"cad." The word "convey" once suffered such eclipse, (we are glad to say +it has come up again,) and consorted, unless Falstaff be mistaken, with +such low blackguards as "nim" and "cog" and "prig" and similar +"flash" terms. + +But we do not propose to linger among the "upper-ten" of the +dictionaries. The wont of such is to follow the law of hereditary +aristocracies: the old blood gets thin, there is no sparkle to the +_sangre azul_, the language dies out in poverty. The strong, new, +popular word forces its way up, is heard at the bar, gets quoted in the +pulpit, slips into the outer ring of good society. King Irving or King +Emerson lays his pen across its shoulder and it rises up ennobled, till +finally it is accepted of the "Atlantic Monthly," and its +court-presentation is complete. + +We have thus indicated the nature of the great contest in language +between the conventional and the idiomatic. Idioms are just what their +name implies. They are the commonalty of language,--private, proletarian +words, who do the work, "_dum alteri tulerunt honores_." They come to us +from all handiworks and callings, where you will always find them at +their posts. Sharp, energetic, incisive, they do the hard labor of +speech,--that of carrying heavy loads of thought and shaping new ideas. + +We think them vulgar at first, and savoring of the shop; but they are +useful and handy, and we cannot do without them. They rivet, they forge, +they coin, they "fire up," "brake up," "switch off," "prospect," "shin" +for us when we are "short," "post up" our books, and finally ourselves, +"strike a lead," "follow a trail," "stand up to the rack," "dicker," +"swap," and "peddle." They are "whole teams" beside the "one-horse" +vapidities which fail to bear our burdens. The Norman cannot keep down +the Saxon. The Saxon finds his Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Now "Mose" brings +his Bowery Boys into our parlor, or Cromwell Judd recruits his Ironsides +from the hamlets of the Kennebec. + +We declare for the prolétaires. We vote the working-words ticket. We +have to plead the cause of American idioms. Some of them have, as we +said, good blood in them and can trace their lineage and standing to the +English Bible and Book of Common Prayer; others are "new men," born +under hedge-rows and left as foundlings at furnace-doors. And before we +go farther, we have a brief story to tell in illustration of the +two tongues. + +A case of assault and battery was tried in a Western court. The +plaintiff's counsel informed the jury in his opening, that he was +"prepared to prove that the defendant, a steamboat-captain, menaced his +client, an English traveller, and put him in bodily fear, commanding him +to vacate the avenue of the steamboat with his baggage, or he would +precipitate him into the river." The evidence showed that the captain +called out,--"Stranger, ef you don't tote your plunder off that +gang-plank, I'll spill you in the drink." + +We submit that for terseness and vigor the practitioner at the bar of +the Ohio had the better of the learned counsel who appeared at the bar +of justice, albeit his client was in a Cockney mystification at +the address. + +The illustration will serve our turn. It points to a class of phrases +which are indigenous to various localities of the land, in which the +native thought finds appropriate, bold, and picturesque utterance. And +these in time become incorporate into the universal tongue. Of them is +the large family of political phrases. These are coined in moments of +intense excitement, struck out at white heat, or, to follow our leading +metaphor, like the speakers who use them, come upon the stump in their +shirt-sleeves. Every campaign gives us a new horde. Some die out at +once; others felicitously tickle the public ear and ring far and wide. +They "speak for Buncombe," are Barn-Burners, Old Hunkers, Hard Shells, +Soft Shells, Log-Rollers, Pipe-Layers, Woolly Heads, Silver Grays, +Locofocos, Fire-Eaters, Adamantines, Free Soilers, Freedom Shriekers, +Border Ruffians. They spring from a bon-mot or a retort. The log-cabin +and hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the +Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers +may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious +arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, to transfer the balance of +power to his own party. One of his opponents, poring over the map of the +Commonwealth, was struck by the odd look of the geographical lines +which thus were drawn, curving in and out among the towns and counties. +"It looks," said he, "like a Salamander." "Looks like a _Gerry_-mander!" +ejaculated another; and the term stuck long and closely. + +Now and then you have the aristocratic and democratic sides of an idea +in use at the same time. Those who style themselves "Gentlemen of the +Press" are known to the rest of mankind as "Dead Heads,"--being, for +paying purposes, literally, _capita mortua_. + +So, too, our colleges are provided, over and above the various dead +languages of their classic curriculum, with the two tongues. The one +serves the young gentlemen, especially in their Sophomoric maturity, +with appropriate expressions for their literary exercises and public +flights. The other is for their common talk, tells who "flunked" and was +"deaded," who "fished" with the tutor, who "cut" prayers, and who was +"digging" at home. Each college, from imperial Harvard and lordly Yale +to the freshest Western "Institution," whose three professors fondly +cultivate the same number of aspiring Alumni, has its particular dialect +with its quadrennial changes. The just budded Freshmen of the class of +'64 could hardly without help decipher "The Rebelliad," which in the +Consulship of Plancus Kirkland was the epic of the day. The good old +gentlemen who come up to eat Commencement dinners and to sing with +quavery voices the annual psalm thereafter, are bewildered in the mazes +of the college-speech of their grandsons. Whence come these phrases few +can tell. Like witty Dr. S------'s "quotation," which never was +anything else, they started in life as sayings, springing full-grown, +like Pallas Athene, from the laboring brain of some Olympic Sophister. +Here in the quiet of our study in the country, we wonder if the boys +continue as in our day to "create a shout," instead of "making a call," +upon their lady acquaintances,--if they still use "ponies,"--if they +"group," and get, as we did, "parietals" and "publics" for the same. + +The police courts contribute their quota. Baggage-smashing, +dog-smudging, ring-dropping, watch-stuffing, the patent-safe men, the +confidence men, garroters, shysters, policy-dealers, mock-auction Peter +Funks, bogus-ticket swindlers, are all terms which have more or less +outgrown the bounds of their Alsatia of Thieves' Latin and are known +of men. + +Even the pulpit, with its staid decorums, has its idioms, which it +cannot quite keep to itself. We hear in the religious world of +"professors," and "monthly concerts," (which mean praying, and not +psalmody,) of "sensation-preaching," (which takes the place of the +"painful" preaching of old times,) of "platform-speakers," of +"revival-preachers," of "broad pulpits," and "Churches of the Future," +of the "Eclipse of Faith" and the "Suspense of Faith," of "liberal" +Christians, (with no reference to the contribution-plates,) of +"subjective" and "objective" sermons, "Spurgeonisms," and "businessmen's +meetings." And we can never think without a smile of that gifted genius, +whoever he was, who described a certain public exercise as _"the most +eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience."_ He surely created +a new and striking idiom. + +The boys do, as Young America should, their share. And the sayings of +street urchins endure with singular tenacity. Like their sports, which +follow laws of their own, uninfluenced by meteorological considerations, +tending to the sedentary games of marbles in the cold, chilly spring, +and bursting into base-and foot-ball in the midsummer solstice, strict +tradition hands down from boy to boy the well-worn talk. There are still +"busters," as in our young days, and the ardent youth upon floating +cakes of ice "run bendolas" or "kittly-benders," or simply "benders." In +different latitudes the phrase varies,--one-half of it going to Plymouth +Colony, and the other abiding in Massachusetts Bay. And this tendency to +dismember a word is curiously shown in that savory fish which the +Indian christened "scup-paug." Eastward he swims as "scup," while at the +Manhattan end of the Sound he is fried as "porgie." And apropos of him, +let us note a curious instance of the tenacity of associated ideas. The +street boys of our day and early home were wont to term the _hetairai_ +of the public walks "scup." The young Athenians applied to the classic +courtesans the epithet of [Greek: saperdion], the name of a small fish +very abundant in the Black Sea. Here now is a bit of slang which may +fairly be warranted to keep fresh in any climate. + +But boy-talk is always lively and pointed; not at all precise, but very +prone to prosopopeia; ever breaking out of the bounds of legitimate +speech to invent new terms of its own. Dr. Busby addresses Brown, Jr., +as Brown Secundus, and speaks to him of his "young companions." Brown +himself talks of "the chaps," or "the fellows," who in turn know Brown +only as Tom Thumb. The power of nicknaming is a school-boy gift, which +no discouragement of parents and guardians can crush out, and which +displays thoroughly the idiomatic faculty. For a man's name was once +_his_, the distinctive mark by which the world got at his identity. +Long, Short, White, Black, Greathead, Longshanks, etc., told what a +person in the eyes of men the owner presented. The hereditary or +aristocratic process has killed this entirely. Men no longer make their +names; even the poor foundlings, like Oliver Twist, are christened +alphabetically by some Bumble the Beadle. But the nickname restores his +lost rights, and takes the man at once out of the _ignoble vulgus_ to +give him identity. We recognize this gift and are proud of our +nicknames, when we can get them to suit us. Only the sharp judgment of +our peers reverses our own heraldry and sticks a surname like a burr +upon us. The nickname is the idiom of nomenclature. The sponsorial +appellation is generally meaningless, fished piously out of Scripture or +profanely out of plays and novels, or given with an eye to future +legacies, or for some equally insufficient reason apart from the name +itself. So that the gentleman who named his children One, Two, and +Three, was only reducing to its lowest term the prevailing practice. But +the nickname abides. It has its hold in affection. When the "old boys" +come together in Gore Hall at their semi-centennial Commencement, or the +"Puds" or "Pores" get together after long absence, it is not to inquire +what has become of the Rev. Dr. Heavysterne or his Honor Littleton Coke, +but it is, "Who knows where Hockey Jones is?" and "Did Dandy Glover +really die in India?" and "Let us go and call upon Old Sykes" or "Old +Roots" or "Old Conic-Sections,"--thus meaning to designate +Professor----, LL.D., A.A.S., F.R.S., etc. A college president who had +no nickname would prove himself, _ipso facto_, unfit for his post. It is +only dreadfully affected people who talk of "Tully"; the sensible all +cling to the familiar "Chick-Pea" or Cicero, by which the wart-faced +orator was distinguished. For it is not the boys only, but all American +men, who love nicknames, the idioms of nomenclature. The first thing +which is done, after a nominating convention has made its platform and +balloted for its candidates, is to discover or invent a nickname: Old +Hickory, Tippecanoe, The Little Giant, The Little Magician, The Mill-Boy +of the Slashes, Honest John, Harry of the West, Black Dan, Old Buck, Old +Rough and Ready. A "good name" is a tower of strength and many votes. + +And not only with candidates for office, the spots on whose "white +garments" are eagerly sought for and labelled, but in the names of +places and classes the principle prevails, the democratic or Saxon +tongue gets the advantage. Thus, we have for our states, cities, and +ships-of-war the title of fondness which drives out the legal title of +ceremony. Are we not "Yankees" to the world, though to the diplomatists +"citizens of the United States of America"? We have a Union made up upon +the map of Maine, New Hampshire, etc., to California; we have another in +the newspapers, composed of the Lumber State, the Granite State, the +Green-Mountain State, the Nutmeg State, the Empire State, the Keystone +State, the Blue Hen, the Old Dominion, of Hoosiers, Crackers, Suckers, +Badgers, Wolverines, the Palmetto State, and Eldorado. We have the +Crescent City, the Quaker City, the Empire City, the Forest City, the +Monumental City, the City of Magnificent Distances. We hear of Old +Ironsides sent to the Mediterranean to relieve the Old Tea-Wagon, +ordered home. Everywhere there obtains the Papal principle of taking a +new title upon succeeding to any primacy. The Norman imposed his laws +upon England; the courts, the parish-registers, the Acts of Parliament +were all his; but to this day there are districts of the Saxon Island +where the postman and census-taker inquire in vain for Adam Smith and +Benjamin Brown, but must perforce seek out Bullhead and Bandyshins. So +indomitable is the Saxon. + +We have not done yet with our national idioms. In the seaboard towns +nautical phrases make tarry the talk of the people. "Where be you +a-cruising to?" asks one Nantucket matron of her gossip. "Sniver-dinner, +I'm going to Egypt; Seth B. has brought a letter from Turkey-wowner to +Old Nancy." "Dressed-to-death-and-drawers-empty, don't you see we're +goin' to have a squall? You had better take in your stu'n'-sails." The +good woman was dressed up, intending, "_as soon as ever_ dinner was +over," to go, not to the land of the Pharaohs, but to the negro-quarter +of the town, with a letter which "Seth B." (her son, thus identified by +his middle letter) had brought home from Talcahuana. + +For the rural idioms we refer the reader to the late Sylvester Judd's +"Margaret" and "Richard Edney," and to the Jack Downing Letters. + +The town is not behind the country. For, whatever is the current fancy, +pugilism, fire-companies, racing, railway-building, or the opera, its +idioms invade the talk. The Almighty Dollar of our worship has more +synonymes than the Roman Pantheon had divinities. We are not +"well-informed," but "posted" or "posted up." We are not "hospitably +entreated" any more, but "put through." We do not "meet with +misadventure," but "see the elephant," which we often do through the +Hibernian process of "fighting the tiger." + +Purists deplore this, but it is inevitable; and if one searches beneath +the surface, there is often a curious deposit of meaning, sometimes +auriferous enough to repay our use of cradle and rocker. We "panned +out," the other day, a phrase which gave us great delight, and which +illustrated a fact in New England history worth noting. We were puzzling +over the word "socdollager," which Bartlett, we think, defines as +"Anything very large and striking,"--_Anglicé_, a "whopper,"--"also a +peculiar fish-hook." The word first occurs in print, we believe, in Mr. +Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of +Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that +there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon +us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology." +This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or +"j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis, +both because its words were familiar to all without book, and because it +served instead of the chanted creed of their Anglican forefathers. The +last thing, after which nothing could properly follow, the most +important and most conspicuous of all, it represented to our Yankee +Walton the crowning hope of his life,--the big bass, after taking which +he might put hook-and-line on the shelf. By a slight transposition, +natural enough to untrained organs, "doxology" became "socdollager." + +We are not making a dictionary of Americanisms, but merely wandering a +little way into our native forests. We refer to the prevalent habit of +idiomatic speech as a fact that makes part of our literature. It cannot +be ignored, nor do we see how it is to be avoided. It is well, of +course, to retain the sterling classic basis of our speech as we +received it from abroad, and to this all that is best and purest in our +literature past and present will tend. But we hold to no Know-Nothing +platform which denies a right of naturalization to the worthy. As Ruskin +says of the river, that it does not make its bed, but finds it, seeking +out, with infinite pains, its appointed channel, so thought will seek +its expression, guided by its inner laws of association and sympathy. If +the mind and heart of a nation become barbarized, no classic culture can +keep its language from corruption. If its ideas are ignoble, it will +turn to the ignoble and vulgar side of every word in its tongue, it will +affix the mean sense it desires to utter where it had of old no place. +It converts the prince's palace into a stable or an inn; it pulls down +the cathedral and the abbey to use the materials for the roads on which +it tramples. It is good to sanctify language by setting some of its +portions apart for holy uses,--at least, by preserving intact the high +religious association which rests upon it. The same silver may be +moulded to the altar-chalice or the Bacchic goblet; but we touch the one +with reverent and clean hands, while the other is tossed aside in the +madness of the revel. Men clamor for a new version of the Sacred +Scriptures, and profess to be shocked at its plain outspokenness, +forgetting that to the pure all things are pure, and that to the +prurient all things are foul. It was a reverent and a worshipping age +that gave us that treasure, and so long as we have the temper of +reverence and worship we shall not ask to change it. + +And to return once more to our original illustration. We have the two +nations also in us, the Norman and the Saxon, the dominant and the +aspiring, the patrician and the _prolétaire_. The one rules only by +right of rule, the other rises only by right of rising. The power of +conservatism perishes, when there is no longer anything to keep; the +might of radicalism overflows into excess, when the proper check is +taken away or degraded. So long as the noble is noble and "_noblesse +oblige_," so long as Church and State are true to their guiding and +governing duties, the elevation of the base is the elevation of the +whole. If the standards of what is truly aristocratic in our language +are standards of nobility of thought, they will endure and draw up to +them, on to the episcopal thrones and into the Upper House of letters, +all that is most worthy. Whatever makes the nation's life will make its +speech. War was once the career of the Norman, and he set the seal of +its language upon poetry. Agriculture was the Saxon's calling, and he +made literature a mirror of the life he led. We in this new land are +born to new heritages, and the terms of our new life must be used to +tell our story. The Herald's College gives precedence to the +Patent-Office, and the shepherd's pipe to the steam-whistle. And since +all literature which can live stands only upon the national speech, we +must look for our hopes of coming epics and immortal dramas to the +language of the land, to its idioms, in which its present soul abides +and breathes, and not to its classicalities, which are the empty shells +upon its barren sea-shore. + + + +MIDSUMMER AND MAY. + +[Continued.] + +II. + +When Miss Kent, the maternal great-aunt of Mr. Raleigh, devised her +property, the will might possibly have been set aside as that of a +monomaniac, but for the fact that he cared too little about anything to +go to law for it, and for the still more important fact that the +heirs-at-law were sufficiently numerous to ingulf the whole property and +leave no ripple to attest its submerged existence, had he done so; and +on deserting it, he was better pleased to enrich the playfellow of his +childhood than a host of unknown and unloved individuals. I cannot say +that he did not more than once regret what he had lost: he was not of a +self-denying nature, as we know; on the contrary, luxurious and +accustomed to all those delights of life generally to be procured only +through wealth. But, for all that, there had been intervals, ere his +thirteen years' exile ended, in which, so far from regret, he +experienced a certain joy at remembrance of this rough and rugged point +of time where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to one of action +and freedom and real life. He had been happy in reaching India before +his uncle's death, in applying his own clear understanding to the +intricate entanglements of the affairs before him, in rescuing his +uncle's commercial good name, and in securing thus for himself a +foothold on the ladder of life, although that step had not occurred to +him till thrust there by the pressure of circumstances. For the rest, I +am not sure that Mr. Raleigh did not find his path suiting him well +enough. There was no longer any charm in home; he was forbidden to think +of it. That strange summer, that had flashed into his life like the +gleam of a carnival-torch into quiet rooms, must be forgotten; the forms +that had peopled it, in his determination, should become shadows. +Valiant vows! Yet there must have come moments, in that long lapse of +days and years, when the whole season gathered up its garments and swept +imperiously through his memory: nights, when, under the shadow of the +Himmaleh, the old passion rose at spring-tide and flooded his heart and +drowned out forgetfulness, and a longing asserted itself, that, if +checked as instantly by honor as despair, was none the less insufferable +and full of pain,--warm, wide, Southern nights, when all the stars, +great and golden, leaned out of heaven to meet him, and all ripe +perfumes, wafted by their own principle of motion, floated in the rich +dusk and laden air about him, and the phantom of snow on topmost heights +sought vainly to lend him its calm. Days also must have showered their +fervid sunshine on him, as he journeyed through plains of rice, where +all the broad reaches whitening to harvest filled him with intense and +bitterest loneliness. What region of spice did not recall the noons when +they two had trampled the sweet-fern on wide, high New England pastures, +and breathed its intoxicating fragrance? and what forest of the tropics, +what palms, what blooms, what gorgeous affluence of color and of growth, +equalled the wood on the lake-shores, with its stately hemlocks, its +joyous birches, its pale-blue, shadow-blanched violets? Nor was this +regret, that had at last become a part of the man's identity, entirely a +selfish one. He had no authority whatever for his belief, yet believe he +did, that, firmly and tenderly as he loved, he was loved, and of the two +fates his was not the harder. But a man, a man, too, in the stir of the +world, has not the time for brooding over the untoward events of his +destiny that a woman has; his tender memories are forever jostled by +cent. per cent.; he meets too many faces to keep the one in constant and +unchanging perpetuity sacredly before his thought. And so it happened +that Mr. Raleigh became at last a silent, keen-eyed man, with the shadow +of old and enduring melancholy on his life, but with no certain +sorrow there. + +In the course of time his business-connections extended themselves; he +was associated with other men more intent than he upon their aim; +although not wealthy, years might make him so; his name commanded +respect. Something of his old indifference lingered about him; it was +seldom that he was in earnest; he drifted with the tide, and, except to +maintain a clear integrity before God and men and his own soul, exerted +scarcely an effort. It was not an easy thing for him to break up any +manner of life; and when it became necessary for one of the firm to +visit America, and he as the most suitable was selected, he assented to +the proposition with not a heart-beat. America was as flat a wilderness +to him as the Desert of Sahara. On landing in India, he had felt like a +semi-conscious sleeper in his dream, the country seemed one of +phantasms: the Lascars swarming in the port,--the merchants wrapped in +snowy muslins, who moved like white-robed bronzes faintly animate,--the +strange faces, modes, and manners,--the stranger beasts, immense, and +alien to his remembrance; all objects that crossed his vision had seemed +like a series of fantastic shows; he could have imagined them to be the +creations of a heated fancy or the weird deceits of some subtle draught +of magic. But now they had become more his life than the scenes which he +had left; this land with its heats and its languors had slowly and +passively endeared itself to him; these perpetual summers, the balms and +blisses of the South, had unconsciously become a need of his nature. One +day all was ready for his departure; and in the clipper ship Osprey, +with a cargo for Day, Knight, and Company, Mr. Raleigh bade farewell +to India. + +The Osprey was a swift sailer and handled with consummate skill, so that +I shall not venture to say in how few days she had weathered the Cape, +and, ploughing up the Atlantic, had passed the Windward Islands, and off +the latter had encountered one of the severest gales in Captain +Tarbell's remembrance, although he was not new to shipwreck. If Mr. +Raleigh had found no time for reflection in the busy current of affairs, +when, ceasing to stand aside, he had mingled in the turmoil and become a +part of the generations of men, he could not fail to find it in this +voyage, not brief at best, and of which every day's progress must assure +him anew toward what land and what people he was hastening. Moreover, +Fate had woven his lot, it seemed, inextricably among those whom he +would shun; for Mr. Laudersdale himself was deeply interested in the +Osprey's freight, and it would be incumbent upon him to extend his +civilities to Mr. Raleigh. But Mr. Raleigh was not one to be cozened by +circumstances more than by men. + +The severity of the gale, which they had met some three days since, had +entirely abated; the ship was laid to while the slight damage sustained +was undergoing repair, and rocked heavily under the gray sky on the +long, sullen swell and roll of the grayer waters. Mr. Raleigh had just +come upon deck at dawn, where he found every one in unaccountable +commotion. "Ship to leeward in distress," was all the answer his +inquiries could obtain, while the man on the topmast was making his +observations. Mr. Raleigh could see nothing, but every now and then the +boom of a gun came faintly over the distance. The report having been +made, it was judged expedient to lower a boat and render her such +assistance as was possible. Mr. Raleigh never could tell how it came to +pass that he found himself one of the volunteers in this +dangerous service. + +The disabled vessel proved to be a schooner from the West Indies in a +sinking condition. A few moments sufficed to relieve a portion of her +passengers, sad wretches who for two days had stared death in the face, +and they pulled back toward the Osprey. A second and third journey +across the waste, and the remaining men prepared to lower the last woman +into the boat, when a stout, but extremely pale individual, who could no +longer contain his frenzy of fear, clambered down the chains and dropped +in her place. There was no time to be lost, and nothing to do but +submit; the woman was withdrawn to wait her turn with the captain and +crew, and the laden boat again labored back to the ship. Each trip in +the heavy sea and the blinding rain occupied no less than a couple of +hours, and it was past noon when, uncertain just before if she might yet +be there, they again came within sight of the little schooner, slowly +and less slowly settling to her doom. As they approached her at last, +Mr. Raleigh could plainly detect the young woman standing at a little +distance from the anxious group, leaning against the broken mast with +crossed arms, and looking out over the weary stretch with pale, grave +face and quiet eyes. At the motion of the captain, she stepped forward, +bound the ropes about herself, and was swung over the side to await the +motion of the boat, as it slid within reach on the top of the long wave, +or receded down its shining, slippery hollow. At length one swell brought +it nearer, Mr. Raleigh's arms snatched the slight form and drew her +half-fainting into the boat, a cloak was tossed after, and one by one +the remainder followed; they were all safe, and some beggared. The bows +of the schooner already plunged deep down in the gaping gulfs, they +pulled bravely away, and were tossed along from billow to billow. + +"You are very uncomfortable, Mademoiselle Le Blanc?" asked the rescued +captain at once of the young woman, as she sat beside him in the +stern-sheets. + +"_Moi?_" she replied. "_Mais non, Monsieur._" + +Mr. Raleigh wrapped the cloak about her, as she spoke. They were +equidistant from the two vessels, neither of which was to be seen, the +rain fell fast into the hissing brine, their fate still uncertain. There +was something strangely captivating and reassuring in this young girl's +equanimity, and he did not cease speculating thereon till they had again +reached the Osprey, and she had disappeared below. + +By degrees the weather lightened; the Osprey was on the wing again, and +a week's continuance of this fair wind would bring them into port. The +next day, toward sunset, as Mr. Raleigh turned about in his regular +pacing of the deck, he saw at the opposite extremity of the ship the +same slight figure dangerously perched upon the taffrail, leaning over, +now watching the closing water, and now eagerly shading her eyes with +her hand to observe the ship which they spoke, as they lay head to the +wind, and for a better view of which she had climbed to this position. +It was not Mr. Raleigh's custom to interfere; if people chose to drown +themselves, he was not the man to gainsay them; but now, as his walk +drew him toward her, it was the most natural thing in the world to pause +and say,-- + +"_Il serait fâcheux, Mademoiselle, lorsqu' on a failli faire naufrage, +de se noyer_"--and, in want of a word, Mr. Raleigh ignominiously +descended to his vernacular--"with a lee-lurch." + +The girl, resting on the palm of one hand, and unsupported otherwise, +bestowed upon him no reply, and did not turn her head. Mr. Raleigh +looked at her a moment, and then continued his walk. Returning, the +thing happened as he had predicted, and, with a little quick cry, +Mademoiselle Le Blanc was hanging by her hands among the ropes. Reaching +her with a spring, "_Viens, petite!_" he said, and with an effort placed +her on her feet again before an alarm could have been given. + +"_Ah! mais je crus c'en était fait de moi!_" she exclaimed, drawing in +her breath like a sob. In an instant, however, surveying Mr. Raleigh, +the slight emotion seemed to yield to one of irritation, that she had +been rescued by him; for she murmured quickly, in English, head +haughtily thrown back and eyes downcast,--"Monsieur thinks that I owe +him much for having saved my life!" + +"Mademoiselle best knows its worth," said he, rather amused, and turning +away. + +The girl was still looking down; now, however, she threw after him a +quick glance. + +"_Tenez!_" said she, imperiously, and stepping toward him. "You fancy me +very ungrateful," she continued, lifting her slender hand, and with the +back of it brushing away the floating hair at her temples. "Well, I am +not, and at some time it may be that I prove it. I do not like to owe +debts; but, since I must, I will not try to cancel them with thanks." + +Mr. Raleigh bowed, but said nothing. She seemed to think it necessary to +efface any unpleasant impression, and, with a little more animation and +a smile, added,--"The Captain Tarbell told me your name, Mr. Raleigh, +and that you had not been at home for thirteen years. _Ni moi non +plus_,--at least, I suppose it is home where I am going; yet I remember +no other than the island and my"-- + +And here the girl opened her eyes wide, as if determined that they +should not fill with tears, and looked out over the blue and sparkling +fields around them. There was a piquancy in her accent that made the +hearer wish to hear further, and a certain artlessness in her manner not +met with recently by him. He moved forward, keeping her beside him. + +"Then you are not French," he said. + +"I? Oh, no,--nor Creole. I was born in America; but I have always lived +with mamma on the plantation; _et maintenant, il y a six mois qu'elle +est morte!_" + +Here she looked away again. Mr. Raleigh's glance followed hers, and, +returning, she met it bent kindly and with a certain grave interest upon +her. She appeared to feel reassured, somewhat protected by one so much +her elder. + +"I am going now to my father," she said, "and to my other mother." + +"A second marriage," thought Mr. Raleigh, "and before the orphan's +crapes are"--Then, fearful lest she should read his thought, he +added,--"And how do you speak such perfect English?" + +"Oh, my father came to see us every other year, and I have written home +twice a week since I was a little child. Mamma, too, spoke as much +English as French." + +"I have not been in America for a long time," said Mr. Raleigh, after a +few steps. "But I do not doubt that you will find enjoyment there. It +will be new: womanhood will have little like youth for you; but, in +every event, it is well to add to our experience, you know." + +"What is it like, Sir? But I know! Rows of houses, very counterparts of +rows of houses, and they of rows of houses yet beyond. Just the +toy-villages in boxes, uniform as graves and ugly as bricks"-- + +"Brick houses are not such ugly things. I remember one, low and wide, +possessed of countless gables, covered with vines and shaded with +sycamores; it could not have been so picturesque, if built of the marble +of Paros, and gleaming temple-white through masks of verdure." + +"It seems to me that I, too, remember such a one," said she, dreamily. +"_Mais non, je m'y perds_. Yet, for all that, I shall not find the New +York avenues lined with them." + +"No; the houses there are palaces." + +"I suppose, then, I am to live in a palace," she answered, with a light +tinkling laugh. "That is fine; but one may miss the verandas, all the +whiteness and coolness. How one must feel the roof!" + +"Roofs should be screens, and not prisons, not shells, you think?" said +Mr. Raleigh. + +"At home," she replied, "our houses are, so to say, parasols; in those +cities they must be iron shrouds. _Ainsi soit il!_" she added, and +shrugged her shoulders like a little fatalist. + +"You must not take it with such desperation; perhaps you will not be +obliged to wear the shroud." + +"Not long, to be sure, at first. We go to freeze in the country, a place +with distant hills of blue ice, my old nurse told me,--old Ursule. Oh, +Sir, she was drowned! I saw the very wave that swept her off!" + +"That was your servant?" + +"Yes." + +"Then, perhaps, I have some good news for you. She was tall and large?" + +"_Oui_." + +"Her name was Ursule?" + +"_Oui! je dis que oui!_" + +Mr. Raleigh laughed at her eagerness. "She is below, then," he +said,--"not drowned. There is Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds, will you take this +young lady to her servant, Ursule, the woman you rescued?" + +And Mademoiselle Le Blanc disappeared under that gentleman's escort. + +The ordinary restraints of social life not obtaining so much on board +ship as elsewhere, Mr. Raleigh saw his acquaintance with the pale young +stranger fast ripening into friendliness. It was an agreeable variation +from the monotonous routine of his voyage, and he felt that it was not +unpleasant to her. Indeed, with that childlike simplicity that was her +first characteristic, she never saw him without seeking him, and every +morning and every evening it became their habit to pace the deck +together. Sunrise and twilight began to be the hours with which he +associated her; and it was strange, that, coming, as she did, out of the +full blaze of tropical suns, she yet seemed a creature that had taken +life from the fresh, cool, dewy hours, and that must fairly dissolve +beneath the sky of noon. She puzzled him, too, and he found singular +contradictions in her: to-night, sweetness itself,--to-morrow, petulant +as a spoiled child. She had all a child's curiosity, too; and he amused +himself by seeing, at one time, with what novelty his adventures struck +her, when, at another, he would have fancied she had always held Taj and +Himmaleh in her garden. Now and then, excited, perhaps, by emulation and +wonder, her natural joyousness broke through the usually sad and quiet +demeanor; and she related to him, with dramatic _abandon_, scenes of her +gay and innocent island-life, so that he fancied there was not an +emotion in her experience hidden from his knowledge, till, all-unaware, +he tripped over one reserve and another, that made her, for the moment, +as mysterious a being as any of those court-ladies of ancient _régimes_, +in whose lives there were strange _lacunae_, and spaces of shadow. And a +peculiarity of their intercourse was, that, let her depart in what freak +or perversity she pleased, she seemed always to have a certainty of +finding him in the same mood in which she had left him,--as some bright +wayward vine of Southern forests puts out a tendril to this or that +enticing point, yet, winding back, will find its first support +unchanged. Shut out, as Mr. Raleigh had been, from any but the most +casual female society, he found a great charm in this familiarity, and, +without thinking how lately it had begun or how soon it must cease, he +yielded himself to its presence. At one hour she seemed to him an +impetuous and capricious thing, for whose better protection the accident +of his companionship was extremely fortunate,--at another hour, a woman +too strangely sweet to part with; and then Mr. Raleigh remembered that +in all his years he had really known but two women, and one of these had +not spent a week in his memory. + +Mademoiselle Le Blanc came on deck, one evening, and, wrapping a soft, +thick mantle round her, looked about for a minute, shaded her eyes from +the sunset, meantime, with a slender, transparent hand, bowed to one, +spoke to another, slipped forward and joined Mr. Raleigh, where he +leaned over the ship's side. + +"_Voici ma capote!_" said she, before he was aware of her approach. +"_Ciel! qu'il fait frais!_" + +"We have changed our skies," said Mr. Raleigh, looking up. + +"It is not necessary that you should tell me that!" she replied. "I +shiver all the time. I shall become a little iceberg, for the sake of +floating down to melt off Martinique!" + +"Warm yourself now in the sunset; such a blaze was kindled for the +purpose." + +"Whenever I see a sunset, I find it to be a splendid fact, _une +jouissance vraie, Monsieur_, to think that men can paint,--that these +shades, which are spontaneous in the heavens, and fleeting, can be +rivalled by us and made permanent,--that man is more potent than light." + +"But you are all wrong in your _jouissance_." + +She pouted her lip, and hung over the side in an attitude that it seemed +he had seen a hundred times before. + +"That sunset, with all its breadth and splendor, is contained in every +pencil of light." + +She glanced up and laughed. + +"Oh, yes! a part of its possibilities. Which proves?"-- + +"That color is an attribute of light and an achievement of man." + + "Cà et là , + Toute la journée, + Le vent vain va + En sa tournée," + +hummed the girl, with a careless dismissal of the subject. + +Mr. Raleigh shut up the note-book in which he had been writing, and +restored it to his pocket. She turned about and broke off her song. + +"There is the moon on the other side," she said, "floating up like a +great bubble of light. She and the sun are the scales of a balance, I +think; as one ascends, the other sinks." + +"There is a richness in the atmosphere, when sunset melts into moonrise, +that makes one fancy it enveloping the earth like the bloom on a plum." + +"And see how it has powdered the sea! The waters look like the wings of +the _papillon bleu_." + +"It seems that you love the sea." + +"Oh, certainly. I have thought that we islanders were like those Chinese +who live in great _tanka_-boats on the rivers; only our boat rides at +anchor. To climb up on the highest land, and see yourself girt with +fields of azure enamelled in sheets of sunshine and fleets of sails, and +lifted against the horizon, deep, crystalline, and translucent as a +gem,--that makes one feel strong in isolation, and produces keen races. +Don't you think so?" + +"I think that isolation causes either vivid characteristics or idiocy, +seldom strong or healthy ones; and I do not value race." + +"Because you came from America!"--with an air of disgust,--"where there +is yet no race, and the population is still too fluctuating for the +mould of one." + +"I come from India, where, if anywhere, there is race." + +"But, pshaw! that was not what we were talking about." + +"No, Mademoiselle, we were speaking of an element even more fluctuating +than American population." + +"Of course I love the sea; but if the sea loves me, it is the way a cat +loves the mouse." + +"It is always putting up a hand to snatch you?" + +"I suppose I am sent to Nineveh and persist in shipping for Tarshish. I +never enter a boat without an accident. The Belle Voyageuse met +shipwreck, and I on board. That was anticipated, though, by all the +world; for the night before we set sail,--it was a very murk, hot night, +--we were all called out to see the likeness of a large merchantman +transfigured in flames upon the sky,--spars and ropes and hull one net +and glare of fire." + +"A mirage, probably, from some burning ship at sea." + +"No, I would rather think it supernatural. Oh, it was frightful! Rather +superb, though, to think of such a spectral craft rising to warn us with +ghostly flames that the old Belle Voyageuse was riddled with rats!" + +"Did it burn blue?" asked Mr. Raleigh. + +"Oh, if you're going to make fun of me, I'll tell you nothing more!" + +As she spoke, Capua, who had considered himself, during the many years +of wandering, both guiding and folding star to his master, came up, with +his eyes rolling fearfully in a lively expansion of countenance, and +muttered a few words in Mr. Raleigh's ear, lifting both hands in comical +consternation the while. + +"Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Raleigh, following him, and, meeting +Captain Tarbell at the companion-way, the three descended together. + +Mr. Raleigh was absent some fifteen minutes, at the end of that time +rejoining Mademoiselle Le Blanc. + +"I did not mean to make fun of you," said he, resuming the conversation +as if there had been no interruption. "I was watching the foam the +Osprey makes in her speed, which certainly burns blue. See the flashing +sparks! now that all the red fades from the west, they glow in the moon +like broken amethysts." + +"What did you mean, then?" she asked, pettishly. + +"Oh, I wished to see if the idea of a burning ship was so terrifying." + +"Terrifying? No; I have no fear; I never was afraid. But it must, in +reality, be dreadful. I cannot think of anything else so appalling." + +"Not at all timid?" + +"Mamma used to say, those that know nothing fear nothing." + +"Eminently your case. Then you cannot imagine a situation in which you +would lose self-possession?" + +"Scarcely. Isn't it people of the finest organization, comprehensive, +large-souled, that are capable of the extremes either of courage or +fear? Now I am limited, so that, without rash daring or pale panic, I +can generally preserve equilibrium." + +"How do you know all this of yourself?" he asked, with an amused air. + +"_Il se présentait des occasions_," she replied, briefly. + +"So I presumed," said he. "Ah? They have thrown out the log. See, we +make progress. If this breeze holds!" + +"You are impatient, Mr. Raleigh. You have dear friends at home, whom you +wish to see, who wish to see you?" + +"No," he replied, with a certain bitterness in his tone. "There is no +one to whom I hasten, no one who waits to receive me." + +"No one? But that is terrible! Then why should you wish to hasten? For +me, I would always be willing to loiter along, to postpone home +indefinitely." + +"That is very generous, Mademoiselle." + +"Mr. Raleigh"-- + +"Well?" + +"I wish--please--you must not say Mademoiselle. Nobody will address me +so, shortly. Give me my name,--call me Marguerite. _Je vous en prie_." + +And she looked up with a blush deepening the apple-bloom of her cheek. + +"Marguerite? Does it answer for pearl or for daisy with you?" + +"Oh, they called me so because I was such a little round white baby. I +couldn't have been very precious, though, or she never would have parted +with me. Yes, I wish we might drift on some lazy current for years. I +hate to shorten the distance. I stand in awe of my father, and I do not +remember my mother." + +"Do not remember?" + +"She is so perfect, so superb, so different from me! But she ought to +love her own child!" + +"Her own child?" + +"And then I do not know the customs of this strange land. Shall I be +obliged to keep an establishment?" + +"Keep an establishment?" + +"It is very rude to repeat my words so! You oughtn't! Yes, keep an +establishment!" + +"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle." + +"No, it is I who am rude." + +"Not at all,--but mysterious. I am quite in the dark concerning you." + +"Concerning me?" + +"Ah, Miss Marguerite, it is my turn now." + +"Oh! It must be----This is your mystery, _n'est ce pas?_ Mamma was my +grandmamma. My own mother was far too young when mamma gave her in +marriage; and, to make amends, mamma adopted me and left me her name and +her fortune. So that I am very wealthy. And now shall I keep an +establishment?" + +"I should think not," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile. + +"Do you know, you constantly reassure me? Home grows less and less a +bugbear when you speak of it. How strange! It seems as if I had known +you a year, instead of a week." + +"It would probably take that period of time to make us as well +acquainted under other circumstances." + +"I wish you were going to be with us always. Shall you stay in America, +Mr. Raleigh?" + +"Only till the fall. But I will leave you at your father's door"---- + +And then Mr. Raleigh ceased suddenly, as if he had promised an +impossibility. + +"How long before we reach New York?" she asked. + +"In about nine hours," he replied,--adding, in unconscious undertone, +"if ever." + +"What was that you said to yourself?" she asked, in a light and gayly +inquisitive voice, as she looked around and over the ship. "Why, how +many there are on deck! It is such a beautiful night, I suppose. Eh, +Mr. Raleigh?" + +"Are you not tired of your position?" he asked. "Sit down beside me +here." And he took a seat. + +"No, I would rather stand. Tell me what you said." + +"Sit, then, to please me, Marguerite, and I will tell you what I said." + +She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood of her capote, +with its rich purple, dropping from the fluttering yellow hair that the +moonlight deepened into gold, and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling +with her breath, like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still +warm and soft, with his own, which was icy. She withdrew it, turned her +eyes, whose fair, faint lustre, the pale forget-me-not blue, was +darkened by the antagonistic light to an amethystine shadow, +inquiringly upon him. + +"There is some danger," she murmured. + +"Yes. When you are not a mark for general observation, you shall hear +it." + +"I would rather hear it standing." + +"I told you the condition." + +"Then I shall go and ask Captain Tarbell." + +"And come sobbing back to me for 'reassurance.'" + +"No," she said, quickly, "I should go down to Ursule." + +"Ursule has a mattress on deck; I assisted her up." + +"There is the captain! Now"---- + +He seized her hand and drew her down beside him. For an instant she +would have resisted, as the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks +attested,--and then, with the instinctive feminine baseness that compels +every woman, when once she has met her master, she submitted. + +"I am sorry, if you are offended," said he. "But the captain cannot +attend to you now, and it is necessary to be guarded in movement; for a +slight thing on such occasions may produce a panic." + +"You should not have forced me to sit," said she, in a smothered voice, +without heeding him; "you had no right." + +"This right, that I assume the care of you." + +"Monsieur, you see that I am quite competent to the care of myself." + +"Marguerite, I see that you are determined to quarrel." + +She paused a moment, ere replying; then drew a little nearer and turned +her face toward him, though without looking up. + +"Forgive me, then!" said she. "But I would rather be naughty and +froward, it lets me stay a child, and so you can take me in keeping, and +I need not think for myself at all. But if I act like a woman grown, +then comes all the responsibility, and I must rely on myself, which is +such trouble now, though I never felt it so before,--I don't know why. +Don't you see?" And she glanced at him with her head on one side, and +laughing archly. + +"You were right," he replied, after surveying her a moment; "my +proffered protection is entirely superfluous." + +She thought he was about to go, and placed her hand on his, as it lay +along the side. "Don't leave me," she murmured. + +"I have no intention of leaving you," he said. + +"You are very good. I have never seen one like you. I love you well." +And, bathed in moonlight, she raised her face and her glowing lips +toward him. + +Mr. Raleigh gazed in the innocent eyes a moment, to seek the extent of +her meaning, and felt, that, should he take advantage of her childlike +forgetfulness, he would be only reënacting the part he had so much +condemned in one man years before. So he merely bent low over the hand +that lay in his, raised it, and touched his lips to that. In an instant +the color suffused her face, she snatched the hand away, half rose +trembling from her seat, then sank into it again. + +"_Soit, Monsieur!_" she exclaimed, abruptly. "But you have not told me +the danger." + +"It will not alarm you now?" he replied, laughing. + +"I have said that I am not a coward." + +"I wonder what you would think of me when I say that without doubt I +am." + +"You, Mr. Raleigh?" she cried, astonishment banishing anger. + +"Not that I betray myself. But I have felt the true heart-sinking. Once, +surprised in the centre of an insurrection, I expected to find my hair +white as snow, if I escaped." + +"Your hair is very black. And you escaped?" + +"So it would appear." + +"They suffered you to go on account of your terror? You feigned death? +You took flight?" + +"Hardly, neither." + +"Tell me about it," she said, imperiously. + +Though Mr. Raleigh had exchanged the singular reserve of his youth for a +well-bred reticence, he scarcely cared to be his own hero. + +"Tell me," said she. "It will shorten the time; and that is what you are +trying to do, you know." + +He laughed. + +"It was once when I was obliged to make an unpleasant journey into the +interior, and a detachment was placed at my service. We were in a +suspected district quite favorable to their designs, and the commanding +officer was attacked with illness in the night. Being called to his +assistance, I looked abroad and fancied things wore an unusual aspect +among the men, and sent Capua to steal down a covered path and see if +anything were wrong. Never at fault, he discovered a revolt, with intent +to murder my companion and myself, and retreat to the mountains. Of +course there was but one thing to do. I put a pistol in my belt and +walked down and in among them, singled out the ringleader, fixed him +with my eye, and bade him approach. My appearance was so sudden and +unsuspected that they forgot defiance." + +"_Bien_, but I thought you were afraid." + +"So I was. I could not have spoken a second word. I experienced intense +terror, and that, probably, gave my glance a concentration of which I +was unaware and by myself incapable; but I did not suffer it to waver; I +could not have moved it, indeed; I kept it on the man while he crept +slowly toward me. I shall never forget the horrible sensation. I did not +dare permit myself to doubt his conquest; but if I had failed, as I then +thought, his approach was like the slow coil of a serpent about me, and +it was his glittering eyes that had fixed mine, and not mine his. At my +feet, I commanded him, with a gesture, to disarm. He obeyed, and I +breathed; and one by one they followed his example. Capua, who was +behind me, I sent back with the weapons, and in the morning gave them +their choice of returning to town with their hands tied behind their +backs, or of going on with me and remaining faithful. They chose the +latter, did me good service, and I said nothing about the affair." + +"That was well. But were you really frightened?" + +"So I said. I cannot think of it yet without a slight shudder." + +"Yes, and a rehearsal. Your eyes charge bayonets now. I am not a Sepoy." + +"Well, you are still angry with me?" + +"How can I be angry with you?" + +"How, indeed? So much your senior that you owe me respect, Miss +Marguerite. I am quite old enough to be your father." + +"You are, Sir?" she replied, with surprise. "Why, are you fifty-five +years old?" + +"Is that Mr. Laudersdale's age?" + +"How did you know Mr. Laudersdale Was my father?" + +"By an arithmetical process. That is his age?" + +"Yes; and yours?" + +"Not exactly. I was thirty-seven last August." + +"And will be thirty-eight next?" + +"That is the logical deduction." + +"I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just twice my age." + +"By what courier will you make it reach me?" + +"Oh, I forgot. But--Mr. Raleigh?" "What is it?" he replied, turning to +look at her,--for his eyes had been wandering over the deck. + +"I thought you would ask me to write to you." + +"No, that would not be worth while." + +His face was too grave for her to feel indignation. + +"Why?" she demanded. + +"It would give me great pleasure, without doubt. But in a week you will +have too many other cares and duties to care for such a burden." + +"That shows that you do not know me at all. _Vous en avez usé mal avec +moi!_" + +Though Mr. Raleigh still looked at her, he did not reply. She rose and +walked away a few steps, coming back. + +"You are always in the right, and I consequently in the wrong," she +said. "How often to-night have I asked pardon? I will not put up +with it!" + +"We shall part in a few hours," he replied; "when you lose your temper, +I lose my time." + +"In a few hours? Then is the danger which you mentioned past?" + +"I scarcely think so." + +"Now I am not going to be diverted again. What is this dreadful danger?" + +"Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the +port before our situation becomes apparently worse,--that we do not take +to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the +Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several +other becauses,--that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the +captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape"---- + +"_Allez au hut!_" + +"That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of +excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail +into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal." + +"Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?" + +"Yes." + +She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite +faint. Soon recovering herself,-- + +"And what do you think of the mirage now?" she asked. "Where is Ursule? +I must go to her," she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting +to her feet. + +"Shall I accompany you?" + +"Oh, no." + +"She lies on a mattress there, behind that group,"--nodding in the +implied direction; "and it would be well, if you could lie beside her +and get an hour's rest." + +"Me? I couldn't sleep. I shall come back to you,--may I?" And she was +gone. + +Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had left him, when, a +half-hour afterward, she returned. + +"Where is your cloak?" he asked, rising to receive her. + +"I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly." + +"You will not take cold?" + +"I? I am on fire myself." + +"Ah, I see; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you." + +"It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not?--drifting on before +the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire and all red-hot raging +turbulence. Just look up the long sparkling length of these white, full +shrouds, swelling and curving like proud swans, in the gale,--and then +imagine the devouring monster below in his den!" + +"_Don't_ imagine it. Be quiet and sit beside me. Half the night is +gone." + +"I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driving forward to +destruction on fearful breakers, drank and sang and died madly. I wish +the whole ship's company would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or +that we might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance,--dance +wildly into death and daylight." + +"We have nothing to do with death," said Mr. Raleigh. "Our foe is simply +time. You dance, then?" + +"Oh, yes. I dance well,--like those white fluttering butterflies,--as if +I were _au gré du vent_." "That would not be dancing well." + +"It would not be dancing well to _be_ at the will of the wind, but it is +perfection to appear so." + +"The dance needs the expression of the dancer's will. It is breathing +sculpture. It is mimic life beyond all other arts." + +"Then well I love to dance. And I do dance well. Wait,--you shall see." + +He detained her. + +"Be still, little maid!" he said, and again drew her beside him, though +she still continued standing. + +At this moment the captain approached. + +"What cheer?" asked Mr. Raleigh. + +"No cheer," he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger-nails into his +palm. "The planks forward are already hot to the hand. I tremble at +every creak of cordage, lest the deck crash in and bury us all." + +"You have made the Sandy Hook light?" + +"Yes; too late to run her ashore." + +"You cannot try that at the Highlands?" + +"Certain death." + +"The wind scarcely"---- + +"Veered a point I am carrying all sail. But if this tooth of fire gnaws +below, you will soon see the masts go by the board. And then we are +lost, indeed!" + +"Courage! she will certainly hold together till you can hail the +pilots." + +"I think no one need tremble when he has such an instance of +fearlessness before him," replied the captain, bowing to Marguerite; and +turning away, he hid his suspense and pain again under a calm +countenance. + +Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had heard the whole of +the conversation, and he felt the hand in his growing colder as it +continued. He wondered if it were still the same excitement that sent +the alternate flush and pallor up her cheek. She sat down, leaning her +head back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and suffering +the light, fine hair to blow about her temples before the steady breeze. +He bent over to look into her eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless. + +"Marguerite!" he exclaimed. + +She tried to speak, but the teeth seemed to hinder the escape of her +words, and to break them into bits of sound; a shiver shook her from +head to foot. + +"I wonder if this is fear," she succeeded in saying. "Oh, if there were +somewhere to go, something to hide me! A great horror is upon me! I am +afraid! _Seigneur Dieu! Mourir par le feu! Périssons alors au plus +vite!_" And she shuddered, audibly. + +Mr. Raleigh passed his arm about her and gathered her closer to himself. +He saw at once, that, sensitive as she was to every impression, this +fear was a contagious one, a mere gregarian affinity, and that she +needed the preponderating warmth and strength of a protecting presence, +the influence of a fuller vitality. He did not speak, but his touch must +in some measure have counteracted the dread that oppressed her. She +ceased trembling, but did not move. + +The westering moon went to bury herself in banks of cloud; the wind +increasing piped and whistled in strident threatening through the +rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No +murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they +drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one +voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light +was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the +forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. +Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all the people. The +captain's voice thundered through the tumult, and instantly the mates +sprang forward and the jib went crashing overboard. Mr. Raleigh tore his +eyes away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them by chance +on two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with +intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with +hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting +prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat +at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into +file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if +possible, the flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed over +to Ursule. + +The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to the girl a +portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and +rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve +with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and +unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else +broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of +breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place +was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to +leave below the stings of the blistering deck. None waited on the order +of their going, but thronged and sprang precipitately. Ursule was at +once deposited in safety. The captain moved to conduct Marguerite +across, but she drew back and clung to Mr. Raleigh. + +"_J'ai honte_," she said; "_je ne bougerai pas plus tót que vous._" + +The breath of the fierce flames scorched her cheek as she spoke, the +wind of their roaring progress swept her hair. He lifted her over +without further consultation, and still kept her in his care. + +There was a strange atmosphere on board the little vessels, as they +labored about and parted from the doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with +awe and joy at their deliverance; others broke the tense strain of the +last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the panting engines they +answered with waiting heart-beats, as it sent them farther from the +fearful wonder, now blazing in multiplex lines of fire against the gray +horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration of +a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze with him. An hour +silently passed, and as the fiery phantom faded into dawn and distance +she sang sweetly the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another +voice took up the measure, stronger and clearer; those who knew nothing +of the words caught the spirit of the tune; and no choral service ever +pealed up temple-vaults with more earnest accord than that in which this +chant of grateful, exultant devotion now rose from rough-throated men +and weary women in the crisp air and yellowing spring-morning. + +As the moment of parting approached, Marguerite stood with folded hands +before Mr. Raleigh, looking sadly down the harbor. + +"I regret all that," she said,--"these days that seem years." + +"An equivocal phrase," he replied, with a smile. + +"But you know what I mean. I am going to strangers; I have been with +you. I shall find no one so kind to me as you have been, Monsieur." + +"Your strangers can be much kinder to you than I have been." + +"Never! I wish they did not exist! What do I care for them? What do they +care for me? They do not know me; I shall shock them. I miss you, I hate +them, already. _Non! Personne ne m'aime, et je n'aime personne!_" she +exclaimed, with low-toned vehemence. + +"Rite," began Mr. Raleigh. + +"Rite! No one but my mother ever called me that. How did you know it?" + +"I have met your mother, and I knew you a great many years ago." + +"Mr. Raleigh!" And there was the least possible shade of unconscious +regret in the voice before it added,--"And what was I?" + +"You were some little wood-spirit, the imp of a fallen cone, mayhap, or +the embodiment of birch-tree shadows. You were a soiled and naughty +little beauty, not so different from your present self, and who kissed +me on the lips." "And did you refuse to take the kiss?" + +He laughed. + +"You were a child then," he said. "And I was not"---- + +"Was not?"---- + +Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the shock prevented Mr. +Raleigh's finishing his sentence. + +"Ursule is with us, or on the other one?" she asked. + +"With us." + +"That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by which to prove my +identity." + +"As if there could be two such maidens in the world!" + +Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tarbell her address, and +returning, they were shortly afterward seated side by side in a coach, +Capua and Ursule following in another. As they stopped at the destined +door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She lingered a moment +ere taking it,--not to say adieu, nor to offer him cheek or lip again. + +"_Que je te remercie!_" she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "_Que je +te trouve bon!_" and sprang before him up the steps. + +He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined +them; he reëntered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall. + +The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's +business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally +lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and proceeded +at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he found that +affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had been +instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the +overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could +take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months +of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a +little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at +first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the +seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him. +Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him, +if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the +lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues +of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate +and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,-- + + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie, + brave Charlie! + + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine + wi' McLean!" + +Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best +to remain long in the city; he would be glad to know if sight of the old +scenes could renew a throb. He answered his letters, replenished his +wardrobe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. At noon +of the second day thereafter he found Mr. McLean's coach, with that +worthy gentleman in person, awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it +paused at the foot of his former garden, with a strange sense of the +world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error. + +Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him,--a face less round and rosy +than once, as the need of pink cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and +bright as youth. + +"The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the first greeting, +putting his hands on her shoulders and smiling down at her benevolently. + +"Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking her head. "I +expected this stain on your skin; but, dear me! your eyes look as if you +had not a friend in the world." + +"How can they look so, when you give me such a welcome?" + +"Dear old Roger, you _are_ just the same," said she, bestowing a little +caress upon his sleeve. "And if you remember the summer before you went +away, you will not find that pleasant company so very much changed +either." "I do not expect to find them at all." + +"Oh, then they will find you; because they are all here,--at least the +principals; some with different names, and some, like myself, with +duplicates,"--as a shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother +and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over rosy blushes. + +After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. Raleigh turned again +to Mrs. McLean. + +"And who are there here?" he asked. + +"There is Mrs. Purcell,--you remember Helen Heath? Poor Mrs. Purcell, +whom you knew, died, and her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary, +who is single and speechless yet; and Captain, now Colonel, Purcell +makes a very good silent partner. He is hunting in the West, on +furlough; she is here alone. There is Mrs. Heath,--you never have +forgotten her?" + +"Not I." + +"There is"------ + +"And how came you all in the country so early in the season,--anybody +with your devotion to company?" + +"To be made April fools, John says." + +"Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will be." + +"I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter; and Mrs. Laudersdale +and I agreed, that, the moment the snow was off the ground up here, we +would fly away and be at rest." + +"Mrs. Laudersdale? Can she come here?" + +"Goodness! Why not? The last few summers we have always spent together." + +"She is with you now, then?" + +"Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I didn't mean to tell, but +keep her as a surprise. Of course, you will be a surprise to +everybody.--There, run along, children; we'll follow.--Yes, won't it be +delightful, Roger? We can all play at youth again." + +"Like skeletons in some Dance of Death!" he exclaimed. "We shall be +hideous in each other's sight." + +"McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding the late misanthropy; +"Helen is a girl; the ghost of the prior Mrs. Purcell shall be +_rediviva_; and Katy there"------ + +"Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin. + +"Before you have shuffled off mortality for the whole party, sit down +under this hedge,--here is an opportune bench,--and give me accounts +from the day of my departure." + +"Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible! The ocean in a tea-cup? Let +me see,--you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn't you? Well, +she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It was odd to +miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once. Mrs. +Laudersdale was ill; I don't know exactly what the trouble was. You know +she had been in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer; +and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old city-life, she +became oppressed with a speechless melancholy, I believe, so that the +doctors foreboded insanity. She expressed great disinclination to follow +their advice, and her husband finally banished them all. It was a great +care to him; he altered much. McLean surmised that she didn't like to +see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround +her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and +raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her +sight during the greater part of the winter. I don't know whether she +became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she +conquered it, and decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing, +or what happened. But one cold March evening he set out for his home, +dreary, as usual, he thought; and he found the fire blazing and +reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich +shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as +you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and +impenetrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, "I have +manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has +now and then reported from his conversation. I dare say there isn't a +bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale isn't a man to publish his affairs; +but _I_ believe it. One thing is certain: Mrs. Laudersdale withdrew from +society one autumn and returned one spring, and has queened it +ever since." + +"Is Mr. Laudersdale with you?" + +"No. But he will come with their daughter shortly." + +"And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray?" + +"Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to do. Mrs. Purcell +gossips and lounges, as if she were playing with the world for +spectator. Mrs. Laudersdale lounges, and attacks things with her +finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them. Mrs. McLean gossips +and scolds, as if it depended on her to keep the world in order." + +"Are you going to keep me under the hedge all night?" + +"This is pretty well! Hush! Who is that?" + +As Mrs. McLean spoke, a figure issued from the tall larches on the left, +and crossed the grass in front of them,--a woman, something less tall +than a gypsy queen might be, the round outlines of her form rich and +regular, with a certain firm luxuriance, still wrapped in a morning-robe +of palm-spread cashmere. In her hand she carried various vines and +lichens that had maintained their orange-tawny stains under the winter's +snow, and the black hair that was folded closely over forehead and +temple was crowned with bent sprays of the scarlet maple-blossom. As +vivid a hue dyed her cheek through warm walking, and with a smile of +unconscious content she passed quickly up the slope and disappeared +within the doorway. She impressed the senses of the beholder like some +ripe and luscious fruit, a growth of sunshine and summer. + +"Well," said Mrs. McLean, drawing breath again, "who is it?" + +"Really, I cannot tell," replied Mr. Raleigh. + +"Nor guess?" + +"And that I dare not." + +"Must I tell you?" + +"Was it Mrs. Laudersdale?" + +"And shouldn't you have known her?" + +"Scarcely." + +"Mercy! Then how did you know me? She is unaltered." + +"If that is Mrs. Purcell, at the window, she does not recognize me, you +see; neither did -----. Both she and yourself are nearly the same; one +could not fail to know either of you; but of the Mrs. Laudersdale of +thirteen years ago there remains hardly a vestige." + +If Mrs. McLean, at this testimony, indulged in that little inward +satisfaction which the most generous woman may feel, when told that her +color wears better than the color of her dearest friend, it must have +been quickly quenched by the succeeding sentence. + +"Yes, she is certainly more beautiful than I ever dreamed of a woman's +being. If she continues, I do not know what perfect thing she will +become. She is too exquisite for common use. I wonder her husband is not +jealous of every mote in the air, of rain and wind, of every day that +passes over her head,--since each must now bear some charm from her in +its flight." + +Mr. Raleigh was talking to Mrs. McLean as one frequently reposes +confidence in a person when quite sure that he will not understand a +word you say. + +An hour afterward, Mrs. Purcell joined Mrs. McLean. + +"So that is Mr. Raleigh, is it?" she said. "He looks as if he had made +the acquaintance of Siva the Destroyer. There's nothing left of him. Is +he taller, or thinner, or graver, or darker, or what? My dear Kate, your +cousin, that promised to be such a hero, has become a mere +man-of-business. Did you ever burn firecrackers? You have probably found +some that just fizzed out, then." And Mrs. Purcell took an attitude. + +"Roger is a much finer man than he was, I think,--so far as I could +judge in the short time we have seen each other," replied Mrs. McLean, +with spirit. + +"Do you know," continued Mrs. Purcell, "what makes the Laudersdale so +gay? No? She has a letter from her lord, and he brings you that little +Rite next week. I must send for the Colonel to see such patterns of +conjugal felicity as you and she. Ah, there is the tea-bell!" + +Mr. Raleigh was standing with one hand on the back of his chair, when +Mrs. Laudersdale entered. The cheek had resumed its usual pallor, and +she was in her customary colors of black and gold. She carried a +curiously cut crystal glass, which she placed on the sideboard, and then +moved toward her chair. Her eye rested casually for a moment on Mr. +Raleigh, as she crossed the threshold, and then returned with a species +of calm curiosity. + +"Mrs. Laudersdale has forgotten me?" he asked, with a bow. His voice, +not susceptible of change in its tone of Southern sweetness, +identified him. + +"Not at all," she replied, moving toward him, and offering him her hand +quietly. "I am happy at meeting Mr. Raleigh again." And she took +her seat. + +There was something in her grasp that relieved him. It was neither +studiedly cold, nor absurdly brief, nor traitorously tremulous. It was +simply and forgetfully indifferent. Mr. Raleigh surveyed her with +interest during the light table-talk. He had been possessed with a +restless wish to see her once more, to ascertain if she had yet any +fraction of her old power over him; he had all the more determinedly +banished himself from the city,--to find her in the country. Now he +sought for some trace of what had formerly aroused his heart. He rose +from table convinced that the woman whom he once loved with the whole +fervor of youth and strength and buoyant life was no more, that she did +not exist, and that Mr. Raleigh might experience a new passion, but his +old one was as dead as the ashes that cover the Five Cities of the +Plain. He wondered how it might be with her. For a moment he cursed his +inconstancy; then he feared lest she were of larger heart and firmer +resolve than he,--lest her love had been less light than his; he could +scarcely feel himself secure of freedom,--he must watch. And then stole +in a deeper sense of loneliness than exile and foreign tongues had +taught him,--the knowledge of being single and solitary in the world, +not only for life, but for eternity. + +The evening was passed in the recitation of affairs by himself and his +cousins alone together, and until a week completed its tale of dawns and +sunsets there was the same diurnal recurrence of question and answer. +One day, as the afternoon was paling, Rite came. + +Mr. Raleigh had fallen asleep on the vine-hidden seat outside the +bay-window, and was awakened, certainly not by Mrs. Laudersdale's +velvets trailing over the drawing-room carpet. She was just entering, +slow-paced, though in haste. She held out both of her beautiful arms. A +little form of airy lightness, a very snow-wreath, blew into them. + +"_O ma maman! Est ce que c'est toi_," it cried. "_O comme tu es douce! +Si belle, si molle, si chère!_" And the fair head was lying beneath the +dark one, the face hidden in the bent and stately neck. + +Mr. Raleigh left his seat, unseen, and betook himself to another abode. +As he passed the drawing-room door, on his return, he saw the mother +lying on a lounge, with the slight form nestled beside her, playing with +it as some tame leopardess might play with her silky whelp. It was +almost the only portion of the maternal nature developed within her. + +It seemed as if the tea-hour were a fated one. Mr. Raleigh had been out +on the water and was late. As he entered, Rite sprang up, +half-overturning her chair, and ran to clasp his hand. + +"I did not know that you and Mr. Raleigh were acquainted," said Mrs. +McLean. + +"Oh, Madam, Mr. Raleigh and I had the pleasure of being shipwrecked +together," was the reply; and except that Mrs. Laudersdale required +another napkin where her cup had spilled, all went on smoothly. + +Mrs. Laudersdale took Marguerite entirely to herself for a while. She +seemed, at first, to be like some one suddenly possessed of a new sense, +and who did not know in the least what to do with it; but custom and +familiarity destroyed this sentiment. She did not appear to entertain a +doubt of her child's natural affection, but she had care to fortify it +by the exertion of every charm she possessed. From the presence of +dangerous rivals in the house, an element of determination blended with +her manner, and she moved with a certain conscious power, as if +wonderful energies were but half-latent with her, as if there were +kingdoms to conquer and crowns to win, and she the destined instrument +You would have selected her, at this time of her lavish devotion to +Marguerite, as the one woman of complete capability, of practical +effective force, and have declared that there was nothing beyond her +strength. The relation between herself and her child was certainly as +peculiar as anything else about them; the disparity of age seemed so +slight that they appeared like sisters, full of mutual trust, the +younger leaning on the elder for support in the most trivial affairs. +They walked through the woods together, learned again its glades and +coverts, searched its early treasure of blossoms; they went out on the +lake and spent long April afternoons together, floating about cove and +inlet of island-shores; they returned with innocent gayety to that house +which once the mother, in her moment of passion, had fancied to be a +possible heaven of delight, and which, since, she had found to be a very +indifferent limbo. For, after all, we derive as much happiness from +human beings as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that +bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was +careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this +woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never +bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the +little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or +whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that +estranged the past from the present, there was nothing to tell; it +seemed, nevertheless, as if they could have no closer bond, had they +read each other's thoughts from birth. + +That this assumption of Marguerite could not continue exclusive Mr. +Raleigh found, when now and then joined in his walks by an airy figure +flitting forward at his side: now and then; since Mrs. Laudersdale, +without knowing how to prevent, had manifested an uneasiness at every +such rencontre;--and that it could not endure forever, another +gentleman, without so much reason, congratulated himself,--Mr. Frederic +Heath, the confidential clerk of Day, Knight, and Company,--a rather +supercilious specimen, quite faultlessly got up, who had accompanied her +from New York at her father's request, and who already betrayed every +symptom of the suitor. Meanwhile, Mrs. McLean's little women clamorously +demanded and obtained a share of her attention,--although Capua and +Ursule, with their dark skins, brilliant dyes, and equivocal dialects, +were creatures of a more absorbing interest. + +One afternoon, Marguerite came into the drawing-room by one door, as Mr. +Raleigh entered by another; her mother was sitting near the window, and +other members of the family were in the vicinity, having clustered +preparatory to the tea-bell. + +Marguerite had twisted tassels of the willow-catkins in her hair, +drooping things, in character with her wavy grace, and that sprinkled +her with their fragrant yellow powder, the very breath of spring; and in +one hand she had imprisoned a premature lace-winged fly, a fairy little +savage, in its sheaths of cobweb and emerald, and with its jewel eyes. + +"Dear!" said Mrs. Purcell, gathering her array more closely about her. +"How do you dare touch such a venomous sprite?" + +"As if you had an insect at the North with a sting!" replied Marguerite, +suffering it, a little maliciously, to escape in the lady's face, and +following the flight with a laugh of childlike glee. + +"Here are your snowflakes on stems, mamma," she continued, dropping +anemones over her mother's hands, one by one;--"that is what Mr. Raleigh +calls them. When may I see the snow? You shall wrap me in eider, that I +may be like all the boughs and branches. How buoyant the earth must be, +when every twig becomes a feather!" And she moved toward Mr. Raleigh, +singing, "Oh, would I had wings like a dove!" + +"And here are those which, if not daffodils, +yet + + "'Come before the swallow dares, and take + The winds of March with beauty,'" + +he said, giving her a basket of hepaticas and winter-green. + +Marguerite danced away with the purple trophy, and, emptying a carafe +into a dish of moss that stood near, took them to Mrs. Laudersdale, and, +sitting on the footstool, began to rearrange them. It was curious to +see, that, while Mrs. Laudersdale lifted each blossom and let the stem +lie across her hand, she suffered it to fall into the place designated +for it by Marguerite's fingers, that sparkled in the mosaic till double +wreaths of gold-threaded purple rose from the bed of vivid moss and +melted into a fringe of the starry spires of winter-green. + +"Is it not sweet?" said she then, bending over it. + +"They have no scent," said her mother. + +"Oh, yes, indeed! the very finest, the most delicate, a kind of aërial +perfume; they must of course alchemize the air into which they waste +their fibres with some sweetness." + +"A smell of earth fresh from 'wholesome drench of April rains,'" said +Mr. Raleigh, taking the dish of white porcelain between his brown, +slender hands. "An immature scent, just such an innocent breath as +should precede the epigea, that spicy, exhaustive wealth of savor, that +complete maturity of odor, marriage of daphne and linnaea. The charm of +these first bidders for the year's favor is neither in the ethereal +texture, the depth or delicacy of tint, nor the large-lobed, +blood-stained, ancient leaves. This imponderable soul gives them such a +helpless air of babyhood." + +"Is fragrance the flower's soul?" asked Marguerite. "Then anemones are +not divinely gifted. And yet you said, the other day, that to paint my +portrait would be to paint an anemone." + +"A satisfactory specimen in the family-gallery," said Mrs. Purcell. + +"A flaw in the indictment!" replied Mr. Raleigh. "I am not one of those +who paint the lily." + +"Though you've certainly added a perfume to the violet," remarked Mr. +Frederic Heath, with that sweetly lingering accent familiarly called the +drawl, as he looked at the hepaticas. + +"I don't think it very complimentary, at any rate," continued +Marguerite. "They are not lovely after bloom,--only the little +pink-streaked, budded bells, that hang so demurely. _Oui, dà !_ I have +exchanged great queen magnolias for rues; what will you give me for +pomegranates and oleanders?" + +"Are the old oleanders in the garden yet?" asked Mrs. Laudersdale. + +"Not the very same. The hurricane destroyed those, years ago; these are +others, grand and rosy as sunrise sometimes." + +"It was my Aunt Susanne who planted those, I have heard." + +"And it was your daughter Rite who planted these." + +"She buried a little box of old keepsakes at its foot, after her brother +had examined them,--a ring or two, a coin from which she broke and kept +one half"------ + +"Oh, yes! we found the little box, found it when Mr. Heath was in +Martinique, all rusted and moulded and falling apart, and he wears that +half of the coin on his watch-chain. See!" + +Mrs. Laudersdale glanced up indifferently, but Mrs. Purcell sprang from +her elegant lounging and bent to look at her brother's chain. + +"How odd that I never noticed it, Fred!" she exclaimed. "And how odd +that I should wear the same!" And, shaking her _châtelaine_, she +detached a similar affair. + +They were placed side by side in Mr. Raleigh's hand; they matched +entirely, and, so united, they formed a singular French coin of value +and antiquity, the missing figures on one segment supplied by the other, +the embossed profile continued and lost on each, the scroll begun by +this and ended by that; they were plainly severed portions of the +same piece. + +"And this was buried by your Aunt Susanne Le Blanc?" asked Mrs. Purcell, +turning to Mrs. Laudersdale again, with a flush on her cheek. + +"So I presume." + +"Strange! And this was given to mamma by her mother, whose maiden name +was Susan White. There's some _diablerie_ about it." + +"Oh, that is a part of the ceremony of money-hiding," said Mr. Raleigh. +"Kidd always buried a little imp with his pots of gold, you know, to +work deceitful charms on the finder." + +"Did he?" said Marguerite, earnestly. + +They all laughed thereat, and went in to tea. + +[To be continued.] + + + +EPITHALAMIA. + + +I. + +THE WEDDING. + + + O Love! the flowers are blowing in park and field, + With love their bursting hearts are all revealed. + So come to me, and all thy fragrance yield! + + O Love! the sun is sinking in the west, + And sequent stars all sentinel his rest. + So sleep, while angels watch, upon my breast! + + O Love! the flooded moon is at its height, + And trances sea and land with tranquil light. + So shine, and gild with beauty all my night! + + O Love! the ocean floods the crooked shore, + Till sighing beaches give their moaning o'er. + So, Love, o'erflow me, till I sigh no more! + +II. + +THE GOLDEN WEDDING. + + O wife! the fragrant Mayflower now appears, + Fresh as the Pilgrims saw it through their tears. + So blows our love through all these changing years. + + O wife! the sun is rising in the east, + Nor tires to shine, while ages have increased. + So shines our love, and fills my happy breast + + O wife! on yonder beach the ocean sings, + As when it bore the Mayflower's drooping wings. + So in my heart our early love-song rings. + + O wife! the moon and stars slide down the west + To make in fresher skies their happy quest. + So, Love, once more we'll wed among the blest! + + + + +ARTHUR HALLAM. + +We were standing in the old English church at Clevedon on a summer +afternoon. And here, said my companion, pausing in the chancel, sleeps +Arthur Hallam, the friend of Alfred Tennyson, and the subject of "In +Memoriam." + + "'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand + Where he in English earth is laid." + +His burial-place is on a hill overhanging the Bristol Channel, a spot +selected by his father as a fit resting-place for his beloved boy. +And so + + "They laid him by the pleasant shore, + And in the hearing of the wave." + +Dying at twenty-two, the hope and pride of all who knew him, "remarkable +for the early splendor of his genius," the career of this young man +concentres the interest of more than his native country. Tennyson has +laid upon his early grave a poem which will never let his ashes be +forgotten, or his memory fade like that of common clay. What Southey so +felicitously says of Kirke White applies most eloquently to young +Hallam:--"Just at that age when the painter would have wished to fix his +likeness and the lover of poetry would delight to contemplate him, in +the fair morning of his virtues, the full spring-blossom of his hopes,-- +just at that age hath death set the seal of eternity upon him, and the +beautiful hath been made permanent." + +Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place, London, on the 1st of +February, 1811. The eldest son of Henry Hallam, the eminent historian +and critic, his earliest years had every advantage which culture and +moral excellence could bring to his education. His father has feelingly +commemorated his boyish virtues and talents by recording his "peculiar +clearness of perception, his facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above +all, an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his sense +of what was right and becoming." From that tearful record, not publicly +circulated, our recital is partly gathered. Companions of his childhood +have often told us well-remembered incidents of his life, and this is +the too brief story of his earthly career. + +When about eight years of age, Arthur resided some time in Germany and +Switzerland, with his father and mother. He had already become familiar +with the French language, and a year later he read Latin with some +facility. Although the father judiciously studied to repress his son's +marked precocity of talent, Arthur wrote about this time several plays +in prose and in rhyme,--compositions which were never exhibited, +however, beyond the family-circle. + +At ten years of age he became a pupil at a school in Putney, under the +tuition of an excellent clergyman, where he continued two years. He then +took a short tour on the Continent, and, returning, went to Eton, where +he studied nearly five years. While at Eton, he was reckoned, according +to the usual test at that place, not a first-rate Latin student, for his +mind had a predominant bias toward English literature, and there he +lingered among the exhaustless fountains of the earlier poetry of his +native tongue. One who knew him well in those years has described him to +us as a sweet-voiced lad, moving about the pleasant playing-fields of +Eton with a thoughtful eye and a most kindly expression. Afterwards, as +Tennyson, singing to the witch-elms and the towering sycamore, paints +him, he mixed in all the simple sports, and loved to gather a happy +group about him, as he lay on the grass and discussed grave questions of +state. And again,-- + + "Thy converse drew us with delight, + The men of rathe and riper years: + The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, + Forgot his weakness in thy sight." + +His taste for philosophical poetry increased with his years, and +Wordsworth and Shelley became his prime favorites. His contributions to +the "Eton Miscellany" were various, sometimes in prose and now and then +in verse. A poet by nature, he could not resist the Muse's influence, +and he expressed a genuine emotion, oftentimes elegantly, and never +without a meaning. + +In the summer of 1827 he left Eton, and travelled with his parents eight +months in Italy. And now began that life of thought and feeling so +conspicuous to the end of his too brief career. Among the Alps his whole +soul took the impress of those early introductions to what is most +glorious and beautiful in Nature. After passing the mountains, Italian +literature claimed his attention, and he entered upon its study with all +the ardor of a young and earnest student. An Abbate who recognized his +genius encouraged him with his assistance in the difficult art of +Italian versification, and, after a very brief stay in Italy, at the age +of seventeen, he wrote several sonnets which attracted considerable +attention among scholars. Very soon after acquiring the Italian +language, the great Florentine poet opened to him his mystic visions. +Dante became his worship, and his own spirit responded to that of the +author of the "Divina Commedia." + +His growing taste led him to admire deeply all that is noble in Art, and +he soon prized with enthusiasm the great pictures of the Venetian, the +Tuscan, and the Roman schools. "His eyes," says his father, "were fixed +on the best pictures with silent, intense delight." One can imagine him +at this period wandering with all the ardor of youthful passion through +the great galleries, not with the stolid stony gaze of a coldblooded +critic, but with that unmixed enthusiasm which so well becomes the +unwearied traveller in his buoyant days of experience among the unveiled +glories of genius now first revealed to his astonished vision. + +He returned home in 1828, and went to reside at Cambridge, having been +entered, before his departure for the Continent, at Trinity College. It +is said that he cared little for academical reputation, and in the +severe scrutiny of examination he did not appear as a competitor for +accurate mathematical demonstrations. He knew better than those about +him where his treasures lay,--and to some he may have seemed a dreamer, +to others an indifferent student, perhaps. His aims were higher than the +tutor's black-board, and his life-thoughts ran counter to the usual +college-routine. Disordered health soon began to appear, and a too rapid +determination of blood to the brain often deprived him of the power of +much mental labor. At Florence he had been seized with a slight attack +of the same nature, and there was always a tendency to derangement of +the vital functions. Irregularity of circulation occasioned sometimes a +morbid depression of spirits, and his friends anxiously watched for +symptoms of returning health. In his third Cambridge year he grew +better, and all who knew and loved him rejoiced in his apparent recovery. + +About this time, some of his poetical pieces were printed, but withheld +from publication. It was the original intention for the two friends, +Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, to publish together; but the idea was +abandoned. Such lines as these the young poet addressed to the man who +was afterwards to lend interest and immortality to the story of his +early loss:-- + + "Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, + Sitting beneath a mossy, ivied wall + On a quaint bench, which to that structure old + Winds an accordant curve. Above my head + Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves, + Seeming received into the blue expanse + That vaults this summer noon. Before me lies + A lawn of English verdure, smooth, and bright, + Mottled with fainter hues of early hay, + Whose fragrance, blended with the rose-perfume + From that white flowering bush, invites my sense + To a delicious madness,--and faint thoughts + Of childish years are borne into my brain + By unforgotten ardors waking now. + Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade + Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown + Is the prime labor of the pettish winds, + That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves + Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies, + And the gay humming things that summer loves, + Through the warm air, or altering the bound + Where yon elm-shadows in majestic line + Divide dominion with the abundant light." + +And this fine descriptive passage was also written at this period of his +life:-- + + "The garden trees are busy with the shower + That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk, + Lowly and sweetly, as befits the hour, + One to another down the grassy walk. + Hark! the laburnum from his opening flower + This cheery creeper greets in whisper light, + While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, + Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore. + What shall I deem their converse? Would they hail + The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud, + Or the half-bow rising like pillared fire? + Or are they sighing faintly for desire + That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, + And dews about their feet may never fail?" + +The first college prize for English declamation was awarded to him this +year; and his exercise, "The Conduct of the Independent Party during the +Civil War," greatly improved his standing at the University. Other +honors quickly followed his successful essay, and he was chosen to +deliver an oration in the College Chapel just before the Christmas +vacation. This was in the year 1831. He selected as his subject the one +eminently congenial to his thought; and his theme, "The Influence of +Italian upon English Literature," was admirably treated. The oration is +before us as we write, and we turn the pages with a fond and loving eye. +We remember, as we read, his brief sojourn,--that he died "in the sweet +hour of prime,"--and we are astonished at the eloquent wisdom displayed +by a lad of twenty summers. "I cannot help considering," he says, "the +sonnets of Shakspeare as a sort of homage to the Genius of Christian +Europe, necessarily exacted, although voluntarily paid, before he was +allowed to take in hand the sceptre of his endless dominion." And he +ends his charming disquisition in these words;--"An English mind that +has drunk deep at the sources of Southern inspiration, and especially +that is imbued with the spirit of the mighty Florentine, will be +conscious of a perpetual freshness and quiet beauty resting on his +imagination and spreading gently over his affections, until, by the +blessing of Heaven, it may be absorbed without loss in the pure inner +light of which that voice has spoken, as no other can,-- + + "'Light intellectual, yet full of love, + Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy, + Joy, every other sweetness far above.'" + +It was young Hallam's privilege to be among Coleridge's favorites, and +in one of his poems Arthur alludes to him as a man in whose face "every +line wore the pale cast of thought." His conversations with "the old man +eloquent" gave him intense delight, and he often alluded to the +wonderful talks he had enjoyed with the great dreamer, whose magical +richness of illustration took him captive for the time being. + +At Abbotsford he became known to Sir Walter Scott, and Lockhart thus +chronicles his visit:-- + +"Among a few other friends from a distance, Sir Walter received this +summer [1829] a short visit from Mr. Hallam, and made in his company +several of the little excursions which had in former days been of +constant recurrence. Mr. Hallam had with him his son, Arthur, a young +gentleman of extraordinary abilities, and as modest as able, who not +long afterwards was cut off in the very bloom of opening life and +genius. His beautiful verses, 'On Melrose seen in Company with Scott,' +have since been often printed." + + "I lived an hour in fair Melrose: + It was not when 'the pale moonlight' + Its magnifying charm bestows; + Yet deem I that I 'viewed it right.' + The wind-swept shadows fast careered, + Like living things that joyed or feared, + Adown the sunny Eildon Hill, + And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crowned well. + + "I inly laughed to see that scene + Wear such a countenance of youth, + Though many an age those hills were green, + And yonder river glided smooth, + Ere in these now disjointed walls + The Mother Church held festivals, + And full-voiced anthemings the while + Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the echoing aisle. + + "I coveted that Abbey's doom: + For if, I thought, the early flowers + Of our affection may not bloom, + Like those green hills, through countless hours, + Grant me at least a tardy waning + Some pleasure still in age's paining; + Though lines and forms must fade away, + Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay! + + "But looking toward the grassy mound + Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie, + Who, living, quiet never found, + I straightway learnt a lesson high: + And well I knew that thoughtful mien + Of him whose early lyre had thrown + Over these mouldering walls the magic of its tone. + + "Then ceased I from my envying state, + And knew that aweless intellect + Hath power upon the ways of Fate, + And works through time and space uncheck'd. + That minstrel of old Chivalry + In the cold grave must come to be; + But his transmitted thoughts have part + In the collective mind, and never shall depart. + + "It was a comfort, too, to see + Those dogs that from him ne'er would rove, + And always eyed him reverently, + With glances of depending love. + They know not of that eminence + Which marks him to my reasoning sense; + They know but that he is a man, + And still to them is kind, and glads them all he can. + + "And hence their quiet looks confiding, + Hence grateful instincts seated deep, + By whose strong bond, were ill betiding, + They'd risk their own his life to keep. + What joy to watch in lower creature + Such dawning of a moral nature, + And how (the rule all things obey) + They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!" + +At the University he lived a sweet and gracious life. No man had truer +or fonder friends, or was more admired for his excellent +accomplishments. Earnest in whatever he attempted, his enthusiasm for +all that was high and holy in literature stamped his career at Trinity +as one of remarkable superiority. "I have known many young men, both at +Oxford and elsewhere, of whose abilities I think highly, but I never met +with one whom I considered worthy of being put into competition with +Arthur for a moment," writes his early and intimate friend. "I can +scarcely hope to describe the feelings with which I regarded him, much +less the daily beauty of his existence, out of which they grew," writes +another of his companions. Politics, literature, philosophy he discussed +with a metaphysical subtilty marvellous in one so young. The highest +comprehension seemed native to his mind, so that all who came within the +sphere of his influence were alike impressed with his vast and various +powers. The life and grace of a charmed circle, the display of his gifts +was not for show, and he never forgot to keep the solemn injunction, +_"My son, give me thine heart,"_ clearly engraven before him. + +Among his favorite authors, while at the University, we have been told +he greatly delighted in the old dramatists, Webster, Heywood, and +Fletcher. The grace and harmony of style and versification which he +found particularly in the latter master became one of his favorite +themes, and he often dwelt upon this excellence. He loved to repeat the +sad old strains of Bion; and Aeschylus and Sophocles interested +him deeply. + +On leaving Cambridge, he took his degree and went immediately to London +to reside with his father. It was a beautiful relation which always +existed between the elder and the younger scholar; and now, as soon as +Arthur had been entered on the boards of the Inner Temple, the father +and son sat down to read law together. Legal studies occupied the young +student till the month of October, 1832, when he became an inmate of the +office of an eminent conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Although he +applied himself diligently to obtain a sound practical knowledge of the +profession he had chosen, his former habits of literary pursuit did not +entirely desert him. During the winter he translated most of the sonnets +in the "Vita Nuova," and composed a dramatic sketch with Raffaello for +the hero. About this period he wrote brief, but excellent, memoirs of +Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the "Gallery of Portraits," then +publishing by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But his +time, when unoccupied at the office, was principally devoted to +metaphysical research and the history of philosophical opinion. His +spirits, sometimes apt to be graver than is the wont of youth, now +became more animated and even gay, so that his family were cheered on to +hope that his health was firmly gaining ground. The unpleasant symptoms +which manifested themselves in his earlier years had almost entirely +disappeared, when an attack of intermittent fever in the spring of 1833 +gave the fatal blow to his constitution. In August, the careful, tender +father took his beloved son into Germany, trusting to a change of +climate for restoration. Travelling slowly, they lingered among the +scenes connected with a literature and a history both were so familiar +with, and many pleasant and profitable hours of delightful converse +gladdened Arthur's journey. It is difficult to picture a more +interesting group of travellers through the picturesque regions they +were again exploring. + +No child was ever more ardently loved--nay, worshipped--by his father +than Arthur Hallam. The parallel, perhaps, exists in Edmund Burke's fond +attachment for and subsequent calamity in the loss of his son Richard. +That passage in the life of the great statesman is one of the most +affecting in all biographical literature. "The son thus deeply +lamented," says Prior, "had always conducted himself with much filial +duty and affection. Their confidence on all subjects was even more +unreserved than commonly prevails between father and son, and their +esteem for each other higher.... The son looked to the father as one of +the first, if not the very first, character in history; the father had +formed the very highest opinion of the talents of the son, and among his +friends rated them superior to his own." The same confiding +companionship grew up between Henry Hallam and his eldest boy, and +continued till "death set the seal of eternity" upon the young and +gifted Arthur. + +The travellers were returning to Vienna from Pesth; a damp day set in +while they were on the journey; again intermittent fever attacked the +sensitive invalid, and suddenly, mysteriously, his life was ended. It +was the 15th of September, 1833, and Arthur Hallam lay dead in his +father's arms. Twenty-two brief years, and all high hopes for him, the +manly, the noble-spirited, this side the tomb, are broken down forever. +Well might his heart-crushed father sob aloud, "He seemed to tread the +earth as a spirit from some better world." The author of "Horae +Subsecivae" aptly quotes Shakspeare's memorable words, in connection +with the tragic bereavement of that autumnal day in Vienna:-- + + "The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep + Into my study of imagination; + And every lovely organ of thy life + Shall come apparelled in more precious habit, + More moving delicate, and full of life, + Into the eye and prospect of my soul, + Than when thou liv'dst indeed." + +Standing by the grave of this young person, now made so renowned by the +genius of a great poet, whose song has embalmed his name and called the +world's attention to his death, the inevitable reflection is not of +sorrow. He sleeps well who is thus lamented, and "nothing can touch +him further." + + + + +THE CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIUM. + + +It is not yet a year since I ceased to act as a Spiritual Medium. (I am +forced to make use of this title as the most intelligible, but I do it +with a strong mental protest.) At first, I desired only to withdraw +myself quietly from the peculiar associations into which I had been +thrown by the exercise of my faculty, and be content with the simple +fact of my escape. A man who joins the Dashaways does not care to have +the circumstance announced in the newspapers. "So, he was an habitual +drunkard," the public would say. I was overcome by a similar +reluctance,--nay, I might honestly call it shame,--since, although I had +at intervals officiated as a Medium for a period of seven years, my name +had been mentioned, incidentally, only once or twice in the papers +devoted especially to Spiritualism. I had no such reputation as that of +Hume or Andrew Jackson Davis, which would call for a public statement of +my recantation. The result would be, therefore, to give prominence to a +weakness, which, however manfully overcome, might be remembered to my +future prejudice. + +I find, however, that the resolution to be silent leaves me restless and +unsatisfied. And in reflecting calmly--objectively, for the first +time--upon the experience of those seven years, I recognize so many +points wherein my case is undoubtedly analogous to that of hundreds of +others who may be still entangled in the same labyrinth whence I have +but recently escaped, so clear a solution of much that is enigmatical, +even to those who reject Spiritualism, that the impulse to write weighs +upon me with the pressure of a neglected duty. I _cannot_ longer be +silent, and, in the conviction that the truth of my statement will be +evident enough to those most concerned in hearing it, without the +authority of any name, (least of all, of one so little known as mine,) +I now give my confession to the world. The names of the individuals whom +I shall have occasion to introduce are, of course, disguised; but, with +this exception, the narrative is the plainest possible record of my own +experience. Many of the incidents winch I shall be obliged to describe +are known only to the actors therein, who, I feel assured, will never +foolishly betray themselves. I have therefore no fear that any harm can +result from my disclosures. + +In order to make my views intelligible to those readers who have paid no +attention to psychological subjects, I must commence a little in advance +of my story. My own individual nature is one of those apparently +inconsistent combinations which are frequently found in the children of +parents whose temperaments and mental personalities widely differ. This +class of natures is much larger than would be supposed. Inheriting +opposite, even conflicting, traits from father and mother, they assume, +as either element predominates, diverse characters; and that which is +the result of temperament (in fact, congenital inconsistency) is set +down by the unthinking world as moral weakness or duplicity. Those who +have sufficient skill to perceive and reconcile--or, at least, +govern--the opposing elements are few, indeed. Had the power come to me +sooner, I should have been spared the necessity of making these +confessions. + +From one parent I inherited an extraordinarily active and sensitive +imagination,--from the other, a sturdy practical sense, a disposition to +weigh and balance with calm fairness the puzzling questions which life +offers to every man. These conflicting qualities--as is usual in all +similar natures--were not developed in equal order of growth. The former +governed my childhood, my youth, and enveloped me with spells, which all +the force of the latter and more slowly ripened faculty was barely +sufficient to break. Luxuriant weeds and brambles covered the soil which +should have been ploughed and made to produce honest grain. +Unfortunately, I had no teacher who was competent to understand and +direct me. The task was left for myself, and I can only wonder, after +all that has occurred, how it has been possible for me to succeed. +Certainly, this success has not been due to any vigorous exercise of +virtue on my part, but solely to the existence of that cool, reflective +reason which lay _perdue_ beneath all the extravagances of my mind. + +I possessed, even as a child, an unusual share of what phrenologists +call Concentrativeness. The power of absorption, of self-forgetfulness, +was at the same time a source of delight and a torment. Lost in some +wild dream or absurd childish speculation, my insensibility to outward +things was chastised as carelessness or a hardened indifference to +counsel. With a memory almost marvellous to retain those things which +appealed to my imagination, I blundered painfully over the commonest +tasks. While I frequently repeated the Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too +often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my +corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, +to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing +my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat +moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman +required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They +could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. +The closing hymn recalled me to myself, always with a shock, or sense of +pain, and sometimes even with a temporary nausea. + +This habit of abstraction--properly a complete _passivity_ of the +mind--after a while developed another habit, in which I now see the root +of that peculiar condition which made me a Medium. I shall therefore +endeavor to describe it. I was sitting, one Sunday, just as the minister +was commencing his sermon, with my eyes carelessly following the fingers +of my right hand, as I drummed them slowly across my knee. Suddenly, the +wonder came into my mind,--How is it my fingers move? What set them +going? What is it that stops them? The mystery of that communication +between will and muscle, which no physiologist has ever fathomed, burst +upon my young intellect. I had been conscious of no intention of thus +drumming my fingers; they were in motion when I first noticed them: they +were certainly a part of myself, yet they acted without my knowledge or +design! My left hand was quiet; why did its fingers not move also? +Following these reflections came a dreadful fear, as I remembered Jane, +the blacksmith's daughter, whose elbows and shoulders sometimes jerked +in such a way as to make all the other scholars laugh, although we were +sorry for the poor girl, who cried bitterly over her unfortunate, +ungovernable limbs. I was comforted, however, on finding that I could +control the motion of my fingers at pleasure; but my imagination was too +active to stop there. What if I should forget how to direct my hands? +What if they should refuse to obey me? What if my knees, which were just +as still as the hymn-books in the rack before me, should cease to bend, +and I should sit there forever? These very questions seemed to produce a +temporary paralysis of the will. As my right hand lay quietly on my +knee, and I asked myself, with a stupid wonder, "Now, can I move it?" it +lay as still as before. I had only questioned, not willed. "No I cannot +move it," I said, in real doubt I was conscious of a blind sense of +exertion, wherein there was yet no proper exertion, but which seemed to +exhaust me. Fascinated by this new mystery, I contemplated my hand as +something apart from myself,--something subordinate to, but not +identical with, me. The rising of the congregation for the hymn broke +the spell, like the snapping of a thread. + +The reader will readily understand that I carried these experiences much +farther. I gradually learned to suspend (perhaps in imagination only, +but therefore none the less really) the action of my will upon the +muscles of my arms and legs; and I did it with the greater impunity, +from knowing that the stir consequent upon the conclusion of the +services would bring me to myself. In proportion as the will became +passive, the activity of my imagination was increased, and I experienced +a new and strange delight in watching the play of fantasies which +appeared to come and go independently of myself. There was still a dim +consciousness of outward things mingled with my condition; I was not +beyond the recall of my senses. But one day, I remember, as I sat +motionless as a statue, having ceased any longer to attempt to control +my dead limbs, more than usually passive, a white, shining mist +gradually stole around me; my eyes finally ceased to take cognizance of +objects; a low, musical humming sounded in my ears, and those creatures +of the imagination which had hitherto crossed my brain as _thoughts_ now +spoke to me as audible voices. If there is any happy delirium in the +first stages of intoxication, (of which, thank Heaven, I have no +experience,) it must be a sensation very much like that which I felt. +The death of external and the birth of internal consciousness +overwhelmed my childish soul with a dumb, ignorant ecstasy, like that +which savages feel on first hearing the magic of music. + +How long I remained thus I know not. I was aroused, by feeling myself +violently shaken. "John!" exclaimed my mother, who had grasped my arm +with a determined hand,--"bless the boy! what ails him? Why, his face +is as white as a sheet!" Slowly I recovered my consciousness, saw the +church and the departing congregation, and mechanically followed my +parents. I could give no explanation of what had happened, except to say +that I had fallen asleep. As I ate my dinner with a good appetite, my +mother's fears were quieted. I was left at home the following Sunday, +and afterwards only ventured to indulge sparingly in the exercise of my +newly discovered faculty. My mother, I was conscious, took more note of +my presence than formerly, and I feared a repetition of the same +catastrophe. As I grew older and my mind became interested in a wider +range of themes, I finally lost the habit, which I classed among the +many follies of childhood. + +I retained, nevertheless, and still retain, something of that subtile +instinct which mocks and yet surpasses reason. My feelings with regard +to the persons whom I met were quite independent of their behavior +towards me, or the estimation in which they were held by the world. +Things which puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in +sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid +doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible +to understand my motives of action,--because, in fact, there were no +_motives_,--complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I +presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the +instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which +I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and was +generally able to distinguish between its suggestions and the mere +humors of my imagination. It is scarcely necessary to say that I assume +the existence of such a power, at the outset. I recognize it as a normal +faculty of the human mind,--not therefore universal, any more than the +genius which makes a poet, a painter, or a composer. + +My education was neither general nor thorough; hence I groped darkly +with the psychological questions which were presented to me. Tormented +by those doubts which at some period of life assail the soul of every +thinking man, I was ready to grasp at any solution which offered, +without very carefully testing its character. I eagerly accepted the +theory of Animal Magnetism, which, so far as it went, was satisfactory; +but it only illustrated the powers and relations of the soul in its +present state of existence; it threw no light upon that future which I +was not willing to take upon faith alone. Though sensible to mesmeric +influences, I was not willing that my spiritual nature should be the +instrument of another's will,--that a human being, like myself, should +become possessed of all my secrets and sanctities, touching the keys of +every passion with his unhallowed fingers. In the phenomena of +clairvoyance I saw only other and more subtile manifestations of the +power which I knew to exist in my own mind. Hence, I soon grew weary of +prosecuting inquiries which, at best, would fall short of solving my own +great and painful doubt,--Does the human soul continue to exist after +death? That it could take cognizance of things beyond the reach of the +five senses, I was already assured. This, however, might be a sixth +sense, no less material and perishable in its character than the others. +My brain, as yet, was too young and immature to follow the thread of +that lofty spiritual logic in the light of which such doubts melt away +like mists of the night. Thus, uneasy because undeveloped, erring +because I had never known the necessary guidance, seeking, but almost +despairing of enlightenment, I was a fit subject for any spiritual +epidemic which seemed to offer me a cure for worse maladies. + +At this juncture occurred the phenomena known as the "Rochester +Knockings." (My home, let me say, is in a small town not far from New +York.) I shared in the general interest aroused by the marvellous +stories, which, being followed by the no less extraordinary display of +some unknown agency at Norwalk, Connecticut, excited me to such a degree +that I was half-converted to the new faith before I had witnessed any +spiritual manifestation. Soon after the arrival of the Misses Fox in New +York I visited them in their rooms at the Howard House. Impressed by +their quiet, natural demeanor, the absence of anything savoring of +jugglery, and the peculiar character of the raps and movements of the +table, I asked my questions and applied my tests, in a passive, if not a +believing frame of mind. In fact, I had not long been seated, before the +noises became loud and frequent. + +"The spirits like to communicate with you," said Mrs. Fish: "you seem to +be nearer to them than most people." + +I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother, +and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained +correct answers to all my questions. I did not then remark, what has +since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I +knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind +at the time. The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression +upon me. Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train +that morning, I asked,--"Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind +communicate with me?" To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on +calling over the alphabet,--"_He is living!_" + +I returned home, very much puzzled. Precisely those features of the +exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me. The +searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the +manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me +favorably towards the spiritual theory. If disembodied souls, I said, +really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should +they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for +their visitations? What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in +places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than +when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination? In such +reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination, +while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical. + +Soon after this, circles began to be formed in my native town, for the +purpose of table-moving. A number of persons met, secretly at +first,--for as yet there were no avowed converts,--and quite as much for +sport as for serious investigation. The first evening there was no +satisfactory manifestation. The table moved a little, it is true, but +each one laughingly accused his neighbors of employing some muscular +force: all isolated attempts were vain. I was conscious, nevertheless, +of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind +my forgotten experiments in church. No rappings were heard, and some of +the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole thing +a delusion. + +A few evenings after this we met again. Those who were most incredulous +happened to be absent, while, accidentally, their places were filled by +persons whose temperaments disposed them to a passive seriousness. Among +these was a girl of sixteen, Miss Abby Fetters, a pale, delicate +creature, with blond hair and light-blue eyes. Chance placed her next to +me, in forming the ring, and her right hand lay lightly upon my left. We +stood around a heavy circular dining-table. A complete silence was +preserved, and all minds gradually sank into a quiet, passive +expectancy. In about ten minutes I began to feel, or to imagine that I +felt, a stream of light,--if light were a palpable substance,--a +something far finer and more subtile than an electric current, passing +from the hand of Miss Fetters through my own into the table. Presently +the great wooden mass began to move,--stopped,--moved again,--turned in +a circle, we following, without changing the position of our hands,--and +finally began to rock from side to side, with increasing violence. Some +of the circle were thrown off by the movements; others withdrew their +hands in affright; and but four, among whom were Miss Fetters and +myself, retained their hold. My outward consciousness appeared to be +somewhat benumbed, as if by some present fascination or approaching +trance, but I retained curiosity enough to look at my companion. Her +eyes, sparkling with a strange, steady light, were fixed upon the table; +her breath came quick and short, and her cheek had lost every trace of +color. Suddenly, as if by a spasmodic effort, she removed her hands; I +did the same, and the table stopped. She threw herself into a seat, as +if exhausted, yet, during the whole time, not a muscle of the hand which +lay upon mine had stirred. I solemnly declare that my own hands had +been equally passive, yet I experienced the same feeling of +fatigue,--not muscular fatigue, but a sense of _deadness_, as if every +drop of nervous energy had been suddenly taken from me. + +Further experiments, the same evening, showed that we two, either +together or alone, were able to produce the same phenomena without the +assistance of the others present. We did not succeed, however, in +obtaining any answers to our questions, nor were any of us impressed by +the idea that the spirits of the dead were among us. In fact, these +table-movings would not, of themselves, suggest the idea of a spiritual +manifestation. "The table is bewitched," said Thompson, a hard-headed +young fellow, without a particle of imagination; and this was really the +first impression of all: some unknown force, latent in the dead matter, +had been called into action. Still, this conclusion was so strange, so +incredible, that the agency of supernatural intelligences finally +presented itself to my mind as the readiest solution. + +It was not long before we obtained rappings, and were enabled to repeat +all the experiments which I had tried during my visit to the Fox family. +The spirits of our deceased relatives and friends announced themselves, +and generally gave a correct account of their earthly lives. I must +confess, however, that, whenever we attempted to pry into the future, we +usually received answers as ambiguous as those of the Grecian oracles, +or predictions which failed to be realized. Violent knocks or other +unruly demonstrations would sometimes interrupt an intelligent +communication which promised us some light on the other life: these, we +were told, were occasioned by evil or mischievous spirits, whose delight +it was to create disturbances. They never occurred, I now remember, +except when Miss Fetters was present. At the time, we were too much +absorbed in our researches to notice the fact. + +The reader will perceive, from what he knows of my previous mental +state, that it was not difficult for me to accept the theories of the +Spiritualists. Here was an evidence of the immortality of the +soul,--nay, more, of its continued individuality through endless future +existences. The idea of my individuality being lost had been to me the +same thing as complete annihilation. The spirits themselves informed us +that they had come to teach these truths. The simple, ignorant faith of +the Past, they said, was worn out; with the development of science, the +mind of man had become skeptical; the ancient fountains no longer +sufficed for his thirst; each new era required a new revelation; in all +former ages there had been single minds pure enough and advanced enough +to communicate with the dead and be the mediums of their messages to +men, but now the time had come when the knowledge of this intercourse +must be declared unto all; in its light the mysteries of the Past became +clear; in the wisdom thus imparted, that happy Future which seems +possible to every ardent and generous heart would be secured. I was not +troubled by the fact that the messages which proclaimed these things +were often incorrectly spelt, that the grammar was bad and the language +far from elegant. I did not reflect that these new and sublime truths +had formerly passed through my own brain as the dreams of a wandering +imagination. Like that American philosopher who looks upon one of his +own neophytes as a man of great and profound mind because the latter +carefully remembers and repeats to him his own carelessly uttered +wisdom, I saw in these misty and disjointed reflections of my own +thoughts the precious revelation of departed and purified spirits. + +How a passion for the unknown and unattainable takes hold of men is +illustrated by the search for the universal solvent, by the mysteries of +the Rosicrucians, by the patronage of fortune-tellers, even. Wholly +absorbed in spiritual researches,--having, in fact, no vital interest in +anything else,--I soon developed into what is called a Medium. I +discovered, at the outset, that the peculiar condition to be attained +before the tables would begin to move could be produced at will.[7] I +also found that the passive state into which I naturally fell had a +tendency to produce that trance or suspension of the will which I had +discovered when a boy. External consciousness, however, did not wholly +depart. I saw the circle of inquirers around me, but dimly, and as +phantoms,--while the impressions which passed over my brain seemed to +wear visible forms and to speak with audible voices. + +I did not doubt, at the time, that spirits visited me, and that they +made use of my body to communicate with those who could hear them in no +other way. Beside the pleasant intoxication of the semi-trance, I felt a +rare joy in the knowledge that I was elected above other men to be their +interpreter. Let me endeavor to describe the nature of this possession. +Sometimes, even before a spirit would be called for, the figure of the +person, as it existed in the mind of the inquirer, would suddenly +present itself to me,--not to my outward senses, but to my interior, +instinctive knowledge. If the recollection of the other embraced also +the voice, I heard the voice in the same manner, and unconsciously +imitated it. The answers to the questions I knew by the same instinct, +as soon as the questions were spoken. + +If the question was vague, asked for information rather than +_confirmation_, either no answer came, or there was an impression of a +_wish_ of what the answer might be, or, at times, some strange +involuntary sentence sprang to my lips. When I wrote, my hand appeared +to move of itself; yet the words it wrote invariably passed through my +mind. Even when blindfolded, there was no difference in its performance. +The same powers developed themselves in a still greater degree in Miss +Fetters. The spirits which spoke most readily through her were those of +men, even coarse and rude characters, which came unsummoned. Two or +three of the other members of our circle were able to produce motions in +the table; they could even feel, as they asserted, the touch of +spiritual hands; but, however much they desired it, they were never +personally possessed as we, and therefore could not properly be +called Mediums. + +These investigations were not regularly carried on. Occasionally the +interest of the circle flagged, until it was renewed by the visit of +some apostle of the new faith, usually accompanied by a "Preaching +Medium." Among those whose presence especially conduced to keep alive +the flame of spiritual inquiry was a gentleman named Stilton, the editor +of a small monthly periodical entitled "Revelations from the Interior." +Without being himself a Medium, he was nevertheless thoroughly +conversant with the various phenomena of Spiritualism, and both spoke +and wrote in the dialect which its followers adopted. He was a man of +varied, but not profound learning, an active intellect, giving and +receiving impressions with equal facility, and with an unusual +combination of concentrativeness and versatility in his nature. A +certain inspiration was connected with his presence. His personality +overflowed upon and influenced others. "My mind is not sufficiently +submissive," he would say, "to receive impressions from the spirits, but +my atmosphere attracts them and encourages them to speak." He was a +stout, strongly built man, with coarse black hair, gray eyes, large +animal mouth, square jaws, and short, thick neck. Had his hair been +cropped close, he would have looked very much like a prize-fighter; but +he wore it long, parted in the middle, and as meek in expression as its +stiff waves would allow. + +Stilton soon became the controlling spirit of our circle. His presence +really seemed, as he said, to encourage the spirits. Never before had +the manifestations been so abundant or so surprising. Miss Fetters, +especially, astonished us by the vigor of her possessions. Not only +Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe +Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens, +prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her +frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she +floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore +for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the +opposite cast. Hypatia, Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest +of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually +spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand, +and often without giving any clue to their personality. A practised +stenographer, engaged by Mr. Stilton, took down many of these +communications as they were spoken, and they were afterwards published +in the "Revelations." It was also remarked, that, while Miss Fetters +employed violent gestures and seemed to possess a superhuman strength, +I, on the contrary, sat motionless, pale, and with little sign of life +except in my voice, which, though low, was clear and dramatic in its +modulations. Stilton explained this difference without hesitation. "Miss +Abby," he said, "possesses soul-matter of a texture to which the souls +of these strong men naturally adhere. In the spirit-land the +superfluities repel each other; the individual souls seek to remedy +their imperfections: in the union of opposites only is to be found the +great harmonia of life. You, John, move upon another plane; through what +in you is undeveloped, these developed spirits are attracted." + +For two or three years, I must admit, my life was a very happy one. Not +only were those occasional trances an intoxication, nay, a coveted +indulgence, but they cast a consecration over my life. My restored faith +rested on the sure evidence of my own experience; my new creed contained +no harsh or repulsive feature; I heard the same noble sentiments which I +uttered in such moments repeated by my associates in the faith, and I +devoutly believed that a complete regeneration of the human race was at +hand. Nevertheless, it struck me sometimes as singular that many of the +Mediums whom I met--men and women chosen by spiritual hands to the same +high office--excited in my mind that instinct of repulsion on which I +had learned to rely as a sufficient reason for avoiding certain persons. +Far as it would have been from my mind, at that time, to question the +manifestations which accompanied them, I could not smother my mistrust +of their characters. Miss Fetters, whom I so frequently met, was one of +the most disagreeable. Her cold, thin lips, pale eyes, and lean figure +gave me a singular impression of voracious hunger. Her presence was +often announced to me by a chill shudder, before I saw her. Centuries +ago one of her ancestors must have been a ghoul or vampire. The trance +of possession seemed, with her, to be a form of dissipation, in which +she indulged as she might have catered for a baser appetite. The new +religion was nothing to her; I believe she valued it only on account of +the importance she obtained among its followers. Her father, a vain, +weak-minded man, who kept a grocery in the town, was himself a convert. + +Stilton had an answer for every doubt. No matter how tangled a labyrinth +might be exhibited to him, he walked straight through it. + +"How is it," I asked him, "that so many of my fellow-mediums inspire me +with an instinctive dislike and mistrust?" + +"By mistrust you mean dislike," he answered; "since you know of no +reason to doubt their characters. The elements of soul-matter are +differently combined in different individuals, and there are affinities +and repulsions, just as there are in the chemical elements. Your feeling +is chemical, not moral. A want of affinity does not necessarily imply an +existing evil in the other party. In the present ignorance of the world, +our true affinities can only he imperfectly felt and indulged; and the +entire freedom which we shall obtain in this respect is the greatest +happiness of the spirit-life." + +Another time I asked,-- + +"How is it that the spirits of great authors speak so tamely to us? +Shakspeare, last night, wrote a passage which he would have been +heartily ashamed of, as a living man. We know that a spirit spoke, +calling himself Shakspeare; but, judging from his communication, it +could not have been he." + +"It probably was not," said Mr. Stilton. "I am convinced that all +malicious spirits are at work to interrupt the communications from the +higher spheres. We were thus deceived by one professing to be Benjamin +Franklin, who drew for us the plan of a machine for splitting shingles, +which we had fabricated and patented at considerable expense. On trial, +however, it proved to be a miserable failure, a complete mockery. When +the spirit was again summoned, he refused to speak, but shook the table +to express his malicious laughter, went off, and has never since +returned. My friend, we know but the alphabet of Spiritualism, the mere +A B C; we can no more expect to master the immortal language in a day +than a child to read Plato after learning his letters." + +Many of those who had been interested in the usual phenomena gradually +dropped off, tired, and perhaps a little ashamed, in the reaction +following their excitement; but there were continual accessions to our +ranks, and we formed, at last, a distinct clan or community. Indeed, the +number of _secret_ believers in Spiritualism would never be suspected by +the uninitiated. In the sect, however, as in Masonry and the Catholic +Church, there are circles within circles,--concentric rings, whence you +can look outwards, but not inwards, and where he alone who stands at the +centre is able to perceive everything. Such an inner circle was at last +formed in our town. Its object, according to Stilton, with whom the plan +originated, was to obtain a purer spiritual atmosphere, by the exclusion +of all but Mediums and those non-mediumistic believers in whose presence +the spirits felt at ease, and thus invite communications from the +farther and purer spheres. + +In fact, the result seemed to justify the plan. The character of the +trance, as I had frequently observed, is vitiated by the consciousness +that disbelievers are present. The more perfect the atmosphere of +credulity, the more satisfactory the manifestations. The expectant +company, the dim light, the conviction that a wonderful revelation was +about to dawn upon us, excited my imagination, and my trance was really +a sort of delirium, in which I spoke with a passion and an eloquence I +had never before exhibited. The fear, which had previously haunted me, +at times, of giving my brain and tongue into the control of an unknown, +power, was forgotten; yet, more than ever, I was conscious of some +strong controlling influence, and experienced a reckless pleasure in +permitting myself to be governed by it. "Prepare," I concluded, (I quote +from the report in the "Revelations,") "prepare, sons of men, for the +dawning day! Prepare for the second and perfect regeneration of man! For +the prison-chambers have been broken into, and the light from the +interior shall illuminate the external! Ye shall enjoy spiritual and +passional freedom; your guides shall no longer be the despotism of +ignorant laws, nor the whip of an imaginary conscience,--but the natural +impulses of your nature, which are the melody of Life, and the natural +affinities, which are its harmony! The reflections from the upper +spheres shall irradiate the lower, and Death is the triumphal arch +through which we pass from glory to glory!" + +--I have here paused, deliberating whether I should proceed farther in +my narrative. But no; if any good is to be accomplished by these +confessions, the reader must walk with me through the dark labyrinth +which follows. He must walk over what may be considered delicate ground, +but he shall not be harmed. One feature of the trance condition is too +remarkable, too important in its consequences, to be overlooked. It is a +feature of which many Mediums are undoubtedly ignorant, the existence of +which is not even suspected by thousands of honest Spiritualists. + +Let me again anticipate the regular course of my narrative, and explain. +A suspension of the Will, when indulged in for any length of time, +produces a suspension of that inward consciousness of good and evil +which we call Conscience, and which can be actively exercised only +through the medium of the Will. The mental faculties and the moral +perceptions lie down together in the same passive sleep. The subject is, +therefore, equally liable to receive impressions from the minds of +others, and from their passions and lusts. Besides this, the germs of +all good and of all evil are implanted in the nature of every human +being; and even when some appetite is buried in a crypt so deep that its +existence is forgotten, let the warder be removed, and it will gradually +work its way to the light. Persons in the receptive condition which +belongs to the trance may be surrounded by honest and pure-minded +individuals, and receive no harmful impressions; they may even, if of a +healthy spiritual temperament, resist for a time the aggressions of evil +influences; but the final danger is always the same. The state of the +Medium, therefore, may be described as one in which the Will is passive, +the Conscience passive, the outward senses partially (sometimes wholly) +suspended, the mind helplessly subject to the operations of other minds, +and the passions and desires released from all restraining +influences.[8] I make the statement boldly, after long and careful +reflection, and severe self-examination. + +As I said before, I did not entirely lose my external consciousness, +although it was very dim and dream-like. On returning to the natural +state, my recollection of what had occurred during the trance became +equally dim; but I retained a general impression of the character of the +possession. I knew that some foreign influence--the spirit of a dead +poet, or hero, or saint, I then believed--governed me for the time; that +I gave utterance to thoughts unfamiliar to my mind in its conscious +state; and that my own individuality was lost, or so disguised that I +could no longer recognize it. This very circumstance made the trance an +indulgence, a spiritual intoxication, no less fascinating than that of +the body, although accompanied by a similar reaction. Yet, behind all, +dimly evident to me, there was an element of terror. There were times +when, back of the influences which spoke with my voice, rose another,--a +vast, overwhelming, threatening power, the nature of which I could not +grasp, but which I knew was evil. Even when in my natural state, +listening to the harsh utterances of Miss Fetters or the lofty spiritual +philosophy of Mr. Stilton, I have felt, for a single second, the touch +of an icy wind, accompanied by a sensation of unutterable dread. + +Our secret circle had not held many sessions before a remarkable change +took place in the character of the revelations. Mr. Stilton ceased to +report them for his paper. + +"We are on the threshold, at last," said he; "the secrets of the ages +lie beyond. The hands of spirits are now lifting the veil, fold by fold. +Let us not be startled by what we hear: let us show that our eyes can +bear the light,--that we are competent to receive the wisdom of the +higher spheres, and live according to it." + +Miss Fetters was more than ever possessed by the spirit of Joe Manton, +whose allowance of grog having been cut off too suddenly by his death, +he was continually clamoring for a dram. + +"I tell you," yelled he, or rather she, "I won't stand sich meanness. I +ha'n't come all the way here for nothin'. I'll knock Erasmus all to +thunder, if you go for to turn me out dry, and let him come in." + +Mr. Stilton thereupon handed him, or her, a tumbler half-full of brandy, +which she gulped down at a single swallow. Joe Manton presently retired +to make room for Erasmus, who spoke for some time in Latin, or what +appeared to be Latin. None of us could make much of it; but Mr. Stilton +declared that the Latin pronunciation of Erasmus was probably different +from ours, or that he might have learned the true Roman accent from +Cicero and Seneca, with whom, doubtless, he was now on intimate terms. +As Erasmus generally concluded by throwing his arms, or rather the arms +of Miss Fetters, around the neck of Mr. Stilton,--his spirit +fraternizing, apparently, with the spirit of the latter,--we greatly +regretted that his communications were unintelligible, on account of the +superior wisdom which they might be supposed to contain. + +I confess, I cannot recall the part I played in what would have been a +pitiable farce, if it had not been so terribly tragical, without a +feeling of utter shame. Nothing but my profound sympathy for the +thousands and tens of thousands who are still subject to the same +delusion could compel me to such a sacrifice of pride. Curiously enough, +(as I thought _then_, but not now,) the enunciation of sentiments +opposed to my moral sense--the abolition, in fact, of all moral +restraint--came from my lips, while the actions of Miss Fetters hinted +at their practical application. Upon the ground that the interests of +the soul were paramount to all human laws and customs, I declared--or +rather, _my voice_ declared--that self-denial was a fatal error, to +which half the misery of mankind could be traced; that the passions, +held as slaves, exhibited only the brutish nature of slaves, and would +be exalted and glorified by entire freedom; and that our sole guidance +ought to come from the voices of the spirits who communicated with us, +instead of the imperfect laws constructed by our benighted fellow-men. +How clear and logical, how lofty, these doctrines seemed! If, at times, +something in their nature repelled me, I simply attributed it to the +fact that I was still but a neophyte in the Spiritual Philosophy, and +incapable of perceiving the truth with entire clearness. + +Mr. Stilton had a wife,--one of those meek, amiable, simple-hearted +women whose individuality seems to be completely absorbed into that of +their husbands. When such women are wedded to frank, tender, protecting +men, their lives are truly blessed; but they are willing slaves to the +domestic tyrant. They bear uncomplainingly,--many of them even without a +thought of complaint,--and die at last with their hearts full of love +for the brutes who have trampled upon them. Mrs. Stilton was perhaps +forty years of age, of middle height, moderately plump in person, with +light-brown hair, soft, inexpressive gray eyes, and a meek, helpless, +imploring mouth. Her voice was mild and plaintive, and its accents of +anger (if she ever gave utterance to such) could not have been +distinguished from those of grief. She did not often attend our +sessions, and it was evident, that, while she endeavored to comprehend +the revelations, in order to please her husband, their import was very +far beyond her comprehension. She was now and then a little frightened +at utterances which no doubt sounded lewd or profane to her ears; but +after a glance at Mr. Stilton's face, and finding that it betrayed +neither horror nor surprise, would persuade herself that everything +must be right. + +"Are you sure," she once timidly whispered to me, "are you very sure, +Mr. ------, that there is no danger of being led astray? It seems +strange to me; but perhaps I don't understand it." + +Her question was so indefinite, that I found it difficult to answer. +Stilton, however, seeing me engaged in endeavoring to make clear to her +the glories of the new truth, exclaimed,-- + +"That's right, John! Your spiritual plane slants through many spheres, +and has points of contact with a great variety of souls. I hope my wife +will be able to see the light through you, since I appear to be too +opaque for her to receive it from me." + +"Oh, Abijah!" said the poor woman, "you know it is my fault. I try to +follow, and I hope I have faith, though I don't see everything as +clearly as you do." + +I began also to have my own doubts, as I perceived that an "affinity" +was gradually being developed between Stilton and Miss Fetters. She was +more and more frequently possessed by the spirit of Erasmus, whose +salutations, on meeting and parting with his brother-philosopher, were +too enthusiastic for merely masculine love. But, whenever I hinted at +the possibility of mistaking the impulses of the soul, or at evil +resulting from a too sudden and universal liberation of the passions, +Stilton always silenced me with his inevitable logic. Having once +accepted the premises, I could not avoid the conclusions. + +"When our natures are in harmony with spirit-matter throughout the +spheres," he would say, "our impulses will always be in accordance. Or, +if there should be any temporary disturbance, arising from our necessary +intercourse with the gross, blinded multitude, we can always fly to our +spiritual monitors for counsel. Will not they, the immortal souls of the +ages past, who have guided us to a knowledge of the truth, assist us +also in preserving it pure?" + +In spite of this, in spite of my admiration of Stilton's intellect, and +my yet unshaken faith in Spiritualism, I was conscious that the harmony +of the circle was becoming impaired to me. Was I falling behind in +spiritual progress? Was I too weak to be the medium for the promised +revelations? I threw myself again and again into the trance, with a +recklessness of soul which fitted me to receive any, even the darkest +impressions, to catch and proclaim every guilty whisper of the senses, +and, while under the influence of the excitement, to exult in the age of +license which I believed to be at hand. But darker, stronger grew the +terror which lurked behind this spiritual carnival. A more tremendous +power than that which I now recognized as coming from Stilton's brain +was present, and I saw myself whirling nearer and nearer to its grasp. I +felt, by a sort of blind instinct, too vague to be expressed, that some +demoniac agency had thrust itself into the manifestations,--perhaps had +been mingled with them from the outset. + +For two or three months, my life was the strangest mixture of happiness +and misery. I walked about with the sense of some crisis hanging over +me. My "possessions" became fiercer and wilder, and the reaction so much +more exhausting that I fell into the habit of restoring myself by means +of the bottle of brandy which Mr. Stilton took care should be on hand, +in case of a visit from Joe Manton. Miss Fetters, strange to say, was +not in the least affected by the powerful draughts she imbibed. But, at +the same time, my waking life was growing brighter and brighter under +the power of a new and delicious experience. My nature is eminently +social, and I had not been able--indeed, I did not desire--wholly to +withdraw myself from intercourse with non-believers. There was too much +in society that was congenial to me to be given up. My instinctive +dislike to Miss Abby Fetters and my compassionate regard for Mrs. +Stilton's weakness only served to render the company of intelligent, +cultivated women more attractive to me. Among those whom I met most +frequently was Miss Agnes Honeywood, a calm, quiet, unobtrusive girl, +the characteristic of whose face was sweetness rather than beauty, while +the first feeling she inspired was respect rather than admiration. She +had just that amount of self-possession which conceals without +conquering the sweet timidity of woman. Her voice was low, yet clear; +and her mild eyes, I found, were capable, on occasion, of both flashing +and melting. Why describe her? I loved her before I knew it; but, with +the consciousness of my love, that clairvoyant sense on which I had +learned to depend failed for the first time. Did she love me? When I +sought to answer the question in her presence, all was confusion within. + +This was not the only new influence which entered into and increased the +tumult of my mind. The other half of my two-sided nature--the cool, +reflective, investigating faculty--had been gradually ripening, and the +questions which it now began to present seriously disturbed the +complacency of my theories. I saw that I had accepted many things on +very unsatisfactory evidence; but, on the other hand, there was much for +which I could find no other explanation. Let me be frank, and say, that +I do not now pretend to explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism. This, +however, I determined to do,--to ascertain, if possible, whether the +influences which governed me in the trance state came from the persons +around, from the exercise of some independent faculty of my own mind, or +really and truly from the spirits of the dead. Mr. Stilton appeared to +notice that some internal conflict was going on; but he said nothing in +regard to it, and, as events proved, he entirely miscalculated its +character. + +I said to myself,--"If this chaos continues, it will drive me mad. Let +me have one bit of solid earth beneath my feet, and I can stand until it +subsides. Let me throw over the best bower of the heart, since all the +anchors of the mind are dragging!" I summoned resolution. I made that +desperate venture which no true man makes without a pang of forced +courage; but, thank God! I did not make it in vain. Agnes loved me, and +in the deep, quiet bliss which this knowledge gave I felt the promise of +deliverance. She knew and lamented my connection with the Spiritualists; +but, perceiving my mental condition from the few intimations which I +dared to give her, discreetly held her peace. But I could read the +anxious expression of that gentle face none the less. + +My first endeavor to solve the new questions was to check the _abandon_ +of the trance condition, and interfuse it with more of sober +consciousness. It was a difficult task; and nothing but the circumstance +that my consciousness had never been entirely lost enabled me to make +any progress. I finally succeeded, as I imagined, (certainty is +impossible,) in separating the different influences which impressed +me,--perceiving where one terminated and the other commenced, or where +two met and my mind vibrated from one to the other until the stronger +prevailed, or where a thought which seemed to originate in my own brain +took the lead and swept away with me like the mad rush of a prairie +colt. When out of the trance, I noticed attentively the expressions made +use of by Mr. Stilton and the other members of the circle, and was +surprised to find how many of them I had reproduced. But might they not, +in the first place, have been derived from me? And what was the vague, +dark Presence which still overshadowed me at such times? What was that +Power which I had tempted,--which we were all tempting, every time we +met,--and which continually drew nearer and became more threatening? I +knew not; _and I know not_. I would rather not speak or think of it +any more. + +My suspicions with regard to Stilton and Miss Fetters were confirmed by +a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should +treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, +but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there +was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon +the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual harmonies. Among +_us_, he said, there could be no more hatred or mistrust or +jealousy,--nothing but love, pure, unselfish, perfect love. "You, my +dear," (turning to Mrs. Stilton,) "belong to a sphere which is included +within my own, and share in my harmonies and affinities; yet the +soul-matter which adheres to you is of a different texture from mine. +Yours has also its independent affinities; I see and respect them; and +even though they might lead our bodies--our outward, material +lives--away from one another, we should still be true to that glorious +light of Jove which permeates all soul-matter." + +"Oh, Abijah!" cried Mrs. Stilton, really distressed, "how can you say +such a thing of me? You know I can never adhere to anybody else +but you!" + +Stilton would then call in my aid to explain his meaning, asserting that +I had a faculty of reaching his wife's intellect, which he did not +himself possess. Feeling a certain sympathy for her painful confusion of +mind, I did my best to give his words an interpretation which soothed +her fears. Then she begged his pardon, taking all the blame to her own +stupidity, and received his grudged, unwilling kiss with a restored +happiness which pained me to the heart. + +I had a growing presentiment of some approaching catastrophe. I felt, +distinctly, the presence of unhallowed passions in our circle; and my +steadfast love for Agnes, borne thither in my bosom, seemed like a pure +white dove in a cage of unclean birds. Stilton held me from him by the +superior strength of his intellect. I began to mistrust, even to hate +him, while I was still subject to his power, and unable to acquaint him +with the change in my feelings. Miss Fetters was so repulsive that I +never spoke to her when it could be avoided. I had tolerated her, +heretofore, for the sake of her spiritual gift; but now, when I began to +doubt the authenticity of that gift, her hungry eyes, her thin lips, her +flat breast, and cold, dry hands excited in me a sensation of absolute +abhorrence. + +The doctrine of Affinities had some time before been adopted by the +circle, as a part of the Spiritual Truth. Other circles, with which we +were in communication, had also received the same revelation; and the +ground upon which it was based, in fact, rendered its acceptance easy. +Even I, shielded as I was by the protecting arms of a pure love, sought +in vain for arguments to refute a doctrine, the practical operation of +which, I saw, might be so dangerous. The soul had a right to seek its +kindred soul: that I could not deny. Having found, they belonged to each +other. Love is the only law which those who love are bound to obey. I +shall not repeat all the sophistry whereby these positions were +strengthened. The doctrine soon blossomed and bore fruit, the nature of +which left no doubt as to the character of the tree. + +The catastrophe came sooner than I had anticipated, and partly through +my own instrumentality; though, in any case, it must finally have come. +We were met together at the house of one of the most zealous and +fanatical believers. There were but eight persons present,--the host and +his wife, (an equally zealous proselyte,) a middle-aged bachelor +neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Stilton, Miss Fetters and her father, and +myself. It was a still, cloudy, sultry evening, after one of those dull, +oppressive days when all the bad blood in a man seems to be uppermost in +his veins. The manifestations upon the table, with which we commenced, +were unusually rapid and lively. "I am convinced," said Mr. Stilton, +"that we shall receive important revelations to-night. My own mind +possesses a clearness and quickness, which, I have noticed, always +precede the visit of a superior spirit. Let us be passive and receptive, +my friends. We are but instruments in the hands of loftier +intelligences, and only through our obedience can this second advent of +Truth be fulfilled." + +He looked at me with that expression which I so well knew, as the signal +for a surrender of my will. I had come rather unwillingly, for I was +getting heartily tired of the business, and longed to shake off my habit +of (spiritual) intoxication, which no longer possessed any attraction, +since I had been allowed to visit Agnes as an accepted lover. In fact, I +continued to hold my place in the circle principally for the sake of +satisfying myself with regard to the real nature and causes of the +phenomena. On this night, something in Mr. Stilton's face arrested my +attention, and a rapid inspiration flashed through my mind. "Suppose," I +thought, "I allow the usual effect to be produced, yet reverse the +character of its operation? I am convinced that he has been directing +the current of my thought according to his will; let me now render +myself so thoroughly passive, that my mind, like a mirror, shall reflect +what passes through his, retaining nothing of my own except the simple +consciousness of what I am doing." Perhaps this was exactly what he +desired. He sat, bending forward a little over the table, his square +jaws firmly set, his eyes hidden beneath their heavy brows, and every +long, wiry hair on his head in its proper place. I fixed my eyes upon +him, threw my mind into a state of perfect receptivity, and waited. + +It was not long before I felt his approach. Shadow after shadow flitted +across the still mirror of my inward sense. Whether the thoughts took +words in his brain or in mine,--whether I first caught his disjointed +musings, and, by their utterance reacting upon him, gave system and +development to _his_ thoughts,--I cannot tell. But this I know: what I +said came wholly from him,--not from the slandered spirits of the dead, +not from the vagaries of my own imagination, but from _him_. "Listen to +me!" I said. "In the flesh I was a martyr to the Truth, and I am +permitted to communicate only with those whom the Truth has made free. +You are the heralds of the great day; you have climbed from sphere to +sphere, until now you stand near the fountains of light. But it is not +enough that you see: your lives must reflect the light. The inward +vision is for you, but the outward manifestation thereof is for the +souls of others. Fulfil the harmonies in the flesh. Be the living music, +not the silent instruments." + +There was more, much more of this,--a plenitude of eloquent sound, which +seems to embody sublime ideas, but which, carefully examined, contains +no more palpable substance than sea-froth. If the reader will take the +trouble to read an "Epic of the Starry Heavens," the production of a +Spiritual Medium, he will find several hundred pages of the same +character. But, by degrees, the revelation descended to details, and +assumed a personal application. "In you, in all of you, the spiritual +harmonies are still violated," was the conclusion. "You, Abijah Stilton, +who are chosen to hold up the light of truth to the world, require that +a transparent soul, capable of transmitting that light to you, should be +allied to yours. She who is called your wife is a clouded lens; she can +receive the light only through John----, who is her true spiritual +husband, as Abby Fetters is _your_ true spiritual wife!" + +I was here conscious of a sudden cessation of the influence which forced +me to speak, and stopped. The members of the circle opposite to me--the +host, his wife, neighbor, and old Mr. Fetters--were silent, but their +faces exhibited more satisfaction than astonishment. My eye fell upon +Mrs. Stilton. Her face was pale, her eyes widely opened, and her lips +dropped apart, with a stunned, bewildered expression. It was the blank +face of a woman walking in her sleep. These observations were +accomplished in an instant; for Miss Fetters, suddenly possessed with +the spirit of Black Hawk, sprang upon her feet. "Ugh! ugh!" she +exclaimed, in a deep, harsh voice, "where's the pale-face? Black Hawk, +he like him,--he love him much!"--and therewith threw her arms around +Stilton, fairly lifting him off his feet. "Ugh! fire-water for Black +Hawk!--big Injun drink!"--and she tossed off a tumbler of brandy. By +this time I had wholly recovered my consciousness, but remained silent, +stupefied by the extraordinary scene. + +Presently Miss Fetters became more quiet, and the possession left her. +"My friends," said Stilton, in his cold, unmoved voice, "I feel that the +spirit has spoken truly. We must obey our spiritual affinities, or our +great and glorious mission will be unfulfilled. Let us rather rejoice +that we have been selected as the instruments to do this work. Come to +me, Abby; and you, Rachel, remember that our harmony is not disturbed, +but only made more complete." + +"Abijah!" exclaimed Mrs. Stilton, with a pitiful cry, while the tears +burst hot and fast from her eyes; "dear husband, what does this mean? +Oh, don't tell me that I'm to be cast off! You promised to love me and +care for me, Abijah! I'm not bright, I know, but I'll try to understand +you; indeed I will! Oh, don't be so cruel!--don't"----And the poor +creature's voice completely gave way. + +She dropped on the floor at his feet, and lay there, sobbing piteously. + +"Rachel, Rachel," said he,--and his face was not quite so calm as his +voice,--"don't be rebellious. We are governed by a higher Power. This is +all for our own good, and for the good of the world. Besides, ours was +not a perfect affinity. You will be much happier with John, as he +harmonizes"---- + +I could endure it no longer. Indignation, pity, the full energy of my +will, possessed me. He lost his power over me then, and forever. + +"What!" I exclaimed, "you, blasphemer, beast that you are, you dare to +dispose of your honest wife in this infamous way, that you may be free +to indulge your own vile appetites?--you, who have outraged the dead and +the living alike, by making me utter your forgeries? Take her back, and +let this disgraceful scene end!--take her back, or I will give you a +brand that shall last to the end of your days!" + +He turned deadly pale, and trembled. I knew that he made a desperate +effort to bring me under the control of his will, and laughed mockingly +as I saw his knit brow and the swollen veins in his temples. As for the +others, they seemed paralyzed by the suddenness and fierceness of my +attack. He wavered but for an instant, however, and his +self-possession returned. + +"Ha!" he exclaimed, "it is the Spirit of Evil that speaks in him! The +Devil himself has risen to destroy our glorious fabric! Help me, +friends! help me to bind him, and to silence his infernal voice, before +he drives the pure spirits from our midst!" + +With that, he advanced a step towards me, and raised a hand to seize my +arm, while the others followed behind. But I was too quick for him. Weak +as I was, in comparison, rage gave me strength, and a blow, delivered +with the rapidity of lightning, just under the chin, laid him senseless +on the floor. Mrs. Stilton screamed, and threw herself over him. The +rest of the company remained as if stupefied. The storm which had been +gathering all the evening at the same instant broke over the house in +simultaneous thunder and rain. + +I stepped suddenly to the door, opened it, and drew a long, deep breath +of relief, as I found myself alone in the darkness. "Now," said I, "I +have done tampering with God's best gift; I will be satisfied with the +natural sunshine which beams from His Word and from His Works; I have +learned wisdom at the expense of shame!" I exulted in my new freedom, in +my restored purity of soul; and the wind, that swept down the dark, +lonely street, seemed to exult with me. The rains beat upon me, but I +heeded them not; nay, I turned aside from the homeward path, in order to +pass by the house where Agnes lived. Her window was dark, and I knew she +was sleeping, lulled by the storm; but I stood a moment below, in the +rain, and said aloud, softly,-- + +"Now, Agnes, I belong wholly to you! Pray to God for me, darling, that I +may never lose the true light I have found at last!" + +My healing, though complete in the end, was not instantaneous. The habit +of the trance, I found, had really impaired the action of my will. I +experienced a periodic tendency to return to it, which I have been able +to overcome only by the most vigorous efforts. I found it prudent, +indeed, to banish from my mind, as far as was possible, all subjects, +all memories, connected with Spiritualism. In this work I was aided by +Agnes, who now possessed my entire confidence, and who willingly took +upon herself the guidance of my mind at those seasons when my own +governing faculties flagged. Gradually my mental health returned, and I +am now beyond all danger of ever again being led into such fatal +dissipations. The writing of this narrative, in fact, has been a test of +my ability to overlook and describe my experience without being touched +by its past delusions. If some portions of it should not be wholly +intelligible to the reader, the defect lies in the very nature of +the subject. + +It will be noticed that I have given but a partial explanation of the +spiritual phenomena. Of the genuineness of the physical manifestations I +am fully convinced, and I can account for them only by the supposition +of some subtile agency whereby the human will operates upon inert +matter. Clairvoyance is a sufficient explanation of the utterances of +the Mediums,--at least of those which I have heard; but there is, as I +have said before, _something_ in the background,--which I feel too +indistinctly to describe, yet which I know to be Evil. I do not wonder +at, though I lament, the prevalence of the belief in Spiritualism. In a +few individual cases it may have been productive of good, but its +general tendency is evil. There are probably but few Stiltons among its +apostles, few Miss Fetterses among its Mediums; but the condition which +accompanies the trance, as I have shown, inevitably removes the +wholesome check which holds our baser passions in subjection. The Medium +is at the mercy of any evil will, and the impressions received from a +corrupt mind are always liable to be accepted by innocent believers as +revelations from the spirits of the holy dead. I shall shock many honest +souls by this confession, but I hope and believe that it may awaken and +enlighten others. Its publication is necessary, as an expiation for some +of the evil which has been done through my own instrumentality. + +I learned, two days afterwards, that Stilton (who was not seriously +damaged by my blow) had gone to New York, taking Miss Fetters with him. +Her ignorant, weak-minded father was entirely satisfied with the +proceeding. Mrs. Stilton, helpless and heart-broken, remained at the +house where our circle had met, with her only child, a boy of three +years of age, who, fortunately, inherited her weakness rather than his +father's power. Agnes, on learning this, insisted on having her removed +from associations which were at once unhappy and dangerous. We went +together to see her, and, after much persuasion, and many painful +scenes which I shall not recapitulate, succeeded in sending her to her +father, a farmer in Connecticut. She still remains there, hoping for the +day when her guilty husband shall return and be instantly forgiven. + +My task is ended; may it not have been performed in vain! + + + * * * * * + + + + +JOHN ANDRE AND HONORA SNEYD. + + +Many of our readers will remember the exquisite lines in which Béranger +paints the connection between our mortal lives and the stars of the sky. +With every human soul that finds its way to earth, a new gem is added to +the azure belt of heaven. Thenceforth the two exist in mutual +dependence, each influencing the other's fate; so that, when death comes +to seal the lips of the man, a flame is paled and a lamp extinguished in +the gulf above. In every loosened orb that shoots across the face of +night the experienced eye may trace the story and the fall of a +fellow-being. Youth, beauty, wealth, the humility of indigence and the +pride of power, alike find their term revealed in the bright, silent +course of the celestial spark; and still new signs succeed to provoke +the sympathy or dazzle the philosophy of the observer. + + "Quelle est cette étoile qui file, + Qui file, file, et disparait?" + +It is unfortunate that such a pretty manner of accounting for the nature +and origin of falling stars should be unsustained by sound astronomical +data, and utterly discountenanced by Herschel and Bond. There is +something in the theory very pleasant and very flattering to human +nature; and there are passages in the history of our race that might +make its promulgation not unacceptable. When, among the innumerable +"patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part +from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway +with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but +be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being +segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture, +hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their +memory with immortal fame. It is thus that the fulfilment of the vow +made in the heat of battle has given Jephthah's name a melancholy +permanence above all others of the captains of Israel. Mutius would long +ago have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave +as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but +for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And +Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty +years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was +failure and death that made him famous. + +Eighty years ago a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which, +in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes +far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by +calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of +undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan. +Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his +professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John André, +had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the +generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was +opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the +future. So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better +than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the +Promised Land. It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the +circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and +universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to +hold its seat in the bosom of friend and of foe. To this day, the most +distinguished American and English historians are at issue respecting +the justice of his doom; and to this day, the grave inquirer into the +rise and fall of empires pauses by the way to glean some scanty memorial +of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser +author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on +that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and +many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of +the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the +elucidation of the conduct of an individual. + +John André was born in England, probably at London,--possibly at +Southampton,--in the year 1751. His father was an honest, industrious +Switzer, who, following the example of his countrymen and his kindred, +had abandoned the rugged land of his birth, and come over to England to +see what could be made out of John Bull. The family-name appears to have +originally been St. André; and this was the style of the famous +dancing-master who gave to the courtiers of Charles II. their +graceful motions. + + "St. André's feet ne'er kept more equal time," + +wrote Dryden, in his "MacFlecknoe"; and the same writer again brings him +forward in the third act of "Limberham." It must be remembered that in +those days the teacher of fencing and dancing occupied a very +respectable position; and St. André's career was sufficiently prosperous +to tempt a young kinsman, who felt the elements of success strong within +him, to cross the seas in his own turn, and find wealth and reputation +in those pleasant pastures which England above all other countries then +laid open to the skilful adventurer. + +Nicholas St. André, who came to London about the close of the +seventeenth century, and who was undoubtedly nearly related to the +future Major André, seems to have passed through a career hardly +paralleled by that of Gil Blas himself. From the humblest beginnings, +his ready wit, his multifarious accomplishments, and his indomitable +assurance speedily carried him to the topmost wave of social prosperity. +A brief instruction in surgery gave him such a plausible appearance of +proficiency in the art as to permit his public lectures to be favorably +received, and to lead to his employment in the royal household. George +I. made him Anatomist to the Court, and, as a token of especial grace, +on one occasion, went so far as to bestow upon the young Swiss his own +sword. His attainments in all the amusements of a gentleman probably had +more to do with these advancements, however, than any professional +skill. He was a capital linguist; at fencing, leaping, running, and +other manly exercises, he found few rivals; and his dabblings in +architecture and botany were at least as notable as his mastership of +chess and his skill as a musician. But when it came to a scientific test +of his surgical and anatomical pretensions, his failure was lamentable +indeed. The unquenchable thirst for notoriety--which he may have +mistaken for fame--was perpetually leading him into questionable +positions, and finally covered his name with ridicule and confusion. + +An impudent woman, known as Mary Tofts, declared to the world, that, +instead of a human child, she had given birth to a litter of rabbits. +How such a ridiculous tale ever found believers, it is impossible to +conceive; but such was the case. All England, with the very small +exception of those who united the possession of learning with common +sense, was imbued with the frenzy. The price of warrens was abated to a +mere song, and for a season a Londoner would as readily have eaten a +baked child as a roasted rabbit. The children of men were believed to +populate the burrows, and authorities of the highest reputation lent an +unhesitating support to the delusion. The learned Whiston published in +the circumstance a fulfilment of a prophecy of Esdras, and St. André +loudly urged the authenticity of the entire fable and of the theories +that were founded upon it. But the satiric pen of Swift, the burin of +Hogarth, and the graver investigations of Cheselden at last turned the +popular tide, and covered St. André in particular with such a load of +contemptuous obloquy as to drive him forever from the high circles he +had moved in. So great was his spleen, that, from that time forth, he +would never suffer a dish upon his table or a syllable in his +conversation that could in any way bring to mind the absurd occasion of +his disgrace. + +If all reports are to be believed, St. André's career had led him into +many singular adventures. He had saved Voltaire's life, by violently +detaining Lord Peterborough, when the latter stood prepared to punish +with peremptory death some peccadillo of the Frenchman's. Voltaire fled +from the scene, while his adversary struggled to be released. His +services to Pope, when the poet was overturned in Lord Bolingbroke's +coach, did not protect him from a damaging allusion in the Epilogue to +the Satires, where the source of the wealth that he got by his marriage +with Lady Betty Molyneux is more plainly than politely pointed out. +Leaving forever, therefore, the sphere in which he had encountered so +much favor and so much severity, he retired to Southampton to end his +days in the society of his kindred; and it is more than probable that an +indisposition to proclaim too loudly their identity of race with the +unlucky surgeon was the cause of their modification of name by the +immediate family from which John André sprung. + +The father of our hero was a thrifty London trader, whose business as a +Turkey merchant had been prosperous enough to persuade him that no other +career could possibly be so well adapted for his son. The lad was of +another opinion; but those were not the days when a parent's will might +be safely contravened. Sent to Geneva to complete the education that had +been commenced at London, he returned to a seat in the counting-room +with intellectual qualifications that seemed to justify his aspirations +for a very different scene of action. He was a fluent linguist, a ready +and graceful master of the pencil and brush, and very well versed in the +schools of military design. Add to these a proficiency in poetry and +music, a person of unusual symmetry and grace, a face of almost feminine +softness, yet not descending from the dignity of manhood, and we have an +idea of the youth who was already meditating the means of throwing off +the chains that bound him to the inkhorn and ledger, and embracing a +more brilliant and glorious career. With him, the love of fame was an +instinctive passion. The annals of his own fireside taught him how +easily the path to distinction might be trod by men of parts and +address; and he knew in his heart that opportunity was the one and the +only thing needful to insure the accomplishment of his desires. Of very +moderate fortunes and utterly destitute of influential connections, he +knew that his education better qualified him for the useful fulfilment +of military duties than perhaps any man of his years in the service of +the king. Once embarked in the profession of arms, he had nothing to +rely upon but his own address to secure patronage and promotion,--nothing +but his own merits to justify the countenance that his ingenuity +should win. Without undue vanity, it is tolerably safe to say +now that he was authorized by the existing state of things to +confidently predicate his own success on these estimates. + +It is not easy to underrate the professional standard of the English +officer a hundred years ago. That some were good cannot be denied; that +most were bad is very certain. As there was no school of military +instruction in the realm, so no proof of mental or even of physical +capacity was required to enable a person to receive and to hold a +commission. A friend at the Horse Guards, or the baptismal gift of a +godfather, might nominate a baby three days old to a pair of colors. +Court influence or the ready cash having thus enrolled a puny suckling +among the armed defenders of the state, he might in regular process of +seniority come out a full-fledged captain or major against the season +for his being soundly birched at Eton; and an ignorant school-boy would +thus be qualified to govern the lives and fortunes of five hundred +stalwart men, and to represent the honor and the interests of the empire +in that last emergency when all might be depending on his courage and +capacity. Even women were thus saddled upon the pay-lists; and the time +is within the memory of living men, when a gentle lady, whose knowledge +of arms may be presumed to have never extended beyond the internecine +disputes of the nursery, habitually received the salary of a captaincy +of dragoons. In ranks thus officered, it was easy to foresee the speedy +and sure triumph of competent ability, when once backed by patronage. + +So long, however, as his dependence upon his father endured, it was +useless for André to anticipate the day when he might don the king's +livery. The repugnance with which his first motion in the matter was +greeted, and the affectionate opposition of his mother and sisters, seem +to have at least silenced, if they did not extinguish his desires. And +when the death of his father, in 1769, left him free to select his own +pathway through the world, a new conjuncture of affairs again caused him +to smother his cherished aspirations. + +The domestic relations of the André family were ever peculiarly tender +and affectionate; and in the loss of its head the survivors confessed a +great and a corroding sorrow. To repair the shattered health and recruit +the exhausted spirits of his mother and sisters, the son resolved to +lead them at once away from the daily contemplation of the grave to more +cheerful scenes. The medicinal waters of Derbyshire were then in vogue, +and a tour towards the wells of Buxton and of Matlock was undertaken. +Among the acquaintances that ensued from this expedition was that of the +family of the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield; and while a warm and lasting +friendship rapidly grew up between André and Miss Anna Seward, his heart +was surrendered to the charms of her adopted sister, Miss Honora Sneyd. + +By every account, Honora Sneyd must have been a paragon of feminine +loveliness. Her father was a country-gentleman of Staffordshire, who had +been left, by the untimely death of their mother, to the charge of a +bevy of infants. The solicitude of friends and relatives had sought the +care of these, and thus Honora became virtually a daughter of Mrs. +Seward's house. The character of this establishment may be conjectured +from the history of Anna Seward. Remote from the crushing weight of +London authority, she grew up in a provincial atmosphere of literary and +social refinement, and fondly believed that the polite praises (for +censure was a thing unknown among them) that were bandied about in her +own coterie would be cordially echoed by the voices of posterity. In +this she has been utterly deceived; but at the same time it must be +confessed that there was much in the tone of the reigning circles at +Lichfield, in those days, to contrast most favorably with the manners of +the literary sovereigns of the metropolis, or the intellectual elevation +of the rulers of fashion. At Lichfield, it was polite to be learned, and +good-breeding and mutual admiration went hand in hand. + +In such an atmosphere had Miss Sneyd been educated; and the +enthusiastic, not to say romantic, disposition of Miss Seward must have +given additional effect to every impulse that taught her to acknowledge +and rejoice in the undisguised admiration of the young London merchant. +His sentiments were as pure and lofty as her own; his person was as +attractive as that of any hero of romance; and his passion was deep and +true. With the knowledge and involuntary approbation of all their +friends, the love-affair between the two young people went on without +interruption or opposition. It seemed perfectly natural and proper that +they should be brought together. It was not, therefore, until a formal +betrothal began to loom up, that the seniors on either side bethought +themselves of the consequences. Neither party was a beggar; but neither +was in possession of sufficient estate to render a speedy marriage +advisable. It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which +must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons +whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved +a prolonged and wide separation. To this arrangement it would appear +that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover. His feelings +were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press +his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance. His +mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own +control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was +forbidden to regard as an elected husband. + +It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him +the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure +the means of accomplishing matrimony, that André was now persuaded to +renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back +to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional +visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss +Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are +vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which +his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a +specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental +fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her +name is Anna. + +"_London, October_ 19, 1769. + +"From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, +let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And +first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must +tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future +profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so +disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged +man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping +a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a +tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the +Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded +with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue +their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods; +Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his +gorgeous vessels 'launched on the bosom of the silver Thames' are +wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all +the mercantile glories crowd on my fancy, emblazoned in the most +effulgent colouring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soaring +pinions, I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my +labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to +receive me; I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and +poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabrick is +pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes +around, and find John André by a small coal-fire in a gloomy +compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been +making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is +at present. But, oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for +wealth.--You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I +must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this +threatening disease. + +"It is seven o'clock.--You and Honora, with two or three more select +friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fireplace. What +would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and +a snug circle round it, formed by a few select friends, transports me. +You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the +hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The +purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is +kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as +Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray, +imagine me with you; admit me to your _conversationés_:--Think how I +wish for the blessing of joining them!--and be persuaded that I take +part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that, ere it be very long, +your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray, keep me a place; let +the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me:--But you have Dutch tiles, +which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass be +my representative. + +"But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, +if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps +increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty. Silvered +with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps; musing, +as I homeward plod my way.--Ah! need I name the subject of my +contemplations? + +"_Thursday_. + +"I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with +their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their +amities, and will write in a few days. + +"This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable; +a solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light +was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the serene beams of an +autumnal sun! Gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, +ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, +expand the heart, and 'chase all sorrows but despair.' In the midst of +such a scene, no lesser sorrow can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A +calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating +power. The very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties. There is +a species of mild chearfulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but +indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented +look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave +unattempted. + +"Business calls me away--I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it +contain? No matter--You like anything better than news. Indeed, you have +never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, +from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the tastes of +Julia and _Cher Jean_. What is it to you or me, + + "If here in the city we have nothing but riot; + If the Spitalfield weavers can't be kept quiet; + If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty; + Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aged of thirty? + +"But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I +should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would +plead my cause with Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has +the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my +random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs.----. +Here it is at your service. + + "Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down, + With a flaming red face and a broad yellow gown, + And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown. + +"This little French cousin of our's, Delarise, was my sister Mary's +playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. +Doubtless they tell much of him to you in their letters. + +"How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh, let me not be forgot by the +friends most dear to you at Lichfield. Lichfield! Ah, of what magic +letters is that little word composed! How graceful it looks, when it is +written! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning, 'The Field of +Blood'! Oh, no such thing! It is the field of joy! 'The beautiful city, +that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, _I am, and there is +none beside me.'_ Who says she is vain? Julia will not say so,--nor yet +Honora,--and least of all, their devoted + +"John André." + +It is not difficult to perceive in the tone of this letter that its +writer was not an accepted lover. His interests with the lady, despite +Miss Seward's watchful care, were already declining; and the lapse of a +few months more reduced him to the level of a valued and entertaining +friend, whose civilities were not to pass the conventional limits of +polite intercourse. To André this fate was very hard. He was hopelessly +enamored; and so long as fortune offered him the least hope of eventual +success, he persevered in the faith that Honora might yet be his own. +But every returning day must have shaken this faith. His visits were +discontinued and his correspondence dropped. Other suitors pressed their +claims, and often urged an argument which it was beyond his means to +supply. They came provided with what Parson Hugh calls good gifts: +"Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts." Foremost among +these dangerous rivals were two men of note in their way: Richard Lovell +Edgeworth, and the eccentric, but amiable Thomas Day. + +Mr. Day was a man whose personal charms were not great. Overgrown, +awkward, pitted with the small-pox, he offered no pleasing contrast to +the discarded André: but he had twelve hundred pounds a year. His +notions in regard to women were as peculiar as his estimate of his own +merit. He seems to have really believed that it would be impossible for +any beautiful girl to refuse her assent to the terms of the contract by +which she might acquire his hand. These were absurd to a degree; and it +is not cause for surprise that Miss Sneyd should have unhesitatingly +refused them. Poor Mr. Day was not prepared for such continued ill-luck +in his matrimonial projects. He had already been very unfortunate in his +plans for obtaining a perfect wife,--having vainly provided for the +education of two foundlings between whom he promised himself to select a +paragon of a helpmate. To drop burning sealing-wax upon their necks, and +to discharge a pistol close to their ears, were among his philosophical +rules for training them to habits of submission and self-control; and +the upshot was, that they were fain to attach themselves to men of less +wisdom, but better taste. Miss Sneyd's conduct was more than he could +well endure, after all his previous disappointments; and he went to bed +with a fever that did not leave him till his passion was cured. He could +not at this time have anticipated, however, that the friendly hand which +had aided the prosecution of his addresses was eventually destined to +receive and hold the fair prize which so many were contending for. + +Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the ambassador and counsellor of Mr. Day in +this affair, was at the very moment of the rejection himself enamored of +Miss Sneyd. But Edgeworth had a wife already,--a pining, complaining +woman, he tells us, who did not make his home cheerful,--and honor and +decency forbade him to open his mouth on the subject that occupied his +heart. He wisely sought refuge in flight, and in other scenes the +natural exuberance of his disposition afforded a relief from the pangs +of an unlawful and secret passion. Lord Byron, who met him forty years +afterwards, in five lines shows us the man: if he was thus seen in the +dry wood, we can imagine what he was in the green:--"I thought Edgeworth +a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, +brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty,--no, nor +forty-eight even." He was in France when the death of his father left +him to the possession of a good estate,--and that of his wife occurring +in happy concurrence, he lost little time in opening in his own behalf +the communications that had failed when he spoke for Mr. Day. His wooing +was prosperous; in July, 1773, he married Miss Sneyd. + +It is a mistake, sanctioned by the constant acceptance of historians, to +suppose that it was this occasion that prompted André to abandon a +commercial life. The improbability of winning Honora's hand, and the +freedom with which she received the addresses of other men, undoubtedly +went far to convince him of the folly of sticking to trade with but one +motive; and so soon as he attained his majority, he left the desk and +stool forever, and entered the army. This was a long time before the +Edgeworth marriage was undertaken, or even contemplated. + +Lieutenant André of the Royal Fusileers had a very different line of +duty to perform from Mr. André, merchant, of Warnford Court, Throgmorton +Street; and the bustle of military life, doubtless, in some degree +diverted his mind from the disagreeable contemplation of what was +presently to occur at Lichfield. Some months were spent on the Continent +and among the smaller German courts about the Rhine. After all was over, +however, and the nuptial knot fairly tied that destroyed all his +youthful hopes, he is related to have made a farewell expedition to the +place of his former happiness. There, at least, he was sure to find one +sympathizing heart. Miss Seward, who had to the very last minute +contended with her friend against Mr. Edgeworth and in support of his +less fortunate predecessor, now met him with open arms. No pains were +spared by her to alleviate, since she could not remove, the +disappointment that evidently possessed him. A legend is preserved in +connection with this visit that is curious, though manifestly of very +uncertain credibility. It is said that an engagement had been made by +Miss Seward to introduce her friend to two gentlemen of some note in the +neighborhood, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Newton. On the appointed morning, +while awaiting their expected guests, Cunningham related to his +companion a vision--or rather, a series of visions--that had greatly +disturbed his previous night's repose. He was alone in a wide forest, he +said, when he perceived a rider approaching him. The horseman's +countenance was plainly visible, and its lines were of a character too +interesting to be readily forgotten. Suddenly three men sprang forth +from an ambush among the thickets, and, seizing the stranger, hauled him +from his horse and bore him away. To this succeeded another scene. He +stood with a great multitude near by some foreign town. A bustle was +heard, and he beheld the horseman of his earlier dream again led along a +captive. A gibbet was erected, and the prisoner was at once hanged. In +narrating this tale, Cunningham averred that the features of its hero +were still fresh in his recollection; the door opened, and in the face +of André, who at that moment presented himself, he professed to +recognize that which had so troubled his slumbers. + +Such is the tale that is recorded of the supernatural revelation of +André's fate. If it rested on somewhat better evidence than any we are +able to find in its favor, it would be at least more interesting. But +whether or no the young officer continued to linger in the spirit about +the spires of Lichfield and the romantic shades of Derbyshire, it is +certain that his fleshly part was moving in a very different direction. +In 1774, he embarked to join his regiment, then posted in Canada, and +arrived at Philadelphia early in the autumn of the year. + +It is not within the design of this paper to pursue to any length the +details of André's American career. Regimental duties in a country +district rarely afford matter worthy of particular record; and it is not +until the troubles of our Revolutionary War break out, that we find +anything of mark in his story. He was with the troops that Carleton sent +down, after the fall of Ticonderoga, to garrison Chambly and St. John's, +and to hold the passage of the Sorel against Montgomery and his little +army. With the fall of these forts, he went into captivity. There is +too much reason to believe that the imprisonment of the English on this +occasion was not alleviated by many exhibitions of generosity on the +part of their captors. Montgomery, indeed, was as humane and honorable +as he was brave; but he was no just type of his followers. The articles +of capitulation were little regarded, and the prisoners were, it would +seem, rapidly despoiled of their private effects. "I have been taken by +the Americans," wrote André, "and robbed of everything save the picture +of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving that, I think +myself happy." Sent into the remote parts of Pennsylvania, his +companions and himself met with but scant measure of courtesy from the +mountaineers of that region; nor was he exchanged for many long and +weary months. Once more free, however, his address and capacity soon +came to his aid. His reports and sketches speedily commended him to the +especial favor of the commander-in-chief, Sir William Howe; and ere long +he was promoted to a captaincy and made aide-de-camp to Sir Charles +Grey. This was a dashing, hard-fighting general of division, whose +element was close quarters and whose favorite argument was the cold +steel. If, therefore, André played but an inactive part at the +Brandywine, he had ample opportunity on other occasions of tasting the +excitement and the horrors of war. The night-surprises of Wayne at +Paoli, and of Baylor on the Hudson,--the scenes of Germantown and +Monmouth,--the reduction of the forts at Verplanck's Ferry, and the +forays led against New Bedford and the Vineyard,--all these familiarized +him with the bloody fruits of civil strife. But they never blunted for +one moment the keenness of his humanity, or warped those sentiments of +refinement and liberality that always distinguished him. Within the +limited range of his narrow sphere, he was constantly found the friend +and reliever of the wounded or captive Americans, and the protector and +benefactor of the followers of his own banner. Accomplished to a degree +in all the graces that adorn the higher circles of society, he was free +from most of their vices; and those who knew him well in this country +have remarked on the universal approbation of both sexes that followed +his steps, and the untouched heart that escaped so many shafts. Nor, +while foremost in the brilliant pleasures that distinguished the British +camp and made Philadelphia a Capua to Howe, was he ever known to descend +to the vulgar sports of his fellows. In the balls, the theatricals, the +picturesque _Mischianza_, he bore a leading hand; but his affections, +meanwhile, appear to have remained where they were earliest and last +bestowed. In our altered days, when marriage and divorce seem so often +interchangeable words, and loyal fidelity but an Old-World phrase, +ill-fashioned and out of date, there is something very attractive in +this hopeless constancy of an exiled lover. + +Beyond the seas, meanwhile, the object of this unfortunate attachment +was lending a happy and a useful life in the fulfilment of the various +duties of a wife, a mother, and a friend. Her husband was a large landed +proprietor, and in public spirit was inferior to no country-gentleman of +the kingdom. Many of his notions were fanciful enough, it must be +allowed; but they were all directed to the improvement and amelioration +of his native land and its people. In these pursuits, as well as in +those of learning, Mrs. Edgeworth was the active and useful coadjutor of +her husband; and it was probably to the desire of this couple to do +something that would make the instruction of their children a less +painful task than had been their own, that we are indebted for the +adaptation of the simpler rudiments of science to a childish dress. In +1778 they wrote together the First Part of "Harry and Lucy," and printed +a handful of copies in that largo black type which every one associates +with the first school-days of his childhood. From these pages she taught +her own children to read. The plan was communicated to Mr. Day, who +entered into it eagerly; and an educational library seemed about to be +prepared for the benefit of a far-away household in the heart of +Ireland. But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's +life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; +and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to +forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his +little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book +that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful +judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth +included "Harry and Lucy" in her "Early Lessons." It is thus a point to +be noticed, that nothing but the _res angusta domi_, the lack of wealth, +on the part of young André, was the cause of that series of little +volumes being produced by Miss Edgeworth, which so long held the first +place among the literary treasures of the nurseries of England and +America. Lazy Lawrence, Simple Susan, and a score more of excellently +conceived characters, might never have been called from chaos to +influence thousands of tender minds, but for André's narrow purse. + +The ravages of the insidious disease with which she was afflicted soon +came to an end; and after a term of wedlock as brief as it was +prosperous, Mrs. Edgeworth's dying couch was spread.--"I have every +blessing," she wrote, "and I am happy. The conversation of my beloved +husband, when my breath will let me have it, is my greatest delight: he +procures me every comfort, and, as he always said he thought he should, +contrives for me everything that can ease and assist my weakness,-- + + "'Like a kind angel, whispers peace, + And smooths the bed of death.'" + +Rightly viewed, the closing scenes in the life of this estimable woman +are not less solemn, not less impressive, than those of that memorable +day, when, with all the awful ceremonials of offended justice and the +stern pageantries of war, her lover died in the full glare of noonday +before the eyes of assembled thousands. He had played for a mighty +stake, and he had lost. He had perilled his life for the destruction of +our American empire, and he was there to pay the penalty: and surely +never, in all the annals of our race, has a man more gallantly yielded +up his forfeited breath, or under circumstances more impressive. He +perished regretted alike by friend and foe; and perhaps not one of the +throng that witnessed his execution but would have rejoicingly hailed a +means of reconciling his pardon with the higher and inevitable duties +which they owed to the safety of the army and the existence of the +state. And in the aspect which the affair has since taken, who can say +that André's fate has been entirely unfortunate? He drank out the wine +of life while it was still sparkling and foaming and bright in his cup: +he tasted none of the bitterness of its lees till almost his last sun +had risen. When he was forever parted from the woman whom he loved, a +new, but not an earthly mistress succeeded to the vacant throne; and +thenceforth the love of glory possessed his heart exclusively. And how +rarely has a greater lustre attached to any name than to his! His bones +are laid with those of the wisest and mightiest of the land; the +gratitude of monarchs cumbers the earth with his sepulchral honors; and +his memory is consecrated in the most eloquent pages of the history not +only of his own country, but of that which sent him out of existence. +Looked upon thus, death might have been welcomed by him as a benefit +rather than dreaded as a calamity, and the words applied by Cicero to +the fate of Crassus be repeated with fresh significancy,--"_Mors dortata +quam vita erepta_." + +The same year that carries on its records the date of André's fall +witnessed the death of a second Honora Edgeworth, the only surviving +daughter of Honora Sneyd. She is represented as having inherited all the +beauty, all the talents of her mother. The productions of her pen and +pencil seem to justify this assertion, so far as the precocity of such a +mere child may warrant the ungarnered fruits of future years. But with +her parent's person she received the frailties of its constitution; and, +ere girlhood had fairly opened upon her way of life, she succumbed to +the same malady that had wrecked her mother. + + + * * * * * + + + + +WE SHALL RISE AGAIN. + + We know the spirit shall not taste of death: + Earth bids her elements, + "Turn, turn again to me!" + But to the soul, unto the soul, she saith, + "Flee, alien, flee!" + + And circumstance of matter what doth weigh? + Oh! not the height and depth of this to know + But reachings of that grosser element, + Which, entered in and clinging to it so, + With earthlier earthiness than dwells in clay, + Can drag the spirit down, that, looking up, + Sees, through surrounding shades of death and time, + With solemn wonder, and with new-born hope, + The dawning glories of its native clime; + And inly swell such mighty floods of love, + Unutterable longing and desire, + For that celestial, blessed home above, + The soul springs upward like the mounting fire, + Up, through the lessening shadows on its way, + While, in its raptured vision, grows more clear + The calm, the high, illimitable day + To which it draws more near and yet more near. + Draws near? Alas! its brief, its waning strength + Upward no more the fetters' weight can bear: + It falters,--pauses,--sinks; and, sunk at length, + Plucks at its chain in frenzy and despair. + + Not forever fallen! Not in eternal prison! + No! hell with fire of pain + Melteth apart its chain; + Heaven doth once more constrain: + It hath arisen! + + And never, never again, thus to fall low? + Ah, no! + Terror, Remorse, and Woe, + Vainly they pierced it through with many sorrows; + Hell shall regain it,--thousand times regain it; + But can detain it + Only awhile from ruthful Heaven's to-morrows. + + That sin is suffering, + It knows,--it knows this thing; + And yet it courts the sting + That deeply pains it; + It knows that in the cup + The sweet is but a sup, + That Sorrow fills it up, + And who drinks drains it. + + It knows; who runs may read. + But, when the fetters dazzle, heaven's far joy seems dim; + And 'tis not life but so to be inwound. + A little while, and then--behold it bleed + With madness of its throes to be unbound! + + It knows. But when the sudden stress + Of passion is resistlessness, + It drags the flood that sweeps away, + For anchorage, or hold, or stay, + Or saving rock of stableness, + And there is none,-- + No underlying fixedness to fasten on: + Unsounded depths; unsteadfast seas; + Wavering, yielding, bottomless depths: + But these! + + Yea, sometimes seemeth gone + The Everlasting Arm we lean upon! + + So blind, as well as maimed and halt and lame, + What sometimes makes it see? + Oppressed with guilt and gnawed upon of shame, + What comes upon it so, + Faster and faster stealing, + Flooding it like an air or sea + Of warm and golden feeling? + What makes it melt, + Dissolving from the earthiness that made it hard and heavy? + What makes it melt and flow, + And melt and melt and flow,-- + Till light, clear-shining through its heart of dew, + Makes all things new? + + Loosed from the spirit of infirmity, listen its cry. + "Was it I that longed for oblivion, + O wonderful Love! was it I, + That deep in its easeful water + My wounded soul might lie? + That over the wounds and anguish + The easeful flood might roll? + A river of loving-kindness + Has healed and hidden the whole. + Lo! in its pitiful bosom + Vanish the sins of my youth,-- + Error and shame and backsliding + Lost in celestial ruth. + + "O grace too great! + O excellency of my new estate! + + "No more, for the friends that love me, + I shall veil my face or grieve + Because love outrunneth deserving; + I shall be as they believe. + And I shall be strong to help them, + Filled of Thy fulness with stores + Of comfort and hope and compassion. + Oh, upon all my shores, + With the waters with which Thou dost flood me, + Bid me, my Father, o'erflow! + Who can taste Thy divineness, + Nor hunger and thirst to bestow? + Send me, oh, send me! + The wanderers let me bring! + The thirsty let me show + Where the rivers of gladness spring, + And fountains of mercy flow! + How in the hills shall they sit and sing, + With valleys of peace below!" + + Oh that the keys of our hearts the angels would bear in their bosoms! + For revelation fades and fades away, + Dream-like becomes, and dim, and far-withdrawn; + And evening comes to find the soul a prey, + That was caught up to visions at the dawn; + Sword of the spirit,--still it sheathes in rust, + And lips of prophecy are sealed with dust. + + High lies the better country, + The land of morning and perpetual spring; + But graciously the warder + Over its mountain-border + Leans to us, beckoning,--bids us, "Come up hither!" + And though we climb with step unfixed and slow, + From visioning heights of hope we look off thither, + And we must go. + + And we shall go! And we shall go! + We shall not always weep and wander so,-- + Not always in vain, + By merciful pain, + Be upcast from the hell we seek again! + How shall we, + Whom the stars draw so, and the uplifting sea? + Answer, thou Secret Heart! how shall it be, + With all His infinite promising in thee? + + Beloved! beloved! not cloud and fire alone + From bondage and the wilderness restore + And guide the wandering spirit to its own; + But all His elements, they go before: + Upon its way the seasons bring, + And hearten with foreshadowing + The resurrection-wonder, + What lands of death awake to sing + And germs of hope swell under; + And full and fine, and full and fine, + The day distils life's golden wine; + And night is Palace Beautiful, peace-chambered. + All things are ours; and life fills up of them + Such measure as we hold. + For ours beyond the gate, + The deep things, the untold, + We only wait. + + + + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +THE WILD HUNTSMAN. + + +The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. Without +attributing any great importance to the warning he had given him, Mr. +Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was becoming a +pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as good as many +others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after the first +few days. + +The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the back-yard of the Institute +was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about in +Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not easily +stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, +but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. +It soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful +shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at +three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; +some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and +that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other +words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, +as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, +however innocent he may be of them. + +In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this +time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the +population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for +want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the +Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he +can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's +version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, +as far as he could see the white of it. + +Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing +more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster +too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant +work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did +not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in +his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,--a robber, +say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; +long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with +the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he +could do as a marksman. + +The nature of the mark that Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from +an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially +abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some +practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to +render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet +way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was +very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; +rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's ears, +if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick satisfied himself +that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance +of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there happened to be anything +behind it, the glass would not materially alter the force or direction +of the bullet. + +About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want of +practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and regain +its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For his first +trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and after the hour +when the Rockland people were like to be stirring abroad. He was so far +established now that he could do much as he pleased without +exciting remark. + +The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, +had been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be remembered, +he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long strip of hide +with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been accustomed to playing +with such a thong from his boyhood, and had become expert in its use in +capturing wild cattle in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately, +there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in the neighborhood, to +become the subjects of his skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a +horse in a pasture, must serve his turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks +to aim at, at any rate. + +Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the +lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the +silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving +a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale +explosion,--is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm +the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest +with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost +naked _retiarius_ with his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin +in the other. Once get a net over a man's head, or a cord round his +neck, or, what is more frequently done nowadays, _bonnet_ him by +knocking his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his +opponent. Our soldiers who served against the Mexicans found this out +too well. Many a poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from +the plains, and fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him +in the fatal noose. + +But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might have +been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky mother +who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately along the +road, laying the dust, as she went, with thready streams from her +swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the windmill!" said +Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the lasso round his head as +he rode. The creature swerved to one side of the way, as the wild horse +and his rider came rushing down upon her, and presently turned and ran, +as only cows and--it wouldn't be safe to say it--can run. Just before he +passed,--at twenty or thirty feet from her,--the lasso shot from his +hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in an instant its loop was round her +horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as he galloped up to her side and +dexterously disengaged the lasso. "Now for a horse on the run!" + +He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at the +roadside. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove the +horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young animal enough, +and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew more and +more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, until the two horses +stretched themselves out in their longest strides. If the first feat +looked like play, the one he was now to attempt had a good deal the +appearance of real work. He touched the mustang with the spur, and in a +few fierce leaps found himself nearly abreast of the frightened animal +he was chasing. Once more he whirled the lasso round and round over his +head, and then shot it forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from +the loops against which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, +and in another instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. +The prairie horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the +captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and +the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble +and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a +thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was +enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet +snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and rode slowly +along towards the mansion-house. + +The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as he +now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the grand +mountain-screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern blasts, +rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high +towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square chimneys, and +bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared +gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings,--the beds of +flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in its centre +bearing a sun-dial on which the rays of the moon were idly shining, +another with a white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over all these +objects, harmonized with all their infinite details into one fair whole +by the moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed himself, looked +with admiring eyes. + +But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from a +poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of the +inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. Every day +this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up to +that place,--that usher's girltrap. Every day,--regularly now,--it used +to be different. Did she go only to get out of his, her cousin's, reach? +Was she not rather becoming more and more involved in the toils of this +plotting Yankee? + +If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in advance, +the chances are that in less than one minute he would have found himself +with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted horseman. +Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse +quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded towards the +house. He got to his bed without disturbing the family, but could not +sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of his mind that a deep +intrigue was going on which would end by bringing Elsie and the +schoolmaster into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With that +ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy, he tortured every +circumstance of the last few weeks so as to make it square with this +belief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed to a consideration +of every possible method by which the issue he feared might be avoided. + +Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these inward +colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be done then? +First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which should put a +complete and final check upon his projects and contrivances. The +particular accident which might interrupt his career must, evidently, be +determined by circumstances; but it must be of a nature to explain +itself without the necessity of any particular person's becoming +involved in the matter. It would be unpleasant to go into particulars; +but everybody knows well enough that men sometimes get in the way of a +stray bullet, and that young persons occasionally do violence to +themselves in various modes,--by fire-arms, suspension, and other +means,--in consequence of disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than +from other motives. There was still another kind of accident which might +serve his purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the +most natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his +nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, Uncle Dudley +should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, where would +he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication which he could +conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not help noticing--that +his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much +pleased with, that young woman from the school. What did that mean? Was +it possible that he was going to take a fancy to her? + +It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might +defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his +grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: sometimes at that +of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the +meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that +of the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that +of his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to +peril the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection. It was +a frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no +one single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the +fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If +it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one +person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make +that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that +a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered +the case. + +His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes arranging +plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, sometimes +getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of considering +what object he should select as the one most clearly in his way. On the +whole, there could be no doubt where the most threatening of all his +embarrassments lay. It was in the probable growing relation between +Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should prove, as it seemed likely, +that there was springing up a serious attachment tending to a union +between them, he knew what he should do, if he was not quite so sure how +he should do it. + +There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, +at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet +observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: +whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under +what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with +him might be reckoned on, in case it should be desirable. He could also +very probably learn some facts about Elsie: whether the young man was in +the habit of attending her on her way home from school; whether she +stayed about the school-room after the other girls had gone; and any +incidental matters of interest which might present themselves. + +He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A mad +gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a fancy to +him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in her talk, +for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of some of his +earlier friends, the _señoritas_,--all these were distractions, to be +sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in +longings for more dangerous excitements. The thought of getting a +knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he would be in his power at +any moment, was a happy one. + +For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, to +watch her until she got to the school-house. One day he saw Mr. Bernard +join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only once this +happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart from the +groups of girls who strolled out of the school-house yard in company. +Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. Could she +have stayed to meet the schoolmaster? + +If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have liked +to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding between +her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. But this was +beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content himself with +such cautious observations as could be made at a distance. With the aid +of a pocket-glass he could make out persons without the risk of being +observed himself. + +Mr. Silas Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off duty +or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. Sometimes Mr. +Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go out for a ramble +in the day-time; but more frequently it would be in the evening, after +the hour of "retiring," as bed-time was elegantly termed by the young +ladies of the Apollinean Institute. He would then not unfrequently walk +out alone in the common roads, or climb up the sides of The Mountain, +which seemed to be one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it was +impossible to follow him with the eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, +gnawing suspicion that somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster +might meet Elsie, whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this +he was not able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present +plans, and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk one +evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. Presently +a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a wooded bank, some +thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick Venner could see the +interior of the chamber, and watch the master as he sat at his desk, the +light falling strongly upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript +before him. Dick contemplated him very long in this attitude. The sense +of watching his every motion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was +delicious. How little the master was thinking what eyes were on him! + +Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he chose, +he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in a more +solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an evening or +two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he sat at his +desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be very little +difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, silence is always +preferable to noise, and there is a great difference in the marks left +by different casualties. Very likely nothing would come of all this +espionage; but, at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man you +want to have in your power is to learn his habits. + +Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful +and moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. It +was the working of her jealousy against that young school-girl to whom +the master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the heiress of +the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to exasperate her +irritable nature against him, and in this way to render her more +accessible to his own advances? It was difficult to influence her at +all. She endured his company without seeming to enjoy it. She watched +him with that strange look of hers, sometimes as if she were on her +guard against him, sometimes as if she would like to strike at him as in +that fit of childish passion. She ordered him about with a haughty +indifference which reminded him of his own way with the dark-eyed women +whom he had known so well of old. All this added a secret pleasure to +the other motives he had for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He +knew she brooded silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that +she fed on it, as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her +veins,--and that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself +was not likely the second time to be the object, or in some deadly +vengeance wrought secretly, against which he would keep a sharp +look-out, so far as he was concerned, she had no outlet for her +dangerous, smouldering passions. + +Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, there +is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to listen to +her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental,--then, +if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few heartfuls of wild blood +in her, and you have done her a wrong,--double-bolt the door which she +may enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,--look twice before you taste +of any cup whose draught the shadow of her hand may have darkened! + +But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives in +the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is tired, +she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of coffee +from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment. So, if she +can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her wickedness will run +off through her throat or the tips of her fingers. How many tragedies +find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades and strenuous +bravuras! How many murders are executed in double-quick time upon the +keys which stab the air with their dagger-strokes of sound! What would +our civilization be without the piano? Are not Erard and Broadwood and +Chickering the true humanizers of our time? Therefore do I love to hear +the all-pervading _tum tum_ jarring the walls of little parlors in +houses with double door-plates on their portals, looking out on streets +and courts which to know is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to +live, according to any true definition of living. Therefore complain I +not of modern degeneracy, when, even from the open window of the small +unlovely farm-house, tenanted by the hard-handed man of bovine flavors +and the flat-patterned woman of broken-down countenance, issue the same +familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira, but for these keys, which +throb away her wild impulses in harmless discords, would not have been +floating, dead, in the brown stream which runs through the meadows by +her father's door,--or living, with that other current which runs +beneath the gas-lights over the slimy pavement, choking with wretched +weeds that were once in spotless flower? + +Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner life +in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as common +articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be in action. +Watch her well by day and by night, Old Sophy! watch her well! or the +long line of her honored name may close in shame, and the stately +mansion of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till its roof is +buried in its cellar! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + + +ON HIS TRACKS. + + +"Abel!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?" + +Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will you" +did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of rounding +the corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the personal +independence of an American citizen. + +The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. His +face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the +Doctor's eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which looked +as if he had something to communicate. + +"Well?" said the Doctor. + +"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest happened +daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' the gate on +that queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very +slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. +He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn +to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a +pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be +all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' +raoun' the Institoot for, after folks is abed." + +"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor. + +"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be +pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' +want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me +like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits +ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know what +hurts ye." + +"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any +such weapon about him?" + +"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks kin' +o' dangerous. May-be he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't say that +he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raoun' jest 'z ef he +wuz spyin' somebody; 'n' somehaow I caan't help mistrustin' them +Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caa'n't keep the run o' this chap all the +time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown't the mansion-haouse +knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody." + +The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his private +detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in +the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from +the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. +He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a +shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the +schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had +cautioned Mr. Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt an interest in the +young man,--a student of his own profession, an intelligent and +ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been thrown by accident +into the companionship or the neighborhood of two person, one of whom he +knew to be dangerous, and the other he believed instinctively might be +capable of crime. + +The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of +seeing Old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen. +He began talking with her as a physician; he wanted to know how her +rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw though all that with her +little beady black eyes. It was something quite different he had come +for, and Old Sophy answered very briefly for her aches and ails. + +"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the Lord's +doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sh'n't be long roun' this kitchen. +It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it's our Elsie,--it's the baby, as we +use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen year ago, 'n' +her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where is she? Let me see +her!'--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run then,--'n' got the coral +necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, 'n' then showed her to her +mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, 'n' looked, 'n' then put out +her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the necklace,--'n' fell right back on +her piller, as white as though she was laid out to bury?" + +The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He had +never chosen to let Old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious +reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual fears and +prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it. + +"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief pause. + +The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply. + +The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the +glasses through which he now saw her. + +Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision. + +"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from +the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three +times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!" + +"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in +his tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a +certain tendency to belief in the superstition to which the +question refers. + +"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, as +if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it was +somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' +people,--like the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor +chil', 'n' take care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared she'll +never live to see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick." Poor +Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not unnaturally, +somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of the Second-Advent +preachers had been about, and circulated their predictions among the +kitchen-population of Rockland. This was the way in which it happened +that she mingled her fears in such a strange manner with their +doctrines. + +The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, but +it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in the +household different from common?" + +Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, when +she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her +infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of +observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather +looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor +was a mighty conjuror, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She +had relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the +Doctor was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them +through all their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She +had but one real object of affection in the world,--this child that she +had tended from infancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick +round her; how soon they would break upon her, and blight or destroy +her, no one could tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue of +terrors that might not come upon the household at any moment. Her own +wits had sharpened themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her +face had forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to +its features. + +"Doctor," Old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by night +and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked him. He +giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I know it make +him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he needn' feel as if I +didn' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as much as a member o' +the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody." + +Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to Mr. +Richard Venner might perhaps go a little farther than the Christian +limit she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather was in the +habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the last enemy he +had bagged, and that her grandmother's teeth were filed down to points, +so that they were as sharp as a shark's. + +"What is it that you have seen about Mr. Richard Venner that gives you +such a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor. + +"What I' seen 'bout Dick Venner?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell y' +what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that's what he wan's; 'n' +he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as I hate him! +He wan's to marry our Elsie, 'n' live here in the big house, 'n' have +nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch Massa Venner 'n' see how long +'t 'll take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die fas' 'nuff, help him some way +t' die fasser!--Come close up t' me, Doctor! I wan' t' tell you +somethin' I tol' th' minister t'other day. Th' minister, he come down +'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, +'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie,--but he didn' tell nobody what to +do to stop all what I been dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to +me, Doctor!" + +The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman. + +"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's long 's she lives! +Nobody mus'n' never live with Elsie but Ol' Sophy; 'n' Ol' Sophy won't +never die 's long 's Elsie's alive to be took care of. But I 's feared, +Doctor, I 's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. The' 's a +young gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of 'em tells +me,--'n' she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she talks about him +when she's asleep sometimes. She mus'n' never marry nobody, Doctor! If +she do, he die, certain!" + +"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the Doctor +said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from Dick." + +"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but Ol' Sophy. She no like any +other creatur' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' marry one +man cos she love him, she marry another man cos she hate him." + +"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it." + +"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said Old Sophy, with a flash +of strange intelligence in her eyes. + +The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could not +know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange +superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had +better follow Sophy's lead and find out what she meant. + +"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. "You +don't mean that she has any ugly thing about her, except--you +know--under the necklace?" + +The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her darling. + +"I didn' say she had nothin'--but jes' that--you know. My beauty have +anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever had a +shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't like no +other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh like other +women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as other women.--Do +you know that young gen'l'm'n up at the school, Doctor?" + +"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young man, +handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell me, +Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to fall in +love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?" + +"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a little to +the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all." + +"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she +would have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, if +anybody can." + +"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live wi' +Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but Ol' Sophy, +I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, if Dick +Venner die? He wan's to marry our Elsie so's to live in the big house +'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the chists full +o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes! That's what Dick wan's. An' he hates +Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marries Elsie, she'll make him +die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her 'n' hang her, or he'll +get mad with her 'n' choke her.--Oh, I know his chokin' tricks!--he don' +leave his keys roun' for nothin'!" + +"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that." + +So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his +chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it +to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of +inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather +thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, +which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at +least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search; but Old Sophy considered +that a game of life and death was going on in the household, and that +she was bound to look out for her darling. + +The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of information. +Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use this +mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was certainly +very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom of his trunk. +The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something about the _lasso_ and +the _lariat_ and the _bolas_, and had an indistinct idea that they had +been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or private revenge; but they +were essentially a huntsman's implements, after all, and it was not very +strange that this young man had brought one of them with him. Not +strange, perhaps, but worth noting. + +"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently. + +"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, he +never let nobody else have her. Oh, Dick's a dark man, Doctor! I know +him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunnin'. I think +he mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,--come in +softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I hear the +cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Venner, when he comes up +in his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean mischief to +somebody. I no like his looks these las' days.--Is that a very pooty +gen'l'm'n up at the school-house, Doctor?" + +"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?" + +"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus'n' never marry nobody,--but, +oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little how it +would ha' been, if the Lord hadn' been so hard on Elsie." + +She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left her +a moment to her thoughts. + +"And how does Mr. Dudley Venner take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little. + +"Oh, Massa Venner, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, as +Ol' Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, 'n' +set by her sometime when she 'sleep; I come to her in th' mornin' 'n' +help her put on her things."--Then, in a whisper,--"Doctor, Elsie lets +Ol' Sophy take off that necklace for her. What you think she do, 'f +anybody else tech it?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps." + +"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her hands, Doctor!"--The old woman's +significant pantomime must be guessed at. + +"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Venner thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry Elsie." + +"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout what +goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you know,--sort o' +giv' up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say 'Yes, yes.' Dick +always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. One time I thought Massa +Venner b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to Elsie; but now he don' seem to +take much notice;--he kin' o' stupid-like 'bout sech things. It's +trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Venner bright man naterally,--'n' he's got a +great heap o' books. I don' think Massa Venner never been jes' heself +sence Elsie's born. He done all he know how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a +great deal. You men-folks don' know nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' +'f you knowed all the young gals that ever lived, y' wouldn' know +nothin' 'bout our Elsie." + +"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. Venner +has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has any notion +that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels safe to have +him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him." + +"Lor' bless you, Doctor, Massa Venner no more idee 'f any mischief 'bout +Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long wi' +us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' ol' +family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby,--y' +never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care for +nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. The +fus' year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the window +'n' look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the baby's neck +'n' say, '_It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it?_' 'n' then go down in the study +'n' walk 'n' walk, 'n' then kneel down 'n' pray. Doctor, there was two +places in the old carpet that was all threadbare, where his knees had +worn 'em. An sometimes,--you remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up +into The Mountain 'n' be gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he +could find up there.--Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them +days!--An' by-'n'-by he grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, +'n' 't las' he got's quiet 's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I +think he's got religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's +goin' on, 'n' I don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' +happens;--for the' 's somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day +doesn' come to stop it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my +poor Elsie, my baby that the Lord hasn' took care of like all his +other childer." + +The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal about +them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her own. Let +her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a look-out +elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know at once. +Send up one of the men-servants, and he would come down at a +moment's warning. + +There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the Doctor +was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He rode +straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had a brief +conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his personal +interests. + +That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place of +his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night Mr. +Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back among +the fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a dozen +of it. + + + + +A PLEA FOR FREEDOM FROM SPEECH AND FIGURES +OF SPEECH-MAKERS. + + +I observe, Messieurs of the "Atlantic," that your articles are commonly +written in the imperial style; but I must beg allowance to use the first +person singular. I cannot, like old Weller, spell myself with a We. Ours +is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the +worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal +pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. +Other tongues have, or pretend, a greater modesty. + +I. + +What a noble letter it is! In it every reader sees himself as in a +glass. As for me, without my I-s, I should be as poorly off as the great +mole of Hadrian, which, being the biggest, must be also, by parity of +reason, the blindest in the world. When I was in college, I confess I +always liked those passages best in the choruses of the Greek drama +which were well sprinkled with _ai ai_, they were so grandly simple. +The force of great men is generally to be found in their intense +individuality,--in other words, it is all in their I. The merit of this +essay will be similar. + +What I was going to say is this. + +My mind has been much exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, +which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun +to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and +Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human +habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind. We had hitherto got on very +well in Chesumpscot, having caught a trick of silence, perhaps from the +fish which we cured, _more medicorum_, by laying them out. But this +summer some misguided young men among us got up a lecture-association. +Of course it led to a general quarrel; for every pastor in the town +wished to have the censorship of the list of lecturers. A certain number +of the original projectors, however, took the matter wholly into their +own hands, raised a subscription to pay expenses, and resolved to call +their lectures "The Universal Brotherhood Course,"--for no other reason, +that I can divine, but that they had set the whole village by the ears. +They invited that distinguished young apostle of Reform, Mr. Philip +Vandal, to deliver the opening lecture. He has just done so, and, from +what I have heard about his discourse, it would have been fitter as the +introductory to a nunnery of Kilkenny cats than to anything like +universal brotherhood. He opened our lyceum as if it had been an oyster, +without any regard for the feelings of those inside. He pitched into the +world in general, and all his neighbors past and present in particular. +Even the babe unborn did not escape some unsavory epithets in the way of +vaticination. I sat down, meaning to write you an essay on "The Right of +Private Judgment as distinguished from the Right of Public +Vituperation"; but I forbear. It may be that I do not understand the +nature of philanthropy. + +Why, here is Philip Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that +he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of +them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is +worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (_a +knurly_) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway +once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's shop. I like dealers in +out-of-the-way things,--traders in bigotry and virtue are too +common,--and so I went in. The gem of the collection was a terrier,--a +perfect beauty, uglier than philanthropy itself, and hairier, as a +Cockney would say, than the 'ole British hairystocracy. "A'n't he a +stunner?" said my disrespectable friend, the master of the shop. "Ah, +you should see him worry a rat! He does it like a puffic Christian!" +Since then, the world has been divided for me into Christians and +perfect Christians; and I find so many of the latter species in +proportion to the former, that I begin to pity the rats. They (the rats) +have at least one virtue,--they are not eloquent. + +It is, I think, a universally recognized truth of natural history, that +a young lady is sure to fall in love with a young man for whom she feels +at first an unconquerable aversion; and it must be on the same principle +that the first symptoms of love for our neighbor almost always manifest +themselves in a violent disgust at the world in general, on the part of +the apostles of that gospel. They give every token of hating their +neighbors consumedly; _argal_, they are going to be madly enamored of +them. Or, perhaps, this is the manner in which Universal Brotherhood +shows itself in people who wilfully subject themselves to infection as a +prophylactic. In the natural way we might find the disease inconvenient +and even expensive; but thus vaccinated with virus from the udders +(whatever they may be) that yield the (butter-)milk of human kindness, +the inconvenience is slight, and we are able still to go about our +ordinary business of detesting our brethren as usual. It only shows that +the milder type of the disease has penetrated the system, which will +thus be enabled to out-Jenneral its more dangerous congener. Before +long we shall have physicians of our ailing social system writing to the +"Weekly Brandreth's Pill" somewhat on this wise:--"I have a very marked +and hopeful case in Pequawgus Four Corners. Miss Hepzibah Tarbell, +daughter of that arch-enemy of his kind, Deacon Joash T., attended only +one of my lectures. In a day or two the symptoms of eruption were most +encouraging. She has already quarrelled with all her family,--accusing +her father of bigamy, her uncle Benoni of polytheism, her brother Zeno +C. of aneurism, and her sister Eudoxy Trithemia of the variation of the +magnetic needle. If ever hopes of seeing a perfect case of Primitive +Christian were well-founded, I think we may entertain them now." + +What I chiefly object to in the general denunciation sort of reformers +is that they make no allowance for character and temperament. They wish +to repeal universal laws, and to patch our natural skins for us, as if +they always wanted mending. That while they talk so much of the godlike +nature of man, they should so forget the human natures of men! The +Flathead Indian squeezes the child's skull between two boards till it +shapes itself into a kind of gambrel-roof against the rain,--the +readiest way, perhaps, of uniforming a tribe that wear no clothes. But +does he alter the inside of the head? Not a hair's-breadth. You remember +the striking old gnomic poem that tells how Aaron, in a moment of +fanatical zeal against that member by which mankind are so readily led +into mischief, proposes a rhinotomic sacrifice to Moses? What is the +answer of the experienced lawgiver? + + "Says Moses to Aaron, + ''Tis the fashion to wear 'em!'" + +Shall we advise the Tadpole to get his tail cut off, as a badge of the +reptile nature in him, and to achieve the higher sphere of the Croakers +at a single hop? Why, it is all he steers by; without it, he would be as +helpless as a compass under the flare of Northern Lights; and he no +doubt regards it as a mark of blood, the proof of his kinship with the +preadamite family of the Saurians. Shall we send missionaries to the +Bear to warn him against raw chestnuts, because they are sometimes so +discomforting to our human intestines, which are so like his own? One +sermon from the colic were worth the whole American Board. + +Moreover, as an author, I protest in the name of universal Grub Street +against a unanimity in goodness. Not to mention that a Quaker world, all +faded out to an autumnal drab, would be a little tedious,--what should +we do for the villain of our tragedy or novel? No rascals, no +literature. You have your choice. Were we weak enough to consent to a +sudden homogeneousness in virtue, many industrious persons would be +thrown out of employment. The wife and mother, for example, with as +indeterminate a number of children as the Martyr Rogers, who visits me +monthly,--what claim would she have upon me, were not her husband +forever taking to drink, or the penitentiary, or Spiritualism? The +pusillanimous lapse of her lord into morality would not only take the +very ground of her invention from under her feet, but would rob her and +him of an income that sustains them both in blissful independence of the +curse of Adam. But do not let us be disheartened. Nature is strong; she +is persistent; she completes her syllogism after we have long been +feeding the roots of her grasses, and has her own way in spite of us. +Some ancestral Cromwellian trooper leaps to life again in Nathaniel +Greene, and makes a general of him, to confute five generations of +Broadbrims. The Puritans were good in their way, and we enjoy them +highly as a preterite phenomenon: but they were _not_ good at cakes and +ale, and that is one reason why they are a preterite phenomenon. + +I suppose we are all willing to let a public censor like P.V. run amuck +whenever he likes,--so it be not down our street. I confess to a good +deal of tolerance in this respect, and, when I live in Number 21, have +plenty of stoicism to spare for the griefs of the dwellers in No. 23. +Indeed, I agreed with our young Cato heartily in what he said about +Statues. We must have an Act for the Suppression, either of Great Men, +or else of Sculptors. I have not quite made up my mind which are the +greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of +both. They used to be _rare_, (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett,) +but nowadays they are overdone. I am half-inclined to think that the +sculptors club together to write folks up during their lives in the +newspapers, quieting their consciences with the hope of some day making +them look so mean in bronze or marble as to make all square again. Or do +we really have so many? Can't they help growing twelve feet high in this +new soil, any more than our maize? I suspect that Posterity will not +thank us for the hereditary disease of Carrara we are entailing on him, +and will try some heroic remedy, perhaps lithotripsy. + +Nor was I troubled by what Mr. Vandal said about the late Benjamin +Webster. I am not a Boston man, and have, therefore, the privilege of +thinking for myself. Nor do I object to his claiming for women the right +to make books and pictures and (shall I say it?) statues,--only this +last becomes a grave matter, if we are to have statues of all the great +women, too! To be sure, there will not be the trousers-difficulty,--at +least, not at present; what we may come to is none of my affair. I even +go beyond him in my opinions on what is called the Woman Question. In +the gift of speech, they have always had the advantage of us; and though +the jealousy of the other sex have deprived us of the orations of +Xantippe, yet even Demosthenes does not seem to have produced greater +effects, if we may take the word of Socrates for it,--as I, for one, +very gladly do. + +No,--what I complain of is not the lecturer's opinions, but the +eloquence with which he expressed them. He does not like statues better +than I do; but is it possible that he fails to see that the one nuisance +leads directly to the other, and that we set up three images of Talkers +for one to any kind of man who was useful in his generation? Let him +beware, or he will himself be petrified after death. Boston seems to be +specially unfortunate. She has more statues and more speakers than any +other city on this continent. I have with my own eyes seen a book called +"The Hundred Boston Orators." This would seem to give her a fairer title +to be called the _tire_ than the _hub_ of creation. What with the +speeches of her great men while they are alive, and those of her +surviving great men about those aforesaid after they are dead, and those +we look forward to from her _ditto ditto_ yet to be upon her _ditto +ditto_ now in being, and those of her paulopost _ditto ditto_ upon her +_ditto ditto_ yet to be, and those--But I am getting into the house +that Jack built. And yet I remember once visiting the Massachusetts +State-House and being struck with the Pythagorean fish hung on high in +the Representatives' Chamber, the emblem of a silence too sacred, as +would seem, to be observed except on Sundays. Eloquent Philip Vandal, I +appeal to you as a man and a brother, let us two form (not an +Antediluvian, for there are plenty, but) an Antidiluvian Society against +the flood of milk-and-water that threatens the land. Let us adopt as our +creed these two propositions:-- + +I. _Tongues were given us to be held._ + +II. _Dumbness sets the brute below the man: Silence elevates the man +above the brute._ + +Every one of those hundred orators is to me a more fearful thought than +that of a hundred men gathering samphire. And when we take into account +how large a portion of them (if the present mania hold) are likely to be +commemorated in stone or some even more durable material, the conception +is positively stunning. Let us settle all scores by subscribing to a +colossal statue of the late Town-Crier in bell-metal, with the +inscription, "VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL," as a comprehensive tribute to +oratorical powers in general. _He_, at least, never betrayed his +clients. As it is, there is no end to it. We are to set up Horatius Vir +in effigy for inventing the Normal Schoolmaster, and by-and-by we shall +be called on to do the same ill-turn for Elihu Mulciber for getting +uselessly learned (as if any man had ideas enough for twenty languages!) +without any schoolmaster at all. We are the victims of a droll +antithesis. Daniel would not give in to Nebuchadnezzar's taste in +statuary, and we are called on to fall down and worship an image of +Daniel which the Assyrian monarch would have gone to grass again sooner +than have it in his back-parlor. I do not think lions are agreeable, +especially the shaved-poodle variety one is so apt to encounter;--I met +one once at an evening party. But I would be thrown into a den of them +rather than sleep in the same room with that statue. Posterity will +think we cut pretty figures indeed in the monumental line! Perhaps there +is a gleam of hope and a symptom of convalescence in the fact that the +Prince of Wales, during his late visit, got off without a single speech. +The cheerful hospitalities of Mount Auburn were offered to him, as to +all distinguished strangers, but nothing more melancholy. In his case I +doubt the expediency of the omission. Had we set a score or two of +orators on him and his suite, it would have given them a more +intimidating notion of the offensive powers of the country than West +Point and all the Navy-Yards put together. + +In the name of our common humanity, consider, too, what shifts our +friends in the sculpin line (as we should call them in Chesumpscot) are +put to for originality of design, and what the country has to pay for +it. The Clark Mills (that turns out equestrian statues as the Stark +Mills do calico-patterns) has pocketed fifty thousand dollars for making +a very dead bronze horse stand on his hind-legs. For twenty-five cents I +have seen a man at the circus do something more wonderful,--make a very +living bay horse dance a redowa round the amphitheatre on his (it occurs +to me that _hind-legs_ is indelicate) posterior extremities to the +wayward music of an out-of-town (_Scotice_, out-o'-toon) band. Now, I +will make a handsome offer to the public. I propose for twenty-five +thousand dollars to suppress my design for an equestrian statue of a +distinguished general officer as he _would have_ appeared at the Battle +of Buena Vista. This monument is intended as a weathercock to crown the +new dome of the Capitol at Washington. By this happy contrivance, the +horse will be freed from the degrading necessity of touching the earth +at all,--thus distancing Mr. Mills by two feet in the race for +originality. The pivot is to be placed so far behind the middle of the +horse, that the statue, like its original, will always indicate which +way the wind blows by going along with it. The inferior animal I have +resolved to model from a spirited saw-horse in my own collection. In +this way I shall combine two striking advantages. The advocates of the +Ideal in Art cannot fail to be pleased with a charger which embodies, as +it were, merely the abstract notion or quality, Horse, and the attention +of the spectator will not be distracted from the principal figure. The +material to be pure brass. I have also in progress an allegorical group +commemorative of Governor Wise. This, like-Wise, represents only a +potentiality. I have chosen, as worthy of commemoration, the moment when +and the method by which the Governor meant to seize the Treasury at +Washington. His Excellency is modelled in the act of making one of his +speeches. Before him a despairing reporter kills himself by falling on +his own steel pen; a broken telegraph-wire hints at the weight of the +thoughts to which it has found itself inadequate; while the Army and +Navy of the United States are conjointly typified in a horse-marine who +flies headlong with his hands pressed convulsively over his ears. I +think I shall be able to have this ready for exhibition by the time Mr. +Wise is nominated for the Presidency,--certainly before he is elected. +The material to be plaster, made of the shells of those oysters with +which Virginia shall have paid her public debt. It may be objected, that +plaster is not durable enough for verisimilitude, since bronze itself +could hardly be expected to outlast one of the Governor's speeches. But +it must be remembered that his mere effigy cannot, like its prototype, +have the pleasure of hearing itself talk; so that to the mind of the +spectator the oratorical despotism is tempered with some reasonable hope +of silence. This design, also, is intended only _in terrorem_, and will +be suppressed for an adequate consideration. + +I find one comfort, however, in the very hideousness of our statues. The +fear of what the sculptors will do for them after they are gone may +deter those who are careful of their memories from talking themselves +into greatness. It is plain that Mr. Caleb Cushing has begun to feel a +wholesome dread of this posthumous retribution. I cannot in any other +way account for that nightmare of the solitary horseman on the edge of +the horizon, in his Hartford Speech. His imagination is infected with +the terrible consciousness, that Mr. Mills, as the younger man, will, in +the course of Nature, survive him, and will be left loose to seek new +victims of his nefarious designs. Formerly the punishment of the wooden +horse was a degradation inflicted on private soldiers only; but Mr. +Mills (whose genius could make even Pegasus look wooden, in whatever +material) flies at higher game, and will be content with nothing short +of a general. Mr. Cushing advises extreme measures. He counsels us to +sell our real estate and stocks, and to leave a country where no man's +reputation with posterity is safe, being merely as clay in the hands of +the sculptor. To a mind undisturbed by the terror natural in one whose +military reputation insures his cutting and running, (I mean, of course, +in marble and bronze,) the question becomes an interesting one,--To +whom, in case of a general exodus, shall we sell? The statues will have +the land all to themselves,--until the Aztecs, perhaps, repeopling their +ancient heritage, shall pay divine honors to these images, whose +ugliness will revive the traditions of the classic period of Mexican +Art. For my own part, I never look at one of them now without thinking +of at least one human sacrifice. + +I doubt the feasibility of Mr. Cushing's proposal, and yet something +ought to be done. We must put up with what we have already, I suppose, +and let Mr. Webster stand threatening to blow us all up with his pistol +pointed at the elongated keg of gunpowder on which his left hand +rests,--no bad type of the great man's state of mind after the +nomination of General Taylor, or of what a country member would call a +penal statue. But do we reflect that Vermont is half marble, and that +Lake Superior can send us bronze enough for regiments of statues? I go +back to my first plan of a prohibitory enactment. I had even gone so far +as to make a rough draught of an Act for the Better Observance of the +Second Commandment; but it occurred to me that convictions under it +would be doubtful, from the difficulty of satisfying a jury that our +graven images did really present a likeness to any of the objects +enumerated in the divine ordinance. Perhaps a double-barrelled statute +might be contrived that would meet both the oratorical and the +monumental difficulty. Let a law be passed that all speeches delivered +more for the benefit of the orator than that of the audience, and all +eulogistic ones of whatever description, be pronounced in the chapel of +the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and all statues be set up within the grounds +of the Institution for the Blind. Let the penalty for infringement in +the one case be to read the last President's Message, and in the other +to look at the Webster statue one hour a day, for a term not so long as +to violate the spirit of the law forbidding cruel and unusual +punishments. + +Perhaps it is too much to expect of our legislators that they should +pass so self-denying an ordinance. They might, perhaps, make all oratory +but their own penal, and then (who knows?) the reports of their debates +might be read by the few unhappy persons who were demoniacally possessed +by a passion for that kind of thing, as girls are sometimes said to be +by an appetite for slate-pencils. _Vita brevis, lingua longa_. I protest +that among law-givers I respect Numa, who declared, that, of all the +Camenae, Tacita was most worthy of reverence. The ancient Greeks also +(though they left too much oratory behind them) had some good notions, +especially if we consider that they had not, like modern Europe, the +advantage of communication with America. Now the Greeks had a Muse of +Beginning, and the wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how +hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more +excellent Muse of Leaving-off. The Spartans, I suspect, found her out +and kept her selfishly to themselves. She were indeed a goddess to be +worshipped, a true Sister of Charity among that loquacious sisterhood! + +Endlessness is the order of the day. I ask you to compare Plutarch's +lives of demigods and heroes with our modern biographies of deminoughts +and zeroes. Those will appear but tailors and ninth-parts of men in +comparison with these, every one of whom would seem to have had nine +lives, like a cat, to justify such prolixity. Yet the evils of print are +as dust in the balance to those of speech. + +We were doing very well in Chesumpscot, but the Lyceum has ruined all. +There are now two debating-clubs, seminaries of multiloquence. A few of +us old-fashioned fellows have got up an opposition club and called it +"The Jolly Oysters." No member is allowed to open his mouth except at +high-tide by the calendar. We have biennial festivals on the evening of +election-day, when the constituency avenges itself in some small measure +on its Representative elect by sending a baker's dozen of orators to +congratulate him. + +But I am falling into the very vice I condemn,--like Carlyle, who has +talked a quarter of a century in praise of holding your tongue. And yet +something should be done about it. Even when we get one orator safely +under-ground, there are ten to pronounce his eulogy, and twenty to do it +over again when the meeting is held about the inevitable statue. I go to +listen: we all go: we are under a spell. 'Tis true, I find a casual +refuge in sleep; for Drummond of Hawthornden was wrong when he called +Sleep the child of Silence. Speech begets her as often. But there is no +sure refuge save in Death; and when my life is closed untimely, let +there be written on my headstone, with impartial application to these +Black Brunswickers mounted on the high horse of oratory and to our +equestrian statues,-- + +_Os sublime_ did it! + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita_. Vol. I, Containing, +I. _Opus Tertium_,--II. _Opus Minus_,--III. _Compendium Philosophiae_. +Edited by J.S. BREWER, M.A., Professor of English Literature, King's +College, London, and Reader at the Rolls. Published by the Authority of +the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction +of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and +Roberts. 1859. 8vo. pp. c., 573. + +Sir John Romilly has shown good judgment in including the unpublished +works of Roger Bacon in the series of "Chronicles and Memorials of Great +Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," now in course of +publication under his direction. They are in a true sense important +memorials of the period at which they were written, and, though but +incidentally illustrating the events of the time, they are of great +value in indicating the condition of thought and learning as well as the +modes of mental discipline and acquisition during the thirteenth century. + +The memory of Roger Bacon has received but scant justice. Although long +since recognized as one of the chief lights of England during the Middle +Ages, the clinging mist of popular tradition has obscured his real +brightness and distorted its proportions, while even among scholars he +has been more known by reputation than by actual acquaintance with his +writings. His principal work, his "Opus Majus," was published for the +first time in London in 1733, in folio, and afterwards at Venice in +1750, in the same form. Down to the publication of the volume before us, +it was the only one of his writings of much importance which had been +printed complete, if indeed it is to be called complete,--the Seventh +Part having been omitted by the editor, Dr. Jebb, and never having since +been published. + +The facts known concerning Roger Bacon's life are few, and are so +intermingled with tradition that it is difficult wholly to separate them +from it. Born of a good family at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, near the +beginning of the thirteenth century, he was placed in early youth at +Oxford, whence, after completing his studies in grammar and logic, "he +proceeded to Paris," says Anthony Wood, "according to the fashion +prevalent among English scholars of those times, especially among the +members of the University of Oxford." Here, under the famous masters of +the day, he devoted himself to study for some years, and made such +progress that he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity. Returning to +Oxford, he seems soon to have entered into the Franciscan Order, for the +sake of securing a freedom from worldly cares, that he might the more +exclusively give himself to his favorite pursuits. At various times he +lectured at the University. He spent some later years out of England, +probably again in Paris. His life was embittered by the suspicions felt +in regard to his studies by the brethren of his order, and by their +opposition, which proceeded to such lengths that it is said he was cast +into prison, where, according to one report, he died wretchedly. However +this may have been, his death took place before the beginning of the +fourteenth century. The scientific and experimental studies which had +brought him into ill-favor with his own order, and had excited the +suspicion against him of dealing in magic and forbidden arts, seem to +have sown the seed of the popular traditions which at once took root +around his name. Friar Bacon soon became, and indeed has remained almost +to the present day, a half-mythical character. To the imagination of the +common people, he was a great necromancer; he had had dealings with the +Evil One, who had revealed many of the secrets of Nature to him; he had +made a head of brass that could speak and foretell future events; and to +him were attributed other not less wonderful inventions, which seem to +have formed a common stock for popular legends of this sort during the +Middle Ages, and to have been ascribed indiscriminately to one +philosopher or another in various countries and in various times.[9] The +references in our early literature to Friar Bacon, as one who had had +familiarity with spirits and been a master in magic arts, are so +numerous as to show that the belief in these stories was wide-spread, +and that the real character of the learned Friar was quite given over to +oblivion. But time slowly brings about its revenges; and the man whom +his ignorant and stupid fellows thought fit to hamper and imprison, and +whom popular credulity looked upon with that half-horror and +half-admiration with which those were regarded who were supposed to have +put their souls in pawn for the sake of tasting the forbidden fruit, is +now recognized not only as one of the most profound and clearest +thinkers of his time, but as the very first among its experimental +philosophers, and as a prophet of truths which, then neglected and +despised, have since been adopted as axioms in the progress of science. +"The precursor of Galileo," says M. Hauréau, in his work on Scholastic +Philosophy, "he learned before him how rash it is to offend the +prejudices of the multitude, and to desire to give lessons to the +ignorant." + +The range of Roger Bacon's studies was encyclopedic, comprehending all +the branches of learning then open to scholars. Brucker, in speaking of +him in his History of Philosophy, has no words strong enough to express +his admiration for his abilities and learning. "Seculi sui indolem +multum superavit," "vir summus, tantaque occultioris philosophiae +cognitione et experientia nobilis, ut merito Doctoris Mirabilis titulum +reportaverit."[10] The logical and metaphysical studies, in the +intricate subtilties of which most of the schoolmen of his time involved +themselves, presented less attraction to Bacon than the pursuits of +physical science and the investigation of Nature. His genius, displaying +the practical bent of his English mind, turning with weariness from the +endless verbal discussions of the Nominalists and Realists, and +recognizing the impossibility of solving the questions which divided the +schools of Europe into two hostile camps, led him to the study of +branches of knowledge that were held in little repute. He recognized the +place of mathematics as the basis of exact science, and proceeded to the +investigation of the facts and laws of optics, mechanics, chemistry, and +astronomy. But he did not limit himself to positive science; he was at +the same time a student of languages and of language, of grammar and of +music. He was versed not less in the arts of the _Trivium_ than in the +sciences of the Quadrivium.[11] + +But in rejecting the method of study then in vogue, and in opposing the +study of facts to that of questions which by their abstruseness fatigued +the intellect, which were of more worth in sharpening the wit than in +extending the limits of knowledge, and which led rather to vain +contentions than to settled conclusions,--in thus turning from the +investigation of abstract metaphysics to the study of Nature, Roger +Bacon went so far before his age as to condemn himself to solitude, to +misappreciation, and to posthumous neglect. Unlike men of far narrower +minds, but more conformed to the spirit of the times, he founded no +school, and left no disciples to carry out the system which he had +advanced, and which was one day to have its triumph. At the end of the +thirteenth century the scholastic method was far from having run its +career. The minds of men were occupied with problems which it alone +seemed to be able to resolve, and they would not abandon it at the will +of the first innovator. The questions in dispute were embittered by +personal feeling and party animosities. Franciscans and Dominicans were +divided by points of logic not less than by the rules of their +orders.[12] Ignorance and passion alike gave ardor to discussion, and it +was vain to attempt to convince the heated partisans on one side or the +other, that the truths they sought were beyond the reach of human +faculties, and that their dialectics and metaphysics served to bewilder +more than to enlighten the intellect. The disciples of subtile +speculatists like Aquinas, or of fervent mystics like Bonaventura, were +not likely to recognize the worth and importance of the slow processes +of experimental philosophy. + +The qualities of natural things, the limits of intellectual powers, the +relations of man to the universe, the conditions of matter and spirit, +the laws of thought, were too imperfectly understood for any man to +attain to a comprehensive and correct view of the sources and methods of +study and discovery of the truth. Bacon shared in what may he called, +without a sneer, the childishnesses of his time, childishnesses often +combined with mature powers and profound thought. No age is fully +conscious of its own intellectual disproportions; and what now seem mere +puerilities in the works of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were perhaps +frequently the result of as laborious effort and as patient study as +what we still prize in them for its manly vigor and permanent worth. In +a later age, the Centuries of the "Sylva Sylvarum" afford a curious +comment on the Aphorisms of the "Novum Organum." + +The "Opus Majus" of Bacon was undertaken in answer to a demand of Pope +Clement IV. in 1266, and was intended to contain a review of the whole +range of science, as then understood, with the exception of logic. +Clement had apparently become personally acquainted with Bacon, at the +time when, as legate of the preceding Pope, he had been sent to England +on an ineffectual mission to compose the differences between Henry III. +and his barons, and he appears to have formed a just opinion of the +genius and learning of the philosopher. + +The task to which Bacon had been set by the Papal mandate was rapidly +accomplished, in spite of difficulties which might have overcome a less +resolute spirit; but the work extended to such great length in his +hands, that he seems to have felt a not unnatural fear that Clement, +burdened with the innumerable cares of the Pontificate, would not find +leisure for its perusal, much less for the study which some part of it +demanded. With this fear, fearful also that portions of his work might +be deficient in clearness, and dreading lest it might be lost on its way +to Rome, he proceeded to compose a second treatise, called the "Opus +Minus," to serve as an abstract and specimen of his greater work, and to +embrace some additions to its matter. Unfortunately, but a fragment of +this second work has been preserved, and this fragment is for the first +time published in the volume just issued under the direction of the +Master of the Rolls. But the "Opus Minus" was scarcely completed before +he undertook a third work, to serve as an introduction and preamble to +both the preceding. This has been handed down to us complete, and this, +too, is for the first time printed in the volume before us. We take the +account of it given by Professor Brewer, the editor, in his +introduction. + + "Inferior to its predecessors in the importance + of its scientific details and the illustration + it supplies of Bacon's philosophy, it is + more interesting than either, for the insight + it affords of his labors, and of the numerous + obstacles he had to contend with in the execution + of his work. The first twenty chapters + detail various anecdotes of Bacon's personal + history, his opinions on the state of + education, the impediments thrown in his + way by the ignorance, the prejudices, the + contempt, the carelessness, the indifference + of his contemporaries. From the twentieth + chapter to the close of the volume he pursues + the thread of the Opus Majus, supplying what + he had there omitted, correcting and explaining + what had been less clearly or correctly + expressed in that or in the Opus Minus. In + Chapter LII. he apologizes for diverging from + the strict line he had originally marked out, + by inserting in the ten preceding chapters his + opinions on three abstruse subjects, Vacuum, + Motion, and Space, mainly in regard to their + spiritual significance. 'As these questions,' + he says,' are very perplexing and difficult, I + thought I would record what I had to say + about them in some one of my works. In the + Opus Majus and Opus Minus I had not studied + them sufficiently to prevail on myself to + commit my thoughts about them to writing; + and I was glad to omit them, owing to the + length of those works, and because I was + much hurried in their composition.' From the + fifty-second chapter to the close of the volume + he adheres to his subject without further digression, + but with so much vigor of thought + and freshness of observations, that, like the + Opus Minus, the Opus Tertium may be fairly + considered an independent work."--pp. + xliv-xlv.[13] + +The details which Bacon gives of his personal history are of special +interest as throwing light upon the habits of life of a scholar in the +thirteenth century. Their autobiographic charm is increased by their +novelty, for they give a view of ways of life of which but few +particulars have been handed down. + +Excusing himself for the delay which had occurred, after the reception +of the Pope's letter, before the transmission of the writings he had +desired, Bacon says that he was strictly prohibited by a rule of his +Order from communicating to others any writing made by one of its +members, under penalty of loss of the book, and a diet for many days of +bread and water. Moreover, a fair copy could not be made, supposing that +he succeeded in writing, except by scribes outside of the Order; and +they might transcribe either for themselves or others, and through their +dishonesty it very often happened that books were divulged at Paris. + +"Then other far greater causes of delay occurred, on account of which I +was often ready to despair; and a hundred times I thought to give up the +work I had undertaken; and, had it not been for reverence for the Vicar +of the only Saviour, and [regard to] the profit to the world to be +secured through him alone, I would not have proceeded, against these +hindrances, with this affair, for all those who are in the Church of +Christ, however much they might have prayed and urged me. The first +hindrance was from those who were set over me, to whom you had written +nothing in my favor, and who, since I could not reveal your secret +[commission] to them, being bound not to do so by your command of +secrecy, urged me with unutterable violence, and with other means, to +obey their will. But I resisted, on account of the bond of your precept, +which obliged me to your work, in spite of every mandate of my +superiors.... + +"But I met also with another hindrance, which was enough to put a stop +to the whole matter, and this was the want of [means to meet] the +expense. For I was obliged to pay out in this business more than sixty +livres of Paris,[14] the account and reckoning of which I will set forth +in their place hereafter. I do not wonder, indeed, that you did not +think of these expenses, because, sitting at the top of the world, you +have to think of so great and so many things that no one can estimate +the cares of your mind. But the messengers who carried your letters were +careless in not making mention to you of these expenses; and they were +unwilling to expend a single penny, even though I told them that I would +write to you an account of the expenses, and that to every one of them +should be returned what was his. I truly have no money, as you know, nor +can I have it, nor consequently can I borrow, since I have nothing +wherewith to repay. I sent then to my rich brother, in my country, who, +belonging to the party of the king, was exiled with my mother and my +brothers and the whole family, and oftentimes being taken by the enemy +redeemed himself with money, so that thus being ruined and +impoverished, he could not assist me, nor even to this day have I had an +answer from him. + +"Considering, then, the reverence due to you, and the nature of your +command, I solicited many and great people, the faces of some of whom +you know well, but not their minds; and I told them that a certain +affair of yours must he attended to by me in France, (but I did not +disclose to them what it was,) the performance of which required a large +sum of money. But how often I was deemed a cheat, how often repulsed, +how often put off with empty hope, how often confused in myself, I +cannot express. Even my friends did not believe me, because I could not +explain to them the affair; and hence I could not advance by this way. +In distress, therefore, beyond what can be imagined, I compelled +serving-men and poor to expend all that they had, to sell many things, +and to pawn others, often at usury; and I promised them that I would +write to you every part of the expenses, and would in good faith obtain +from you payment in full. And yet, on account of the poverty of these +persons, I many times gave up the work, and many times despaired and +neglected to proceed; and indeed, if I had known that you would not +attend to the settling of these accounts, I would not for the whole +world have gone on,--nay, rather, I would have gone to prison. Nor could +I send special messengers to you for the needed sum, because I had no +means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing +the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on +account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of +expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by +ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all +these things, so great a delay has occurred in this matter."[15] + +There is a touching simplicity in this account of the trials by which he +was beset, and it rises to dignity in connection with a sentence which +immediately follows, in which he says, the thought of "the advantage of +the world excited me, and the revival of knowledge, which now for many +ages has lain dead, vehemently urged me forward." Motives such as these +were truly needed to enable him to make head against such difficulties. + +The work which he accomplished, remarkable as it is from its intrinsic +qualities, is also surprising from the rapidity with which it was +performed, in spite of the distractions and obstacles that attended it. +It would seem that in less than two years from the date of Clement's +letter, the three works composed in compliance with its demand were +despatched to the Pope. Bacon's diligence must have been as great as his +learning. In speaking, in another part of the "Opus Tertium," of the +insufficiency of the common modes of instruction, he gives incidentally +an account of his own devotion to study. "I have labored much," he says, +"on the sciences and languages; it is now forty years since I first +learned the alphabet, and I have always been studious; except two years +of these forty, I have been always engaged in study; and I have expended +much, [in learning,] as others generally do; but yet I am sure that +within a quarter of a year, or half a year, I could teach orally, to a +man eager and confident to learn, all that I know of the powers of the +sciences and languages; provided only that I had previously composed a +written compend. And yet it is known that no one else has worked so hard +or on so many sciences and tongues; for men used to wonder formerly that +I kept my life on account of my excessive labor, and ever since I have +been as studious as I was then, but I have not worked so hard, because, +through my practice in knowledge, it was not needful."[16] Again he +says, that in the twenty years in which he had specially labored in the +study of wisdom, neglecting the notions of the crowd, he had spent more +than two thousand pounds [livres] in the acquisition of secret books, +and for various experiments, instruments, tables, and other things, as +well as in seeking the friendship of learned men, and in instructing +assistants in languages, figures, the use of instruments and tables, +and many other things. But yet, though he had examined everything that +was necessary for the construction of a preliminary work to serve as a +guide to the wisdom of philosophy, though he knew how it was to be done, +with what aids, and what were the hindrances to it, still he could not +proceed with it, owing to the want of means. The cost of employing +proper persons in the work, the rarity and costliness of books, the +expense of instruments and of experiments, the need of infinite +parchment and many scribes for rough copies, all put it beyond his power +to accomplish. This was his excuse for the imperfection of the treatise +which he had sent to the Pope, and this was a work worthy to be +sustained by Papal aid.[17] + +The enumeration by Bacon of the trials and difficulties of a scholar's +life at a time when the means of communicating knowledge were difficult, +when books were rare and to be obtained only at great cost, when the +knowledge of the ancient languages was most imperfect, and many of the +most precious works of ancient philosophy were not to be obtained or +were to be found only in imperfect and erroneous translations, depicts a +condition of things in vivid contrast to the present facilities for the +communication and acquisition of learning, and enables us in some degree +to estimate the drawbacks under which scholars prosecuted their studies +before the invention of printing. That with such impediments they were +able to effect so much is wonderful; and their claim on the gratitude +and respect of their successors is heightened by the arduous nature of +the difficulties with which they were forced to contend. The value of +their work receives a high estimate, when we consider the scanty means +with which it was performed. + +Complaining of the want of books, Bacon says,--"The books on philosophy +by Aristotle and Avicenna, by Seneca and Tully and others, cannot be had +except at great cost, both because the chief of them are not translated +into Latin, and because of others not a copy is to be found in public +schools of learning or elsewhere. For instance, the most excellent books +of Tully De Republica are nowhere to be found, so far as I can hear, and +I have been eager in the search for them in various parts of the world +and with various agents. It is the same with many other of his books. +The books of Seneca also, the flowers of which I have copied out for +your Beatitude, I was never able to find till about the time of your +mandate, although I had been diligent in seeking for them for twenty +years and more."[18] Again, speaking of the corruption of translations, +so that they are often unintelligible, as is especially the case with +the books of Aristotle, he says that "there are not four Latins [that +is, Western scholars] who know the grammar of the Hebrews, the Greeks, +and the Arabians; for I am well acquainted with them, and have made +diligent inquiry both here and beyond the sea, and have labored much in +these things. There are many, indeed, who can speak Greek and Arabic and +Hebrew, but scarcely any who know the principles of the grammar so as to +teach it, for I have tried very many."[19] + +In his treatise entitled "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," which is +printed in this volume for the first time, he adds in relation to this +subject,--"Teachers are not wanting, because there are Jews everywhere, +and their tongue is the same in substance with the Arabic and the +Chaldean, though they differ in mode.... Nor would it be much, for the +sake of the great advantage of learning Greek, to go to Italy, where the +clergy and the people in many places are purely Greek; moreover, bishops +and archbishops and rich men and elders might send thither for books, +and for one or for more persons who know Greek, as Lord Robert, the +sainted Bishop of Lincoln,[20] did indeed do,--and some of those [whom +he brought over] still survive in England."[21] The ignorance of the +most noted clerks and lecturers of his day is over and over again the +subject of Bacon's indignant remonstrance. They were utterly unable to +correct the mistakes with which the translations of ancient works were +full. "The text is in great part horribly corrupt in the copy of the +Vulgate at Paris, ...and as many readers as there are, so many +correctors, or rather corruptors, ...for every reader changes the text +according to his fancy."[22] Even those who professed to translate new +works of ancient learning were generally wholly unfit for the task. +Hermann the German knew nothing of science, and little of Arabic, from +which he professed to translate; but when he was in Spain, he kept +Saracens with him who did the main part of the translations that he +claimed. In like manner, Michael Scot asserted that he had made many +translations; but the truth was, that a certain Jew named Andrew worked +more than he upon them.[23] William Fleming was, however, the most +ignorant and most presuming of all.[24] "Certain I am that it were +better for the Latins that the wisdom of Aristotle had not been +translated, than to have it thus perverted and obscured, ...so that the +more men study it the less they know, as I have experienced with all who +have stuck to these books. Wherefore my Lord Robert of blessed memory +altogether neglected them, and proceeded by his own experiments, and +with other means, until he knew the things concerning which Aristotle +treats a hundred thousand times better than he could ever have learned +them from those perverse translations. And if I had power over these +translations of Aristotle, I would have every copy of them burned; for +to study them is only a loss of time and a cause of error and a +multiplication of ignorance beyond telling. And since the labors of +Aristotle are the foundation of all knowledge, no one can estimate the +injury done by means of these bad translations."[25] + +Bacon had occasion for lamenting not only the character of the +translations in use, but also the fact that many of the most important +works of the ancients were not translated at all, and hence lay out of +the reach of all but the rare scholars, like himself and his friend +Grostête, who were able, through their acquaintance with the languages +in which they were written, to make use of them, provided manuscripts +could be found for reading. "We have few useful works on philosophy in +Latin. Aristotle composed a thousand volumes, as we read in his Life, +and of these we have but three of any notable size, namely,--on Logic, +Natural History, and Metaphysics; so that all the other scientific works +that he composed are wanting to the Latins, except some tractates and +small little books, and of these but very few. Of his Logic two of the +best books are deficient, which Hermann had in Arabic, but did not +venture to translate. One of them, indeed, he did translate, or caused +to be translated, but so ill that the translation is of no sort of value +and has never come into use. Aristotle wrote fifty excellent books about +Animals, as Pliny says in the eighth book of his Natural History, and I +have seen them in Greek, and of these the Latins have only nineteen +wretchedly imperfect little books. Of his Metaphysics the Latins read +only the ten books which they have, while there are many more; and of +these ten which they read, many chapters are wanting in the translation, +and almost infinite lines. Indeed, the Latins have nothing worthy; and +therefore it is necessary that they should know the languages, for the +sake of translating those things that are deficient and needful. For, +moreover, of the works on secret sciences, in which the secrets and +marvels of Nature are explored, they have little except fragments here +and there, which scarcely suffice to excite the very wisest to study and +experiment and to inquire by themselves after those things which are +lacking to the dignity of wisdom; while the crowd of students are not +moved to any worthy undertaking, and grow so languid and asinine over +these ill translations, that they lose utterly their time and study and +expense. They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not +care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly +multitude."[26] + +These passages may serve to show something of the nature of those +external hindrances to knowledge with which Bacon himself had had to +strive, which he overcame, and which he set himself with all his force +to break down, that they might no longer obstruct the path of study. +What scholar, what lover of learning, can now picture to himself such +efforts without emotion,--without an almost oppressive sense of the +contrast between the wealth of his own opportunities and the penury of +the earlier scholar? On the shelves within reach of his hand lie the +accumulated riches of time. Compare our libraries, with their crowded +volumes of ancient and modern learning, with the bare cell of the +solitary Friar, in which, in a single small cupboard, are laid away a +few imperfect manuscripts, precious as a king's ransom, which it had +been the labor of years to collect. This very volume of his works, a +noble monument of patient labor, of careful investigation, of deep +thought, costs us but a trivial sum; while its author, in his poverty, +was scarcely able, without begging, to pay for the parchment upon which +he wrote it, as, uncheered by the anticipation that centuries after his +death men would prize the works he painfully accomplished, he leaned +against his empty desk, half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset +him. All honor to him! honor to the schoolmen of the Middle Ages! to the +men who kept the traditions of wisdom alive, who trimmed the wick of the +lamp of learning when its flame was flickering, and who, when its light +grew dim and seemed to be dying out, supplied it with oil hardly +squeezed by their own hands, drop by drop, from the scanty olives which +they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days +learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who +should be worthy to be put into comparison with the philosopher of the +thirteenth century? + +The general scheme of Bacon's system of philosophy was at once simple +and comprehensive. The scope of his thought had a breadth uncommon in +his or in any time. In his view, the object of all philosophy and human +learning was to enable men to attain to the wisdom of God; and to this +end it was to be subservient absolutely, and relatively so far as +regarded the Church, the government of the state, the conversion of +infidels, and the repression of those who could not be converted. All +wisdom was included in the Sacred Scriptures, if properly understood and +explained. "I believe," said he, "that the perfection of philosophy is +to raise it to the state of a Christian law." Wisdom was the gift of +God, and as such it included the knowledge of all things in heaven and +earth, the knowledge of God himself, of the teachings of Christ, the +beauty of virtue, the honesty of laws, the eternal life of glory and of +punishment, the resurrection of the dead, and all things else.[27] + +To this end all special sciences were ordained. All these, properly +speaking, were to be called speculative; and though they each might be +divided into two parts, the practical and the speculative, yet one +alone, the most noble and best of all, in respect to which there was no +comparison with the others, was in its own nature practical: this was +the science of morals, or moral philosophy. All the works of Art and +Nature are subservient to morals, and are of value only as they promote +it. They are as nothing without it; as the whole wisdom of philosophy is +as nothing without the wisdom of the Christian faith. This science of +morals has six principal divisions. The first of these is theological, +treating of the relations of man to God and to spiritual things; the +second is political, treating of public laws and the government of +states; the third is ethical, treating of virtue and vice; the fourth +treats of the revolutions of religious sects, and of the proofs of the +Christian faith. + +"This is the best part of all philosophy." Experimental science and the +knowledge of languages come into use here. The fifth division is +hortatory, or of morals as applied to duty, and embraces the art of +rhetoric and other subsidiary arts. The sixth and final division treats +of the relations of morals to the execution of justice.[28] Under one +or other of these heads all special sciences and every branch of +learning are included. + +Such, then, being the object and end of all learning, it is to be +considered in what manner and by what methods study is to be pursued, to +secure the attainment of truth. And here occurs one of the most +remarkable features of Bacon's system. It is in his distinct statement +of the prime importance of experiment as the only test of certainty in +the sciences. "However strong arguments may be, they do not give +certainty, apart from positive experience of a conclusion." "It is the +prerogative of experiment to test the noble conclusions of all sciences +which are drawn from arguments." All science is ancillary to it.[29] And +of all branches of learning, two are of chief importance: languages are +the first gate of wisdom; mathematics the second.[30] By means of +foreign tongues we gain the wisdom which men have collected in past +times and other countries; and without them the sciences are not to be +pursued, for the requisite books are wanting in the Latin tongue. Even +theology must fail without a knowledge of the original texts of the +Sacred Writings and of their earliest expositors. Mathematics are of +scarcely less importance; "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know +any other physical science,--what is more, cannot discover his own +ignorance or find its proper remedies." "The sciences cannot be known by +logical and sophistical arguments, such as are commonly used, but only +by mathematical demonstrations."[31] But this view of the essential +importance of these two studies did not prevent Bacon from rising to the +height from which he beheld the mutual importance and relations of all +knowledge. We do not know where to find a clearer statement of the +connection of the sciences than in the following words:--"All sciences +are connected, and support each other with mutual aid, as parts of the +same whole, of which each performs its work, not for itself alone, but +for the others as well: as the eye directs the whole body, and the foot +supports the whole; so that any part of knowledge taken from the rest is +like an eye torn out or a foot cut off."[32] + +Such, then, in brief, appears to have been Bacon's general system of +philosophy. He has nowhere presented it in a compact form; and his style +of writing is often so corrupt, and his use of terms so inexact, that +any exposition of his views, exhibiting them in a methodical +arrangement, is liable to the charge of possessing a definiteness of +statement beyond that which his opinions had assumed in his own mind. +Still, the view that has now been given of his philosophy corresponds as +nearly as may be with the indications afforded by his works. The details +of his system present many points of peculiar interest. He was not +merely a theorist, with speculative views of a character far in advance +of those of the mass of contemporary schoolmen, but a practical +investigator as well, who by his experiments and discoveries pushed +forward the limits of knowledge, and a sound scholar who saw and +displayed to others the true means by which progress in learning was to +be secured. In this latter respect, no parts of his writings are more +remarkable than those in which he urges the importance of philological +and linguistic studies. His remarks on comparative grammar, on the +relations of languages, on the necessity of the study of original texts, +are distinguished by good sense, by extensive and (for the time) exact +scholarship, and by a breadth of view unparalleled, so far as we are +aware, by any other writer of his age. The treatise on the Greek +Grammar--which occupies a large portion of the incomplete "Compendium +Studii Philosophiae," and which is broken off in the middle by the +mutilation of the manuscript--contains, in addition to many curious +remarks illustrative of the learning of the period, much matter of +permanent interest to the student of language. The passages which we +have quoted in regard to the defects of the translations of Greek +authors show to how great a degree the study of Greek and other ancient +tongues had been neglected. Most of the scholars of the day contented +themselves with collecting the Greek words which they found interpreted +in the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Origen, Martianus Capella, +Boëthius, and a few other later Latin authors; and were satisfied to use +these interpretations without investigation of their exactness, or +without understanding their meaning. Hugo of Saint Victor, (Dante's "Ugo +di Sanvittore è qui con elli,") one of the most illustrious of Bacon's +predecessors, translates, for instance, _mechanica_ by _adulterina_, as +if it came from the Latin _moecha_, and derives _economica_ from +_oequus_, showing that he, like most other Western scholars, was +ignorant even of the Greek letters.[33] Michael Scot, in respect to +whose translations Bacon speaks with merited contempt, exhibits the +grossest ignorance, in his version from the Arabic of Aristotle's +History of Animals, for example, a passage in which Aristotle speaks of +taming the wildest animals, and says, "Beneficio enim mitescunt, veluti +crocodilorum genus afficitur erga sacerdotem a quo enratur ut alantur," +("They become mild with kind treatment, as crocodiles toward the priest +who provides them with food,") is thus unintelligibly rendered by him: +"Genus autem karoluoz et hirdon habet pacem lehhium et domesticatur cum +illo, quoniam cogitat de suo cibo." [34] Such a medley makes it certain +that he knew neither Greek nor Arabic, and was willing to compound a +third language, as obscure to his readers as the original was to him. +Bacon points out many instances of this kind; and it is against such +errors--errors so destructive to all learning--that he inveighs with the +full force of invective, and protests with irresistible arguments. His +acquirements in Greek and in Hebrew prove that he had devoted long labor +to the study of these languages, and that he understood them far better +than many scholars who made more pretence of learning. Nowhere are the +defects of the scholarship of the Middle Ages more pointedly and ably +exhibited than in what he has said of them. + +But, although his knowledge in this field was of uncommon quality and +amount, it does not seem to have surpassed his acquisitions in science. +"I have attempted," he says in a striking passage, "with great +diligence, to attain certainty as to what is needful to be known +concerning the processes of alchemy and natural philosophy and +medicine.... And what I have written of the roots [of these sciences] +is, in my judgment, worth far more than all that the other natural +philosophers now alive suppose themselves to know; for in vain, without +these roots, do they seek for branches, flowers, and fruit. And here I +am boastful in words, but not in my soul; for I say this because I +grieve for the infinite error that now exists, and that I may urge you +[the Pope] to a consideration of the truth."[35] Again he says, in +regard to his treatise "De Perspectiva," or On Optics,--"Why should I +conceal the truth? I assert that there is no one among the Latin +scholars who could accomplish, in the space of a year, this work; no, +nor even in ten years."[36] In mathematics, in chemistry, in optics, in +mechanics, he was, if not superior, at least equal, to the best of his +contemporaries. His confidence in his own powers was the just result of +self-knowledge and self-respect. Natural genius, and the accumulations +of forty years of laborious study pursued with a method superior to that +which guided the studies of others, had set him at the head of the +learned men of his time; and he was great enough to know and to claim +his place. He had the self-devotion of enthusiasm, and its ready, but +dignified boldness, based upon the secure foundation of truth. + +In spite of the very imperfect style in which he wrote, and the usually +clumsy and often careless construction of his sentences, his works +contain now and then noble thoughts expressed with simplicity and force. +"Natura est instrumentum Divinae operationis," might be taken as the +motto for his whole system of natural science. In speaking of the value +of words, he says,--"Sed considerare debemus quod verba habent maximam +potestatem, et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta sunt +per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo +maxime delectatur." In the "Opus Tertium," at the point where he begins +to give an abstract of his "Opus Majus," he uses words which remind one +of the famous "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit." He +says,--"Cogitavi quod intellectus humanus habet magnam debilitationem ex +se.... Et ideo volui excludere errorum corde hominis impossible est +ipsum videre veritatem." This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's +"errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post +alios, si mens sibi permittatur." Such citations of passages remarkable +for thought or for expression might be indefinitely extended, but we +have space for only one more, in which the Friar attacks the vices of +the Roman court with an energy that brings to mind the invectives of the +greatest of his contemporaries. "Curia Romana, quae solebat et debet +regi sapientia Dei, nunc depravatur.... Laceratur enim illa sedes sacra +fraudibus et dolis injustorum. Pent justitia; pax omnis violatur; +infinita scandala suscitantur. Mores enim sequuntur ibidem +perversissimi; regnat superbia, ardet avaritia, invidia corrodit +singulos, luxuria diffamat totam illam curiam, gula in omnibus +dominatur." It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger +Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be +driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed +tightly within. + +There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to +discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with +him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the +most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of +tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation +to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to +discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The +popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in +two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and +on the Nullity of Magic,"[37] in one of which he describes some of its +qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its composition +under an enigma.[38] He had made experiments with Greek fire and the +magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power; +and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that +magnified and diminished. It was no wonder that a man who knew and +employed such wonderful things, who was known, too, to have sought for +artificial gold, should gain the reputation of a wizard, and that his +books should be looked upon with suspicion. As he himself says,--"Many +books are esteemed magic, which are not so, but contain the dignity of +knowledge." And he adds,--"For, as it is unworthy and unlawful for a +wise man to deal with magic, so it is superfluous and unnecessary."[39] + +There is a passage in this treatise "On the Nullity of Magic" of +remarkable character, as exhibiting the achievements, or, if not the +actual achievements, the things esteemed possible by the inventors of +the thirteenth century. There is in it a seeming mixture of fancy and of +fact, of childish credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of +mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the +progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after +Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by +what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and +inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's +truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken his dreams for facts. As it +stands, it is one of the most curious existing illustrations of the +state of physical science in the Middle Ages. It runs as follows:--"I +will now, in the first place, speak of some of the wonderful works of +Art and Nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and methods of +them, in which there is nothing magical, so that it may be seen how +inferior and worthless all magic power is, in comparison with these +works. And first, according to the fashion and rule of Art alone. Thus, +machines can be made for navigation without men to row them; so that +ships of the largest size, whether on rivers or the sea, can be carried +forward, under the guidance of a single man, at greater speed than if +they were full of men [rowers]. In like manner, a car can be made which +will move, without the aid of any animal, with incalculable impetus; +such as we suppose the scythed chariots to have been which were +anciently used in battle. Also, machines for flying can be made, so that +a man may sit in the middle of the machine, turning an engine, by which +wings artificially disposed are made to beat the air after the manner of +a bird in flight. Also, an instrument, small in size, for raising and +depressing almost infinite weights, than which nothing on occasion is +more useful: for, with an instrument of three fingers in height, and of +the same width, and of smaller bulk, a man might deliver himself and his +companions from all danger of prison, and could rise or descend. Also, +an instrument might be easily made by which one man could draw to +himself a thousand men by force and against their will, and in like +manner draw other things. Instruments can be made for walking in the sea +or in rivers, even at the bottom, without bodily risk: for Alexander the +Great made use of this to see the secrets of the sea, as the Ethical +Astronomer relates. These things were made in ancient times, and are +made in our times, as is certain; except, perhaps, the machine for +flying, which I have not seen, nor have I known any one who had seen +it, but I know a wise man who thought to accomplish this device. And +almost an infinite number of such things can be made; as bridges across +rivers without piers or any supports, and machines and unheard-of +engines." Bacon goes on to speak of other wonders of Nature and Art, to +prove, that, to produce marvellous effects, it is not necessary to +aspire to the knowledge of magic, and ends this division of his subject +with words becoming a philosopher:--"Yet wise men are now ignorant of +many things which the common crowd of students [_vulgus studentium_] +will know in future times."[40] + +It is much to be regretted that Roger Bacon does not appear to have +executed the second and more important part of his design, namely, "to +assign the causes and methods" of these wonderful works of Art and +Nature. Possibly he was unable to do so to his own satisfaction; +possibly he may upon further reflection have refrained from doing so, +deeming them mysteries not to be communicated to the vulgar;--"for he +who divulges mysteries diminishes the majesty of things; wherefore +Aristotle says that he should be the breaker of the heavenly seal, were +he to divulge the secret things of wisdom."[41] However this may have +been, we may safely doubt whether the inventions which he reports were +in fact the result of sound scientific knowledge, whether they had +indeed any real existence, or whether they were only the half-realized +and imperfect creations of the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming +of things to come. + +The matters of interest in the volume before us are by no means +exhausted, but we can proceed no farther in the examination of them, and +must refer those readers who desire to know more of its contents to the +volume itself. We can assure them that they will find it full of vivid +illustrations of the character of Bacon's time,--of the thoughts of men +at an epoch of which less is commonly known than of periods more +distant, but less connected by intellectual sympathy and moral relations +with our own. But the chief interest of Bacon's works lies in their +exhibition to us of himself, a man foremost in his own time in all +knowledge, endowed by Nature with a genius of peculiar force and +clearness of intuition, with a resolute energy that yielded to no +obstacles, with a combination so remarkable of the speculative and the +practical intellect as to place him in the ranks of the chief +philosophers to whom the progress of the world in learning and in +thought is due. They show him exposed to the trials which the men who +are in advance of their contemporaries are in every age called to meet, +and bearing these trials with a noble confidence in the final prevalence +of the truth,--using all his powers for the advantage of the world, and +regarding all science and learning of value only as they led to +acquaintance with the wisdom of God and the establishment of Christian +virtue. He himself gives us a picture of a scholar of his times, which +we may receive as a not unworthy portrait of himself. "He does not care +for discourses and disputes of words, but he pursues the works of +wisdom, and in them he finds rest. And what others dim-sighted strive to +see, like bats in twilight, he beholds in its full splendor, because he +is the master of experiments; and thus he knows natural things, and the +truths of medicine and alchemy, and the things of heaven as well as +those below. Nay, he is ashamed, if any common man, or old wife, or +soldier, or rustic in the country knows anything of which he is +ignorant. Wherefore he has searched out all the effects of the fusing of +metals, and whatever is effected with gold and silver and other metals +and all minerals; and whatever pertains to warfare and arms and the +chase he knows; and he has examined all that pertains to agriculture, +and the measuring of lands, and the labors of husbandmen; and he has +even considered the practices and the fortune-telling of old women, and +their songs, and all sorts of magic arts, and also the tricks and +devices of jugglers; so that nothing which ought to be known may lie hid +from him, and that he may as far as possible know how to reject all that +is false and magical. And he, as he is above price, so does he not value +himself at his worth. For, if he wished to dwell with kings and princes, +easily could he find those who would honor and enrich him; or, if he +would display at Paris what he knows through the works of wisdom, the +whole world would follow him. But, because in either of these ways he +would be impeded in the great pursuits of experimental philosophy, in +which he chiefly delights, he neglects all honor and wealth, though he +might, when he wished, enrich himself by his knowledge." + + + * * * * * + + + +_Popular Music of the Olden Time_. A Collection of Ancient Songs, +Ballads, and Dance-Tunes, Illustrative of the National Music of England. +With Short Introductions to the Different Reigns, and Notices of the +Airs from Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Also, a +Short Account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappel, F.S.A. The whole of the +Airs harmonized by G. A. McFarren. 2 vols. pp. 384, 439. London: Cramer, +Beale, & Chappell. New York: Webb & Allen. + +In tracing the history of the English nation, no line of investigation +is more interesting, or shows more clearly the progress of civilization, +than the study of its early poetry and music. Sung alike in the royal +palaces and in the cottages and highways of the nation, the ballads and +songs reflect most accurately the manners and customs, and not a little +of the history of the people; while, as indicating the progress of +intellectual culture, the successive changes in language, and the steady +advance of the science of music, and of its handmaid, poetry, they +possess a value peculiarly their own. + +The industry and learning of Percy, Warton, and Ritson have rendered a +thorough acquaintance with early English poetry comparatively easy; +while in the work whose comprehensive title heads this article the +research of Chappell presents to us all that is valuable of the "Popular +Music of the Olden Time," enriched by interesting incidents and +historical facts which render the volumes equally interesting to the +general reader and to the student in music. Chappell published his +collection of "National English Airs" about twenty years ago. Since that +time, he tells us in his preface, the increase of material has been so +great, that it has been advisable to rewrite the entire work, and to +change the title, so that the present edition has all the freshness of a +new publication, and contains more than one hundred and fifty +additional airs. + +The opening chapters are devoted to a concise historical account of +English minstrelsy, from the earliest Saxon times to its gradual +extinction in the reigns of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth; and while +presenting in a condensed form all that is valuable in Percy and others, +the author has interwoven in the narrative much curious and interesting +matter derived from his own careful studies. Much of romantic interest +clusters around the history of the minstrels of England. They are +generally supposed to have been the successors of the ancient bards, who +from the earliest times were held in the highest veneration by nearly +all the people of Europe, whether of Celtic or Gothic origin. According +to Percy, "Their skill was considered as something divine; their persons +were deemed sacred; their attendance was solicited by kings; and they +were everywhere loaded with honors and rewards." Our Anglo-Saxon +ancestors, on their migration into Britain, retained their veneration +for poetry and song, and minstrels continued in high repute, until their +hold upon the people gradually yielded to the steady advance of +civilization, the influence of the printing-press, and the consequent +diffusion of knowledge. It is to be borne in mind that the name, +minstrel, was applied equally to those who sang, and accompanied their +voices with the harp, or some other instrument, and to those who were +skilled in instrumental music only. The harp was the favorite and indeed +the national instrument of the Britons, and its use has been traced as +far back as the first invasion of the country by the Saxons. By the laws +of Wales, no one could pretend to the character of a freeman or +gentleman, who did not possess or could not play upon a harp. Its use +was forbidden to slaves; and a harp could not be seized for debt, as the +simple fact of a person's being without one would reduce him to an +equality with a slave. Other instruments, however, were in use by the +early Anglo-Saxons, such as the Psaltery, the Fiddle, and the Pipe. The +minstrels, clad in a costume of their own, and singing to their quaint +tunes the exploits of past heroes or the simple love-songs of the times, +were the favorites of royalty, and often, and perhaps usually, some of +the better class held stations at court; and under the reigns of Henry +I. and II., Richard I., and John, minstrelsy flourished greatly, and the +services of the minstrels were often rated higher than those of the +clergy. These musicians seem to have had easy access to all places and +persons, and often received valuable grants from the king, until, in the +reign of Edward II., (1315,) such privileges were claimed by them, that +a royal edict became necessary to prevent impositions and abuses. + +In the fourteenth century music was an almost universal accomplishment, +and we learn from Chaucer, in whose poetry much can be learned of the +music of his time, that country-squires could sing and play the lute, +and even "songes make and well indite." From the same source it appears +that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady +was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion +to her proficiency in this art. In those days the bass-viol +(_viol-de-gamba_) was a popular instrument, and was played upon by +ladies,--a practice which in these modern times would be considered a +violation of female propriety, and even then some thought it "an +unmannerly instrument for a woman." In Elizabeth's time vocal music was +held in the highest estimation, and to sing well was a necessary +accomplishment for ladies and gentlemen. A writer of 1602 says to the +ladies, "It shall be your first and finest praise to sing the note of +every new fashion at first sight." That some of the fair sex may have +carried their musical practice too far, like many who have lived since +then, is perhaps indicated in some verses of that date which run in the +following strain:-- + + "This is all that women do: + Sit and answer them that woo; + Deck themselves in new attire, + To entangle fresh desire; + After dinner sing and play, + Or, dancing, pass the time away." + +To many readers one of the most interesting features of Chappell's work +will be the presentation of the original airs to which were sung the +ballads familiar to us from childhood, learned from our English and +Scotch ancestors, or later in life from Percy's "Reliques" and other +sources; and the musician will detect, in even the earliest +compositions, a character and substance, a beauty of cadence and +rhythmic ideality, which render in comparison much of our modern +song-music tamer, if possible, than it now seems. Here are found the +original airs of "Agincourt," "All in the Downs," "Barbara Allen," "The +Barley-Mow," "Cease, rude Boreas," "Derry Down," "Frog he would a-wooing +go," "One Friday morn when we set sail," "Chanson Roland," "Chevy +Chace," and scores of others which have rung in our ears from +nursery-days. + +The ballad-mongers took a wide range in their writings, and almost every +subject seems to have called for their rhymes. There is a curious little +song, dating back to 1601, entitled "O mother, a Hoop," in which the +value of hoop-skirts is set forth by a fair damsel in terms that would +delight a modern belle. It commences thus:-- + + "What a fine thing have I seen to-day! + O mother, a Hoop! + I must have one; you cannot say Nay; + O mother, a Hoop!" + +Another stanza shows the practical usefulness of the hoop:-- + + "Pray, hear me, dear mother, what I have been taught: + Nine men and nine women o'erset in a boat; + The men were all drowned, but the women did float, + And by help of their hoops they all safely got out." + +The fashion for hoops was revived in 1711, in which year was published +in England "A Panegyrick upon the Late, but most Admirable Invention of +the Hoop-Pettycoat." A few years later, (1726,) in New England, a +three-penny pamphlet was issued with the title, "Hoop Petticoats +Arraigned and Condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God," by which +it would seem that our worthy ancestors did not approve of the fashion. +In 1728 we find _hoop-skirts_ and _negro girls_ and other "chattels" +advertised for sale in the same shop! + +The celebrated song, "Tobacco is an Indian weed," is traced to George +Withers, of the time of James I. Perhaps no song has been more +frequently "reset"; but the original version, as is generally the case, +is the best. + +One of the most satisfactory features of Chappell's work is the +thoroughness with which he traces the origin of tunes, and his acute +discrimination and candid judgment. As an instance of this may be +mentioned his article on "God save the Queen"; and wherever we turn, we +find the same evidence of honest investigation. So far as is possible, +he has arranged his airs and his topics chronologically, and presented a +complete picture of the condition of poetry and music during the reigns +of the successive monarchs of England. The musician will find these +volumes invaluable in the pursuit of his studies, the general reader +will be interested in the well-drawn descriptions of men, manners, and +customs, and the antiquary will pore over the pages with a keen delight. + +The work is illustrated with several specimens of the early style of +writing music, the first being an illuminated engraving and fac-simile +of the song, "Sumer is icumen in,"--the earliest secular composition, in +parts, known to exist in any country, its origin being traced back to +1250. It should have been mentioned before this that the very difficult +task of reducing the old songs to modern characters and requirements, +and harmonizing them, has been most admirably done by McFarren, who has +thus made intelligible and available what would otherwise be valuable +only as curiosities. + +1. _Folk-Songs_. Selected and edited by John Williamson Palmer, M.D. +Illustrated with Original Designs. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861. +Small folio. pp. xxiii., 466. + +2. _Loves and Heroines of the Poets_. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. +New York: Derby & Jackson. 1861. Quarto, pp. xviii., 480. + +3. _A Forest Hymn_. By William Cullen Bryant. With Illustrations of John +A. Hows. New York: W. A. Townsend & Co. 1861. Small quarto, pp. 32. + +We have no great liking for illustrated books. Poems, to be sure, often +lend themselves readily to the pencil; but, in proportion as they stand +in need of pictures, they fall short of being poetry. We have never yet +seen any attempts to help Shakspeare in this way that were not as +crutches to an Indian runner. To illustrate poetry truly great in itself +is like illuminating to show off a torchlight-procession. We doubt if +even Michel Angelo's copy of Dante was so great a loss as has sometimes +been thought. We have seen missals and other manuscripts that were truly +_illuminated_,-- + + "laughing leaves + That Franco of Bologna's pencil limned "; + +but the line of those artists ended with Frà Angelico, whose works are +only larger illuminations in fresco and on panel. In those days some +precious volume became the Laura of a poor monk, who lavished on it all +the poetry of his nature, all the unsatisfied longing of a lifetime. +Shut out from the world, his single poem or book of saintly legends was +the window through which he looked back on real life, and he stained its +panes with every brightest hue of fancy and tender half-tint of reverie. +There was, indeed, a chance of success, when the artist worked for the +love of it, gave his whole manhood to a single volume, and mixed his +life with his pigments. But to please yourself is a different thing from +pleasing Tom, Dick, and Harry, which is the problem to be worked out by +whoever makes illustrations to be multiplied and sold by thousands. In +Dr. Palmer's "Folk-Songs," if we understand his preface rightly, the +artists have done their work for love, and it is accordingly much better +done than usual. The engravings make a part of the page, and the +designs, with few exceptions, are happy. Numerous fac-similes of +handwriting are added for the lovers of autographs; and in point of +printing, it is beyond a question the handsomest and most tasteful +volume ever produced in America. The Riverside Press may fairly take +rank now with the classic names in the history of the art. But it is for +the judgment shown in the choice of the poems that the book deserves its +chief commendation. Our readers do not need to be told who Dr. Palmer +is, or that one who knows how to write so well himself is likely to know +what good writing is in others. We have never seen so good and choice a +_florilegium_. The width of its range and its catholicity may be +estimated by its including William Blake and Dibdin, Bishop King and Dr. +Maginn. It would be hard to find the person who would not meet here a +favorite poem. We can speak from our own knowledge of the length of +labor and the loving care that have been devoted to it, and the result +is a gift-book unique in its way and suited to all seasons and all +tastes. Nor has the binding (an art in which America is far behind-hand) +been forgotten. The same taste makes itself felt here, and Matthews of +New York has seconded it with his admirable workmanship. + +In Mr. Stoddard's volume we have a poet selecting such poems as +illustrate the loves of the poets. It is a happy thought happily +realized. With the exception of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso, the choice +is made from English poets, and comes down to our own time. It is a book +for lovers, and he must be exacting who cannot find his mistress +somewhere between the covers. The selection from the poets of the +Elizabethan and Jacobian periods is particularly full; and this is as it +should be; for at no time was our language more equally removed from +conventionalism and commonplace, or so fitted to refine strength of +passion with recondite thought and airy courtliness of phrase. The book +is one likely to teach as well as to please; for, though everybody knows +how to fall in love, few know how to love. It is a mirror of womanly +loveliness and manly devotion. Mr. Stoddard has done his work with the +instinct of a poet, and we cordially commend his truly precious volume +both to those + + "who love a coral lip + And a rosy cheek admire," + +and to those who + + "Interassured of the mind, + Are careless, eyes, lips, hands, to miss"; + +for both likings will find satisfaction here. The season of gifts comes +round oftener for lovers than for less favored mortals, and by means of +this book they may press some two hundred poets into their service to +thread for the "inexpressive she" all the beads of Love's rosary. The +volume is a quarto sumptuous in printing and binding. Of the plates we +cannot speak so warmly. + +The third book on our list deserves very great praise. Bryant's noble +"Forest Hymn" winds like a river through edging and overhanging +greenery. Frequently the designs are rather ornaments to the page than +illustrations of the poem, and in this we think the artist is to be +commended. There is no Birket Foster-ism in the groups of trees, but +honest drawing from Nature, and American Nature. The volume, we think, +marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, +and may challenge comparison with that of any other country. Many of the +drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the +same time. + +_The Works of Lord Bacon_, etc., etc. Vols. XI. and XII. Boston: Brown & +Taggard. 1860. + +We have already spoken of the peculiar merits which make the edition of +Messrs. Heath and Spedding by far the best that exists of Lord Bacon's +Works. It only remains to say, that the American reprint has not only +the advantage of some additional notes contributed by Mr. Spedding, but +that it is more convenient in form, and a much more beautiful specimen +of printing than the English. A better edition could not be desired. The +two volumes thus far published are chiefly filled with the "Life of +Henry VII." and the "Essays"; and readers who are more familiar with +these (as most are) than with the philosophical works will see at once +how much the editors have done in the way of illustration and +correction. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Some time after, the Bey of Tunis ordered Eaton to send his +ship, the Gloria, with despatches to the United States. Eaton sent her +to Leghorn, and sold her at a loss. "The flag of the United States," he +wrote, "has never been seen floating in the service of a Barbary pirate +under my agency."] + +[Footnote 2: The Administration was saturated with this petty parsimony, +as may be seen in an extract from a letter written by Madison to Eaton, +announcing the approach of Dale and his ships:--"The present moment is +peculiarly favorable for the experiment, not only as it is a provision +against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with +all the rest of the world, _and as the force employed would, if at home, +be at nearly the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners_." +Linkum Fidelius has given the Jeffersonian plan of making war in +two lines:-- + + "We'll blow the villains all sky-high, + But do it with e-co-no-my."] + +[Footnote 3: About this time came Meli-Meli, Ambassador from Tunis, in +search of an indemnity and the frigate.] + +[Footnote 4: Massachusetts gave him ten thousand acres, to be selected +by him or by his heirs, in any of the unappropriated land of the +Commonwealth in the District of Maine. Act Passed March 3d, 1806] + +[Footnote 5: He remained in Sicily until 1809, when he was offered the +Beyship of Derne by his brother. He accepted it; two years later, fresh +troubles drove him again into exile. He died in great poverty at Cairo. +Jusuf reigned until 1832, and abdicated in favor of a son. A grandson of +Jusuf took up arms against the new Pacha. The intervention of the Sultan +was asked; a corps of Turkish troops entered Tripoli, drove out both +Pachas, and reannexed the Regency to the Porte.] + +[Footnote 6: The scene of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated retreat from the +British. A place of frequent resort for Federal editors in those days.] + +[Footnote 7: In attempting to describe my own sensations, I labor under +the disadvantage of speaking mostly to those who have never experienced +anything of the kind. Hence, what would he perfectly clear to myself, +and to those who have passed through a similar experience, may be +unintelligible to the former class. The Spiritualists excuse the +crudities which their Plato, St. Paul, and Shakspeare utter, by +ascribing them to the imperfection of human language; and I may claim +the same allowance in setting forth mental conditions of which the mind +itself can grasp no complete idea, seeing that its most important +faculties are paralyzed during the existence of those conditions.] + +[Footnote 8: The recent experiments in Hypnotism, in France, show that a +very similar psychological condition accompanies the trance produced by +gazing fixedly upon a bright object held near the eyes. I have no doubt, +in fact, that it belongs to every abnormal state of the mind.] + +[Footnote 9: See _The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon containing the +Wonderful Things that he did in his Life, also the Manner of his Death; +with the Lives and Deaths of the Conjurors Bungye and Vandermast_. +Reprinted in Thom's _Early English Romances_.] + +[Footnote 10: _Historia Crit. Phil_. Period. II. Pars II. +Liber II. Cap. iii. Section 23.] + +[Footnote 11: A barbarous distich gives the relations of these two +famous divisions of knowledge in the Middle Ages:-- + + "_Gramm_ loquitur, _Dia_ verba docet, _Rhet_ verba colorat, + _Mus_ canit, _Ar_ numerat, _Geo_ ponderat, _Ast_ colit astra."] + +[Footnote 12: See Hauréau, _De la Philosophie Scolastique_, II. 284-5.] + +[Footnote 13: Mr. Brewer has in most respects performed his work as +editor in a satisfactory manner. The many difficulties attending the +deciphering of the text of ill-written manuscripts and the correction of +the mistakes of ignorant scribes have been in great part overcome by his +patience and skill. Some passages of the text, however, require further +revision. The Introduction is valuable for its account of existing +manuscripts, but its analysis of Bacon's opinions is unsatisfactory. Nor +are the translations given in it always so accurate as they should be. +The analyses of the chapters in side-notes to the text are sometimes +imperfect, and do not sufficiently represent the current of Bacon's +thought; and the volume stands in great need of a thorough Index. This +omission is hardly to be excused, and ought at once to be supplied in a +separate publication.] + +[Footnote 14: This sum was a large one. It appears that the necessaries +of life were cheap and luxuries dear at Paris during the thirteenth +century. Thus, we are told, in the year 1226, a house sold for forty-six +livres; another with a garden, near St. Eustache, sold for two hundred +livres. This sum was thought large, being estimated as equal to 16,400 +francs at present. Sixty livres were then about five thousand francs, or +a thousand dollars. Lodgings at this period varied from 5 to 17 livres +the year. An ox was worth 1 livre 10 sols; a sheep, 6 sols 3 deniers. +Bacon must at some period of his life have possessed money, for we find +him speaking of having expended two thousand livres in the pursuit of +learning. If the comparative value assumed be correct, this sum +represented between $30,000 and $40,000 of our currency.] + +[Footnote 15: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. iii. pp. 15-17.] + +[Footnote 16: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xx. p. 65.] + +[Footnote 17: _Opus Tertium_. Capp. xvi., xvii. Roger Bacon's urgency to +the Pope to promote the works for the advancement of knowledge which +were too great for private efforts bears a striking resemblance to the +words addressed for the same end by his great successor, Lord Bacon, to +James I. "Et ideo patet," says the Bacon of the thirteenth century, +"quod scripta, principalia de sapientia philosophiae non possunt fieri +ab uno homine, nec a pluribus, nisi manus praelatorum et principum +juvent sapientes cum magna virtute." "Horum quos enumeravimus omnium +defectuum remedia," says the Bacon of the seventeenth century, +"...opera sunt vere basilica; erga quae privati alicujus conatus et +industria fere sic se habent ut Mercurius in bivio, qui digito potest in +viam intendere, pedem inferre non potest."--_De Aug. Scient_. Lib. II. +_Ad Regem Suum_. + +A still more remarkable parallelism is to be found in the following +passages. "Nam facile est dicere, fiant scripture completae de +scientiis, sed nunquam fuerunt apud Latinos aliquae condignae, nec +fient, nisi aliud consilium habeatur. Et nullus sufficeret ad hoc, nisi +dominus papa, vel imperator, aut aliquis rex magnificus, sicut est +dominus rex Franciae. Aristoteles quidem, auctoritate et auxiliis regum, +et maxime Alexandri, fecit in Graeco quae voluit, et multis millibus +hominum usus est in experientia scientiarum, et expensis copiosis, sicut +historiae narrant." (_Opus Tertium_, Cap. viii.) Compare with this the +following passage from the part of the _De Augmentis_ already +cited:--"Et exploratoribus ac speculatoribus Naturae satisfaciendum de +expensis suis; alias de quamplurimis scitu dignissimis nunquam fiemus +certiores. Si enim Alexander magnam vim pecuniae suppeditavit +Aristoteli, qua conduceret venatores, aucupes, piscatores et alios, quo +instructior accederet ad conscribendam historiam animalium; certe majus +quiddam debetur iis, qui non in saltibus naturae pererrant, sed in +labyrinthis artium viam sibi aperiunt." + +Other similar parallelisms of expression on this topic are to be found +in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in +the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have +been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these +two great philosophers borrowed his famous doctrine of "Idols" from the +classification of the four chief hindrances to knowledge by his +predecessor. But the supposition wants foundation, and there is no +reason to suppose that Lord Bacon was acquainted with the works of the +Friar. The Rev. Charles Forster, in his _Mahometanism Unveiled_, a work +of some learning, but more extravagance, after speaking of Roger Bacon +as "strictly and properly an experimentalist of the Saracenic school," +goes indeed so far as to assert that he "was the undoubted, though +unowned, original when his great namesake drew the materials of his +famous experimental system." (Vol. II. pp. 312-317.) But the +resemblances in their systems, although striking in some particulars, +are on the whole not too great to be regarded simply as the results of +corresponding genius, and of a common sense of the insufficiency of the +prevalent methods of scholastic philosophy for the discovery of truth +and the advancement of knowledge. "The same sanguine and sometimes rash +confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for +experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning +pervade both works," the _Opus Majus_ and the _Novum Organum_.--Hallam, +_Europe during the Middle Ages_, III. 431. See also Hallam, _Literature +of Europe_, I. 113; and Mr. Ellis's Preface to the _Novum Organum_, p. +90, in the first volume of the admirable edition of the _Works of Lord +Bacon_ now in course of publication.] + +[Footnote 18: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xv. pp. 55, 56.] + +[Footnote 19: _Id_. Cap. x. p. 33.] + +[Footnote 20: The famous Grostête,--who died in 1253. "Vir in Latino et +Graeco peritissimus," says Matthew Paris.] + +[Footnote 21: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. vi.] + +[Footnote 22: _Opus Minus_, p. 330.] + +[Footnote 23: This was Michael Scot the Wizard, who would seem to have +deserved the place that Dante assigned to him in the _Inferno_, if not +from his practice of forbidden arts, at least from his corruption of +ancient learning in his so-called translations. Strange that he, of all +the Schoolmen, should have been honored by being commemorated by the +greatest poet of Italy and the greatest of his own land! In the Notes to +the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, his kinsman quotes the following lines +concerning him from Satchell's poem on _The Right Honorable Name +of Scott_:-- + + "His writing pen did seem to me to be + Of hardened metal like steel or acumie; + The volume of [his book] did seem so large to me + As the Book of Martyrs and Turks Historie."] + +[Footnote 24: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 472.] + +[Footnote 25: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 469.] + +[Footnote 26: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 473.] + +[Footnote 27: _Opus Tertium_, Cap. xxiv. pp. 80-82.] + +[Footnote 28: _Opus Tertium_. Capp. xiv., xv., pp. 48-53.] + +[Footnote 29: _Id_. Cap. xiii. pp. 43-44.] + +[Footnote 30: _Id_. Cap. xxviii. p. 102.] + +[Footnote 31: _Opus Majus_. pp. 57, 64.] + +[Footnote 32: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. iv. p. 18.] + +[Footnote 33: See Hauréau: _Nouvel Examen de l'Édition des Oeuvres de +Hugues de Saint-Victor._ Paris, 1869. p. 52.] + +[Footnote 34: Jourdain: _Recherches sur les Traductions Latines +d'Aristote_. Paris, 1819. p. 373.] + +[Footnote 35: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xii. p. 42.] + +[Footnote 36: _Id. Cap. ii. p. 14.] + +[Footnote 37: Reprinted in the Appendix to the volume edited by +Professor Brewer. A translation of this treatise was printed at London +as early as 1597; and a second version, "faithfully translated out of +Dr. Dee's own copy by T. M.," appeared in 1659.] + +[Footnote 38: "Sed tamen sal petræ LURU VOPO VIR CAN UTRIET sulphuris; +et sic facies tonitruum et coruscationem, si scias artificium. Videas +tamen utrum loquar ænigmate aut secundum veritatem." (p. 551.) One is +tempted to read the last two words of the dark phrase as phonographic +English, or, translating the _vir_, to find the meaning to be, "O man! +you can try it."] + +[Footnote 39: This expression is similar in substance to the closing +sentences of Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse at Montpellier on the Powder +of Sympathy, in 1657. "Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and +faint-heartedness, or rather, a gross weakness of the Understanding, to +pretend any effects of charm or magick herein, or to confine all the +actions of Nature to the grossness of our Senses, when we have not +sufficiently consider'd nor examined the true causes and principles +whereon 'tis fitting we should ground our judgment: we need not have +recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties. + +"'Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.'"] + +[Footnote 40: _Nullity of Magic_, pp. 532-542.] + +[Footnote 41: _Comp. Stud. Phil._ p. 416.] + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Poems. By Sarah Gould. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 32mo. Blue and gold. +pp. 180. 75 cts. + +Miss Gilbert's Career. An American Story. By J.G. Holland. New York. +Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. 476. $1.25. + +Curiosities of Natural History. Second Series. By Francis T. Buckland, +M.A. New York. 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Blue and Gold. pp. 483. 75 cts. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11465 *** diff --git a/11465-h/11465-h.htm b/11465-h/11465-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c383ba0 --- /dev/null +++ b/11465-h/11465-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8631 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860, by Various</title> + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {margin-top:100; + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; } + * { font-family: Times;} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 14pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align:justify} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + // --> + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11465 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, +1860, by Various</h1> +</pre> +<br> +<br> +<center><b>E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Sheila Vogtmann,<br> + and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</b></center> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<br> +<br> +<p>THE</p> + +<p>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</p> + +<p>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</p> + +<p>VOL. VI.--DECEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVIII.</p> +<br><br><br> +<h2>THE UNITED STATES AND THE BARBARY STATES.</h2> +<br><br> +<p>Speak of the relations between the United States and the Barbary +Regencies at the beginning of the century, and most of our countrymen +will understand the War with Tripoli. Ask them about that Yankee crusade +against the Infidel, and you will find their knowledge of it limited to +Preble's attack. On this bright spot in the story the American mind is +fixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twenty +years. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes the +shape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to pay +tribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle in +the maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patriotic +delusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha was +simply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason; +but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to.</p> + +<p>The burning of the Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are much +too fine a subject for rhetorical pyrotechnics to have escaped lecturers +and orators of the Fourth-of-July school. We have all heard, time and +again, how Preble, Decatur, Trippe, and Somers cannonaded, sabred, and +blew up these pirates. We have seen, in perorations glowing with pink +fire, the Genius of America, in full naval uniform, sword in hand, +standing upon a quarter-deck, his foot upon the neck of a turbaned Turk, +while over all waves the flag of Freedom.</p> + +<p>The Moorish sketch is probably different. In it, Brother Jonathan must +appear with his liberty-cap in one hand and a bag of dollars in the +other, bowing humbly before a well-whiskered Mussulman, whose shawl is +stuck full of poniards and pistols. The smooth-faced unbeliever begs +that his little ships may be permitted to sail up and down this coast +unmolested, and promises to give these and other dollars, if his +Highness, the Pacha, will only command his men to keep the peace on the +high-seas. This picture is not so generally exhibited here; but it is +quite as correct as the other, and as true to the period.</p> + +<p>The year after Preble's recall, another New-England man, William Eaton, +led an army of nine Americans from Egypt to Derne, the easternmost +province of Tripoli,--a march of five hundred miles over the Desert. He +took the capital town by storm, and would have conquered the whole +Regency, if he had been supplied with men and money from our fleet. +"Certainly," says Pascal Paoli Peek, a non-commissioned officer of +marines, one of the nine, "certainly it was one of the most +extraordinary expeditions ever set on foot." Whoever reads the story +will be of the same opinion as this marine with the wonderful name. +Never was the war carried into Africa with a force so small and with +completer success. Yet Eaton has not had the luck of fame. He was nearly +forgotten, in spite of a well-written Life by President Felton, in +Sparks's Collection, until a short time since; when he was placed before +the public in a somewhat melodramatic attitude, by an article in a New +York pictorial monthly. It is not easy to explain this neglect. We know +that our Temple of Fame is a small building as yet, and that it has a +great many inhabitants,--so many, indeed, that worthy heroes may easily +be overlooked by visitors who do not consult the catalogue. But a man +who has added a brilliant page to the <i>Gesta Dei per Novanglos</i> deserves +a conspicuous niche. A brief sketch of his doings in Africa will give a +good view of the position of the United States in Barbary, in the first +years of the Republic.</p> + +<p>Sixty years ago, civilized Europe not only tolerated the robbery, the +murder, and the carrying into captivity of her own people, but actually +recognized this triple atrocity as a privilege inherent to certain +persons of Turkish descent and Mahometan religion inhabiting the +northern coast of Africa. England or France might have put them down by +a word long before; but, as the corsairs chiefly ravaged the defenceless +coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, the two great powers had no +particular interest in crushing them. And there was always some jealous +calculation of advantage, some pitiful project of turning them to future +account, which prevented decisive action on the part of either nation. +Then the wars which followed the French Revolution kept Europe busy at +home and gave the Barbary sailors the opportunity of following their +calling for a few years longer with impunity. The English, with large +fleets and naval stations in the Mediterranean, had nothing to fear from +them, and were, probably, not much displeased with the contributions +levied upon the commerce of other nations. Barbary piracy was a +protective tax in favor of British bottoms. French merchantmen kept at +home. Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland tried to outbid one another +for the favor of the Dey, Bey, and Pacha, and were robbed and enslaved +whenever it suited the interests of their Highnesses. The Portuguese +kept out of the Mediterranean, and protected their coast by guarding the +Straits of Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>Not long before the French Revolution, a new flag in their waters had +attracted the greedy eyes of the Barbarians. When they learned that it +belonged to a nation thousands of miles away, once a colony of England, +but now no longer under her protection, they blessed Allah and the +Prophet for sending these fish to their nets; and many Americans were +made to taste the delights of the Patriarchal Institution in the +dockyards of Algiers. As soon as the Federal Government was fairly +established, Washington recommended to Congress to build a fleet for the +protection of citizens in the Mediterranean. But the young nation needed +at first all its strength to keep itself upright at home; and the +opposition party professed a theory, that it would be safer and cheaper +for the United States to give up ships altogether, and to get other +people to carry for them. Consequently the plan of negotiating was +resorted to. Agents were sent to Algiers to ransom the captives and to +obtain a treaty by presents and the payment of a fixed tribute. Such a +treaty was made in the summer of 1796. In March of the succeeding year, +the Dey showed so much ill-temper at the backwardness of our payments, +that Joel Barlow, the American Commissioner, thought it necessary to +soothe his Highness by the promise of a frigate to be built and equipped +in the United States. Thus, with Christian meekness, we furnished the +Mussulman with a rod for our own backs. These arrangements cost the +United States about a million of dollars, all expenses included.</p> + +<p>Having pacified Algiers, Mr. Barlow turned his attention to Tunis. +Instead of visiting the Bey in person, he appointed a European merchant, +named Famin, residing in Tunis, agent to negotiate a treaty for the +United States. Of Famin Mr. Barlow knew nothing, but considered his +French birth and the recommendation of the French Consul for Algiers +sufficient proofs of his qualifications. Besides attending to his own +trade, Monsieur Famin was in the habit of doing a little business for +the Bey, and took care to make the treaty conform to the wishes of his +powerful partner. The United States were to pay for the friendship and +forbearance of Tunis one hundred and seven thousand dollars in money, +jewels, and naval stores. Tunisian cargoes were to be admitted into +American ports on payment of three per cent; the same duty to be levied +at Tunis on American shipments. If the Bey saluted an American +man-of-war, he was to receive a barrel of powder for every gun fired. +And he reserved the right of taking any American ship that might be in +his harbor into his service to carry despatches or a cargo to any port +in the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>When the treaty reached the United States, the Senate refused to ratify +it. President Adams appointed Eaton, formerly a captain in the army, +Consul for Tunis, with directions to present objections to the articles +on the tariff, salutes, and impressment of vessels. Mr. Cathcart, Consul +for Tripoli, was joined with him in the commission. They sailed in the +United States brig Sophia, in December, 1798, and convoyed the ship Hero +laden with naval stores, an armed brig, and two armed schooners. These +vessels they delivered to the Dey of Algiers "for arrearages of +stipulation and present dues." The offerings of his Transatlantic +tributaries were pleasing to the Dey. He admitted the Consuls to an +audience. After their shoes had been taken en off at the door of the +presence-chamber, they were allowed to advance and kiss his hand. This +ceremony over, the Sophia sailed for Tunis.</p> + +<p>Here the envoys found a more difficult task before them. The Bey had +heard of the ships and cargoes left at Algiers, and asked at once, Where +were all the good things promised to him by Famin? The Consuls presented +President Adam's letter of polite excuses, addressed to the Prince of +Tunis, "the well-guarded city, the abode of felicity." The Bey read it, +and repeated his question,--"Why has the Prince of America not sent the +hundred and seven thousand dollars?" The Consuls endeavored to explain +the dependence of their Bey on his Grand Council, the Senate, which +august body objected to certain stipulations in Famin's treaty. If his +Highness of Tunis would consent to strike out or modify these articles, +the Senate would ratify the treaty, and the President would send the +money as soon as possible. But the Bey was not to be talked over; he +refused to be led away from the main question,--"Where are the money, +the regalia, the naval stores?" He could take but one view of the case: +he had been trifled with; the Prince of America was not in earnest.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Famin, who found himself turned out of office by the +Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises +were insincere, and any expectations built upon them likely to +prove delusive.</p> + +<p>After some weeks spent in stormy negotiations, this modification of the +articles was agreed upon. The duty might be three or three hundred per +cent., if the Consuls wished it, but it should be reciprocal. The Bey +refused to give up the powder: fifteen barrels of powder, he said, might +get him a prize worth a hundred thousand dollars; but salutes were not +to be fired, unless demanded by the Consul on the part of the United +States. The Bey also persisted in his intention of pressing American +vessels into his service; but he waived this claim in the case of +national ships, and promised not to take merchantmen, if he could +possibly do without them.</p> + +<p>Convinced that no better terms could be obtained, Cathcart sailed for +Tripoli, to encounter fresh troubles, leaving Eaton alone to bear the +greediness and insolence of Tunis. The Bey and his staff were legitimate +descendants of the two daughters of the horse-leech; their daily cry +was, "Give! give!" The Bey told Eaton to get him a frigate like the one +built for the Algerines.</p> + +<p>"You will find I am as much to be feared as they. Your good faith I do +not doubt," he added, with a sneer, "but your presents have been +insignificant."</p> + +<p>"But your Highness, only a short time since, received fifty thousand +dollars from the United States."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but fifty thousand dollars are nothing, and you have since altered +the treaty; a new present is necessary; this is the custom."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," chorused the staff; "and it is also customary to make +presents to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary every time the +articles are changed, and also upon the arrival of a new Consul."</p> + +<p>To carry out this doctrine, the Admiral sent for a gold-headed cane, a +gold watch, and twelve pieces of cloth. The Prime Minister wanted a +double-barreled gun and a gold chain. The Aga of the Port said he would +be satisfied with some thing in the jewelry-line, simple, but rich. +Officials of low rank came in person to ask for coffee and sugar. Even +his Highness condescended to levy small contributions. Hearing that +Eaton had a Grecian mirror in his house, he requested that it might be +sent to decorate the cabin of his yacht.</p> + +<p>As month after month passed, and no tribute-ship arrived, the Bey's +threats grew louder and more frequent. At last he gave orders to fit out +his cruisers. Eaton sent letters of warning to the Consuls at Leghorn +and Gibraltar, and prepared to strike his flag. At the last moment the +Hero sailed into port, laden with naval stores such as never before had +been seen in Tunis. The Bey was softened. "It is well," he said; "this +looks a Lotte more like truth; but the guns, the powder, and the jewels +are not on board."</p> + +<p>A letter from Secretary Pickering instructed Eaton to try to divert the +Bey's mind from the jewels; but if that were impossible, to order them +in England, where they could be bought more cheaply; and to excuse the +delay by saying "that the President felt a confidence, that, on further +reflection upon all circumstances in relation to the United States, the +Bey would relinquish this claim, and therefore did not give orders to +provide the present." As the jewels had been repeatedly promised by the +United States, this weak attempt to avoid giving them was quite +consistent with the shabby national position we had taken In the +Mediterranean. It met with the success it deserved. The Bey was much too +shrewd a fellow, especially in the matter of presents, to be imposed +upon by any such Yankee pretences. The jewels were ordered in London, +and, as compensation for this new delay, the demand for a frigate was +renewed. After nearly two years of anxiety, Eaton could write home that +the prospects of peace were good.</p> + +<p>His despatches had not passed the Straits when the Pacha of Tripoli sent +for Consul Cathcart, and swore by "Allah and the head of his son," that, +unless the President would give him two hundred and fifty thousand +dollars for a new treaty, and an annual subsidy of twenty thousand, he +would declare war against the United States.</p> + +<p>These two years of petty humiliations had exasperated Eaton's bold and +fiery temper. He found some relief in horse-whipping Monsieur Famin, who +had been unceasing in his quiet annoyances, and in writing to the +Government at home despatches of a most undiplomatic warmth and +earnestness. From the first, he had advised the use of force. "If you +would have a free commerce in those seas, you must defend it. It is +useless to buy a peace. The more you give, the more the Turks will ask +for. Tribute is considered an evidence of your weakness; and contempt +stimulates cupidity. <i>Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange</i>. What are +you afraid of? The naval strength of the Regencies amounts to nothing. +If, instead of sending a sloop with presents to Tunis, you will consign +to me a transport with a thousand trusty marines, well officered, under +convoy of a forty-four-gun frigate, I pledge myself to surprise Porto +Farina and destroy the Bey's arsenal. As to Tripoli, two frigates and +four gun-boats would bring the Pacha to terms. But if you yield to his +new demands, you must make provision to pay Tunis double the amount, and +Algiers in proportion. Then, consider how shameful is your position, if +you submit. 'Tributary to the pitiful sand-bank of Tripoli?' says the +world; and the answer is affirmative, without a blush. Habit reconciles +mankind to everything, even humiliation, and custom veils disgrace. But +what would the world say, if Rhode Island should arm two old +merchantmen, put an Irish renegade into one and a Methodist preacher in +another, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Seignior? The +idea is ridiculous; but it is exactly as consistent as that Tripoli +should say to the American nation,--'Give me tribute, or tremble under +the chastisement of my navy!'"</p> + +<p>This was sharp language for a Consul to hold to a Secretary of State; +but it was as meekly borne as the other indignities which came +from Barbary.</p> + +<p>An occurrence in Algiers completes the picture of "Americans in the +Mediterranean" in the year 1800. In October, the United States ship +Washington, Captain Bainbridge, lay in that port, about to sail for +home. The Dey sent for Consul O'Brien, and laid this alternative before +him: either the Washington should take the Algerine Ambassador to +Constantinople, or he, the Dey, would no longer hold to his friendship +with the United States. O'Brien expostulated warmly, but in vain. He +thought it his duty to submit. The Ambassador, his suite, amounting to +two hundred persons, their luggage and stores, horses, sheep, and horned +cattle, and their presents to the Sultan, of lions, tigers, and +antelopes, were sent on board. The Algerine flag was hoisted at the +main, saluted with seven guns, and the United States ship Washington +weighed anchor for Constantinople.</p> + +<p>Eaton's rage boiled over when he heard of this freak of the Dey. He +wrote to O'Brien,--"I frankly own, I would have lost the peace, and been +myself impaled, rather than have yielded this concession. Will nothing +rouse my country?"<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p> + +<p>When the news reached America, Mr. Jefferson was President. He was not +roused. He regretted the affair; but hoped that time, and a more correct +estimate of interest, would produce justice in the Dey's mind; and he +seemed to believe that the majesty of pure reason, more potent than the +music of Orpheus, +<br><br> + "Dictas ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones,"<br> +<br> +would soften piratical Turks. Mr. Madison's despatch to O'Brien on the +subject is written in this spirit. "The sending to Constantinople the +national ship-of-war, the George Washington, by force, under the +Algerine flag, and for such a purpose, has deeply affected the +sensibility, not only of the President, but of the people of the United +States. Whatever temporary effects it may have had favorable to our +interest, the indignity is of so serious a nature, <i>that it is not +impossible that it may be deemed necessary, on a fit occasion, to revive +the question.</i> Viewing it in this light, the President wishes that +nothing may be said or done by you that may unnecessarily preclude the +competent authority from animadverting on that transaction in any way +that a vindication of the national honor may be thought to prescribe."</p> + +<p>Times have changed since then, and our national spirit with them. The +Secretary's Quaker-like protest offers a ludicrous contrast to the +wolf-to-lamb swagger of our modern diplomacy. What faithful Democrat of +1801 would have believed that the day would come of the Kostza affair, +of the African right-of-search quarrel, the Greytown bombardment, and +the seizure of Miramon's steamers?</p> + +<p>It is clear that our President and people were in no danger of being led +into acts of undue violence by "deeply affected sensibility" or the +"vindication of the national honor," when a violent blow aimed by the +Pacha of Tripoli at their Mediterranean trade roused them to a show of +self-defence. Early in May he declared war against the United States, +although Consul Cathcart offered him ten thousand dollars to leave the +American flag-staff up for a short time longer. Even then, if Mr. +Jefferson could have consulted no one but himself, not a ship would have +sailed from these shores. But the merchants were too powerful for him; +they insisted upon protection in the Mediterranean. A squadron of three +frigates and a sloop under Commodore Dale was fitted out and despatched +to Gibraltar; and the nations of the earth were duly notified by our +diplomatic agents of our intentions, that they might not be alarmed by +this armada.</p> + +<p>In June of this year a fire broke out in the palace at Tunis, and fifty +thousand stand of arms were destroyed. The Bey sent for Eaton; he had +apportioned his loss among his friends, and it fell to the United States +to furnish ten thousand stand without delay.</p> + +<p>"It is only the other day," said Eaton, "that you asked for eighty +twenty-four pounders. At this rate, when are our payments to have +an end?"</p> + +<p>"Never," was the answer. "The claims we make are such as we receive from +all friendly nations, every two or three years; and you, like other +Christians, will be obliged to conform to it."</p> + +<p>Eaton refused to state the claim to his Government. The Bey said, Very +well, he would write himself; and threatened to turn Eaton out of +the Regency.</p> + +<p>At this juncture Commodore Dale arrived at Gibraltar. The Bey paid us +the compliment of believing that he had not been sent so far for +nothing, and allowed Eaton a few months' respite.</p> + +<p>Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale's hands were +tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of +dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be +accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by +active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure<a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on +this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young +sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep +the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, +captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed +and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on +board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found +it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate +distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according +to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having +gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season +with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all.</p> + +<p>There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public +or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might. +Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis +perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had +measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no +reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his +tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but +did not mollify him.</p> + +<p>"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you +sent to the Dey of Algiers."</p> + +<p>Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we +would fight rather than yield to such extortion.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe. "We find it all puff; we +see how you carry on the war with Tripoli."</p> + +<p>"But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just +received these valuable jewels?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a +year. You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you +settled the treaty. We have waited all this time, but you have made us +no consideration for this forbearance. Nor have we as yet received any +evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, +notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an +expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us. His Excellency, my +master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take +with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of +friendship."</p> + +<p>Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the +President, if he wanted a frigate. For his part, he would never transmit +so outrageous a demand. "Then," retorted the Bey, "I will send you home, +and the letter with you."</p> + +<p>The letter was composed by the dragoman and forwarded to the United +States, but Eaton was allowed to remain.</p> + +<p>Disgusted with the shameful position of our affairs in the +Mediterranean, Eaton requested Mr. Madison to recall him, unless more +active operations against the enemy should be resolved upon. "I can no +longer talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a +grimace of contempt and ridicule ... The operations of our squadron this +season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as +well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates +with ------ in command ... If further concessions are to be made here, I +desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our +presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his +avarice to new demands."</p> + +<p>The display of latent force by the United States fleet, from which our +Government had expected so much, increased the insolence of the Bey of +Tunis to such a point that Eaton was obliged to withdraw from his post, +and a new war seemed inevitable. The Americans had declared Tripoli +blockaded; but, as their ships were seldom on the coast, little +attention was paid to them. It happened, however, that a Tunisian +vessel, bound for Tripoli, was captured when attempting to enter the +harbor, and declared a prize. Shortly after, Commodore Morris anchored +off Tunis and landed to visit the Consul. The Bey, who held the correct +doctrine on the subject of paper blockades, pronounced the seizure +illegal and demanded restitution. During his stay on shore, the +Commodore had several interviews with the Bey's commercial agent in +relation to this prize question. The behavior of that official was so +offensive that the Commodore determined to go on board his ship without +making the usual farewell visit at Court. As he was stepping into his +boat from the mole, he was arrested by the commercial agent for a debt +of twenty-two thousand dollars, borrowed by Eaton to assist Hamet +Caramanli in his expedition against Tripoli. Eaton remonstrated +indignantly. He alone was responsible for the debt; he had given +abundant security, and was willing to pay handsomely for further +forbearance. In vain; the agent would take nothing but the money. Eaton +hurried to the palace to ask the Bey if this arrest was by his order. +The Bey declined to answer or to interfere. There was no help for it; +the Commodore was caught. To obtain permission to embark, he was obliged +to get the money from the French Consul-General, and to promise +restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at +liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to +protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the +flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him +again to quit his court,--this time peremptorily,--adding, that the +United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial +to Barbary interests."</p> + +<p>Eaton arrived in Boston on the 5th of May, 1803. The same season Preble +sailed into the Mediterranean, with the Constitution, "a bunch of pine +boards," as she was then called in derision, poorly fitted out, and +half-manned; and with three other vessels in no better condition. But +here, at last, was a captain whom no cautious or hesitating instructions +could prevent from doing the work set before him to the best of his +ability. Sword in hand, he maintained the principle of "Death before +tribute," so often and so unmeaningly toasted at home; and it was not +his fault, if he did not establish it. At all events, he restored the +credit of our flag in the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>When the news reached home of the burning of the Philadelphia, of the +attack of the fireships, and of the bombardment of Tripoli, the blood of +the nation was up. Arch-democratic scruples as to the expediency, +economy, or constitutionality of public armed ships were thenceforth +utterly disregarded. Since then, it has never been a question whether +the United States should have a navy or not. To Preble fairly belongs +the credit of establishing it upon a permanent footing, and of heading +the roll of daring and skilful officers the memory of whose gallantry +pervades the service and renders it more effective than its ships +and its guns.</p> + +<p>The Administration yielded to the popular feeling, and attempted to +claim for themselves the credit of these feats of arms, which they had +neither expected nor desired. A new fleet was fitted out, comprising our +whole navy except five ships. Here again the cloven foot became visible. +Preble, who had proved himself a captain of whom any nation might be +proud, was superseded by Commodore Barron, on a question of seniority +etiquette, which might have been easily settled, had the Government so +wished it.</p> + +<p>Eaton had spent a year at home, urging upon the authorities, whenever +the settlement of his accounts took him to Washington, more effective +measures against Tripoli,--and particularly an alliance with Hamet +Caramanli, the Ex-Pacha, who had been driven from his throne by his +brother Jusuf, a much more able man. In spite of his bitter flings at +their do-nothing policy, the Administration sent him out in the fleet, +commissioned as General Agent for the Barbary Regencies, with the +understanding that he was to join Hamet and assist him in an attack upon +Derne. His instructions were vague and verbal; he had not even a letter +to our proposed ally. Eaton was aware of his precarious position; but +the hazardous adventure suited his enterprising spirit, and he +determined to proceed in it. "If successful, for the public,--if +unsuccessful, for myself," he wrote to a friend, quoting from his +classical reminiscences; "but any personal risk," he added, with a +rhetorical flourish, "is better than the humiliation of treating with a +wretched pirate for the ransom of men who are the rightful heirs +of freedom."</p> + +<p>He sailed in the John Adams, in June, 1804. The President, Congress, +Essex, and Constellation were in company. On the 5th of September the +fleet anchored at Malta. In a few weeks the plan of the expedition was +settled, and the necessary arrangements made, with the consent and under +the supervision of Barron. Eaton then went on board the United States +brig Argus, Captain Isaac Hull, detached specially on this service by +the Commodore, and sailed for Alexandria, to hunt up Hamet and to +replace him upon a throne.</p> + +<p>On the 8th of December, Eaton and his little party, Lieutenant Blake, +Midshipmen Mann and Danielson, of the navy, and Lieutenant O'Bannon of +the marines, arrived in Cairo. Here they learned that Hamet had taken +service with the rebel Mamlouk Beys and was in command of an Arab force +in Upper Egypt. A letter from Preble to Sir Alexander Ball insured the +Americans the hearty good wishes of the English. They were lodged in the +English house, and passed for United States naval officers on a +pleasure-trip. In this character they were presented to the Viceroy by +Dr. Mendrici, his physician, who had known Eaton intimately in Tunis, +and was much interested in this enterprise. The recommendation of the +Doctor obtained a private audience for Eaton. He laid his plans frankly +before his Highness, who listened favorably, assured him of his +approval, and ordered couriers to be sent to Hamet, bearing a letter of +amnesty and permission to depart from Egypt.</p> + +<p>The messengers returned with an answer. The Ex-Pacha was unwilling to +trust himself within the grasp of the Viceroy; he preferred a meeting at +a place near Lake Fayoum, (Maeris,) on the borders of the Desert, about +one hundred and ninety miles from the coast. Regardless of the danger of +travelling in this region of robbery and civil war, Eaton set off at +once, accompanied by Blake, Mann, and a small escort. After a ride of +seventy miles, they fell in with a detachment of Turkish cavalry, who +arrested them for English spies. This accident they owed to the zeal of +the French Consul, M. Drouette, who, having heard that they were on good +terms with the English, thought it the duty of a French official to +throw obstacles in their way. Luckily the Turkish commandant proved to +be a reasonable man. He listened to their story and sent off a courier +to bring Hamet to them. The Pacha soon arrived. He expressed an entire +willingness to be reinstated upon his throne by the Americans, and to do +what he could for himself with his followers and friendly Arab tribes in +the province of Derne. In case of success, he offered brilliant +advantages to the United States. A convention was drawn up in this +sense, signed by him as legitimate Pacha of Tripoli, and by Eaton, as +agent for the United States.</p> + +<p>The original plan was to proceed to Derne in the Argus; but the Turkish +Governor of Alexandria refused to permit so large a force to embark at +that port; and Hamet himself showed a strong disinclination to venture +within the walls of the enemy. The only course left was to march over +the Desert. Eaton adopted it with his usual vigor. The Pacha and his men +were directed to encamp at the English cut, between Aboukir Bay and Lake +Mareotis. Provisions were bought, men enlisted, camels hired, and a few +Arabs collected together by large promises and small gifts. The party, +complete, consisted of the Americans already mentioned, Farquhar, an +Englishman, Pascal Paoli Peck, whose name we take pleasure in writing +again, with six men of his corps, twenty-five artillery-men of all +nations, principally Levanters, and thirty-eight Greeks. The followers +of the Pacha, hired Arabs, camel-drivers, servants, and vagabonds, made +up their number to about four hundred.</p> + +<p>On the 8th of March, 1805, Eaton advanced into the Desert westward, +towards the famous land of Cyrene, like Aryandes the Persian, and Amrou, +general of the Caliph Omar. The little army marched along slowly, "on +sands and shores and desert wildernesses," past ruins of huge +buildings,--relics of three civilizations that had died out,--mostly +mere stones to Eaton, whose mind was too preoccupied by his wild +enterprise to speculate much on what others had done there before him. +Want of water, scarcity of provisions, the lazy dilatoriness of the +Arabs, who had never heard of the American axiom, "Time is money," gave +him enough to think of. But worse than these were the daily outbreaks of +the ill-feeling which always exists between Mussulman and Christian. The +Arabs would not believe that Christians could be true friends to +Mussulmans. They were not satisfied with Eaton's explanations of the +similarity between the doctrines of Islam and of American, but tried +again and again to make him repeat the soul-saving formula, "<i>Allah +Allah Mohammed ben Allah</i>", and thus at once prove his sincerity and +escape hell. The Pacha himself, an irresolute, weak man, could not quite +understand why these infidels should have come from beyond the seas to +place him upon a throne. A suspicion lurked in his heart that their real +object was to deliver him to his brother as the price of a peace, and +any occurrence out of the daily routine of the march brought this +unpleasant fancy uppermost in his thoughts. On one point the Mahometan +mind of every class dwelt alway,--"How could Allah permit these dogs, +who followed the religion of the Devil, to possess such admirable +riches?" The Arabs tried hard to obtain a share of them. They yelped +about the Americans for money, food, arms, and powder. Even the brass +buttons of the infidels excited their cupidity.</p> + +<p>Eaton's patience, remarkable in a man of his irascible temper, many +promises, and a few threats, kept the Crescent and the Cross moving on +together in comparative peace until the 8th of April. On that day and +outbreak of ill-temper occurred so violent that the two parties nearly +came to blows. Turks were drawn up on one side, headed by +Hamet,--Americans on the other, with the Greeks and Levanters. Swords +were brandished and muskets pointed, and much abuse discharged. Nothing +but the good sense of one of the Pacha's officers and Eaton's cool +determination prevented the expedition from destroying itself on +the spot.</p> + +<p>Peace was at last restored, and kept until the 15th, when the army +reached the Gulf of Bomba. In this bay, known to the ancients as the +Gulf of Plataea, it is said that the Greeks landed who founded the +colony of Cyrene. Eaton had written to Captain Hull to meet him here +with the Argus, and, relying upon her stores, had made this the place of +fulfilment of many promises. Unfortunately, no Argus was to be seen. Sea +and shore were as silent and deserted as when Battus the Dorian first +saw the port from his penteconters, six hundred years or more before +Christ. A violent tumult arose. The Arabs reproached the Americans +bitterly for the imposture, and declared their intention of deserting +the cause immediately. Luckily, before these wild allies had departed, a +sail appeared upon the horizon; they were persuaded to wait a short time +longer. It was the Argus. Hull had seen the smoke of their fires and +stood in. He anchored before dark; provisions were sent on shore; and +plenty in the camp restored quiet and discipline.</p> + +<p>On the 23d they resumed their march, and on the 25th, at two in the +afternoon, encamped upon a hill overlooking the town of Derne. Deserters +came in with the information that two-thirds of the inhabitants were in +favor of Hamet; but that Hassan Bey, the Governor, with eight hundred +fighting-men, was determined to defend the place; Jusuf had sent fifteen +hundred men to his assistance, who were within three days' march. +Hamet's Arabs seized upon this opportunity to be alarmed. It became +necessary to promise the chiefs two thousand dollars before they would +consent to take courage again.</p> + +<p>Eaton reconnoitred the town. He ascertained that a ten-inch howitzer on +the terrace of the Governor's house was all he had to fear in the way of +artillery. There were eight nine-pounders mounted on a bastion looking +seaward, but useless against a land-attack. Breastworks had been thrown +up, and the walls of houses loopholed for musketry.</p> + +<p>The next day, Eaton summoned Hassan to surrender the place to his +legitimate sovereign, and offered to secure him his present position in +case of immediate submission.. The flag was sent back with the answer, +"My head or yours!" and the Bey followed up this Oriental message by +offering six thousand dollars for Eaton's head, and double the sum, if +he were brought in alive.</p> + +<p>At six o'clock on the morning of the 27th, the Argus, Nautilus, and +Hornet stood in, and, anchoring within a hundred yards of the battery, +silenced it in three-quarters of an hour. At the same time the town was +attacked on one side by Hamet, and on the other by the Americans. A hot +fire of musketry was kept up by the garrison. The Greek artillery-men +shot away the rammer of their only field-piece, after a few discharges, +rendering the gun useless. Finding that a number of his small party were +falling, Eaton ordered a charge, and led it. Dashing through a volley of +bullets, the Christians took the battery in flank, carried it, planted +the American flag, and turned the guns upon the town. Hamet soon cut his +way to the Bey's palace, and drove him to sanctuary to escape being +taken prisoner. After a lively engagement of two hours and a half, the +allies had complete possession of the town. Fourteen of the Christians +had been killed or wounded, three of them American marines. Eaton +himself received a musket-ball in his wrist.</p> + +<p>The Ex-Pacha had scarcely established himself in his new conquest before +Jusuf's army appeared upon the hills near the town. Hassan Bey succeeded +in escaping from sanctuary, and took the command. After several +fruitless attempts to buy over the rebel Arabs, the Bey, on the 13th of +May, made a sudden attack upon the quarter of the town held by Hamet's +forces, and drove all before him as far as the Governor's house; but a +few volleys from the nine-pounders sent him and his troops back at full +speed. Hamet's cavalry pursued, and cut down a great many of them. This +severe lesson made the Bey cautious. Henceforward he kept his men in the +hills, and contented himself with occasional skirmishing-parties.</p> + +<p>After this affair numerous Arabs of rank came over, and things looked +well for the cause of the legitimate Pacha. Eaton already fancied +himself marching into Tripoli under the American flag, and releasing +with his own hands the crew of the Philadelphia. He wrote to Barron of +his success, and asked for supplies of provisions, money, and men. A few +more dollars, a detachment of marines, and the fight was won. His answer +was a letter from the Commodore, informing him, "that the reigning Pacha +of Tripoli has lately made overtures of peace, which the Consul-General, +Colonel Lear, has determined to meet, viewing the present moment +propitious to such a step." With the letter came another from Lear, +ordering Eaton to evacuate Derne. Eaton sent back an indignant +remonstrance, and continued to hold the town. But on the 11th of June +the Constellation came in, bringing the news of the conclusion of peace, +and of the release of the captives, upon payment of sixty thousand +dollars. Colonel Lear wrote, that, by an article of the treaty, Hamet's +wife and children would be restored to him, on condition of his leaving +the Regency. No other provision was made for him.</p> + +<p>When the Ex-Pacha (Ex for the third time) heard that thenceforth he must +depend upon his own resources, he requested that he might be taken off +in the Constellation, as his life would not be safe when his adherents +discovered that his American friends had betrayed him, Eaton took every +precaution to keep the embarkation a secret, and succeeded in getting +all his men safely on board the frigate. He then, the last of the party, +stepped into a small boat, and had just time to save his distance, when +the shore was crowded with the shrieking Arabs. Finding the Christians +out of their reach, they fell upon their tents and horses, and swept +away everything of value.</p> + +<p>It was a rapid change of scene. Six hours before, the little American +party held Derne triumphantly against all comers from Jusuf's dominions, +and Hamet had prospects of a kingdom. Now he was a beggar, on his way to +Malta, to subsist there for a time on a small allowance from the United +States. Even his wife and children were not to be restored to him; for, +in a secret stipulation with the Pacha, Lear had waived for four years +the execution of that article of the treaty. The poor fellow had been +taken up as a convenience, and was dropped when no longer wanted. But he +was only an African Turk, and, although not black, was probably dark +enough in complexion to weaken his claims upon the good feeling and the +good faith of the United States.</p> + +<p>Eaton arrived at home in November of the same year,<a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> disgusted with +the officers, civil and naval, who had cut short his successful +campaign, and had disregarded, as of no importance, the engagements he +had contracted with his Turkish ally. His report to the Secretary of the +Navy expressed in the most direct language his opinion of the treaty and +his contempt for the reasons assigned by Lear and Barron for their +sudden action. The enthusiastic welcome he received from his countrymen +encouraged his dissatisfaction. The American people decreed him a +triumph after their fashion,--public dinners, addresses of +congratulation, the title of Hero of Derne. He had shown just the +qualities mankind admire,--boldness, tenacity, and dashing courage. Few +could be found who did not regret that Preble had not been there to help +him onward to Tripoli and to a peace without payments. And as Eaton was +not the man to carry on a war, even of words, without throwing his whole +soul into the conflict, he proclaimed to all hearers that the Government +was guilty of duplicity and meanness, and that Lear was a compound of +envy, treachery, and ignorance.</p> + +<p>But this violence of language recoiled upon himself,-- +<br><br> + "And so much injured more his side,<br> + The stronger arguments he applied."<br> +<br> +The Administration steadily upheld Lear; and good Democrats, who saw +every measure refracted through the dense medium of party-spirit, of +course defended their leaders, and took fire at Eaton's overbearing +manner and insulting intolerance of their opinions. Thus, although the +general sentiment of the country was strongly in his favor, at +Washington he made many enemies. A resolution was introduced into the +House of Representatives to present him with a medal, or with a sword; +it was violently opposed by John Randolph and others, postponed from +time to time, and never passed. Eaton received neither promotion, nor +pecuniary compensation, nor an empty vote of thanks. He had even great +delay and difficulty in obtaining the settlement of his accounts<a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> and +the repayment of the money advanced by him.</p> + +<p>Disappointment, debt, and hard drinking soon brought Eaton's life to a +close. He died in obscurity in 1811. Among his papers was found a list +of officers who composed a Court Martial held in Ohio by General St. +Clair in 1793. As time passed, he had noted in the margin of the paper +the fate of each man. All were either "Dead" or "Damned by brandy." His +friends might have completed the melancholy roll by writing under his +name the same epitaph.</p> + +<p>However wrong Eaton may have been in manners and in morals, he seems to +have been right in complaining of the treatment he received from the +Administration. The organs of the Government asserted that Eaton had +exceeded his instructions, and had undertaken projects the end of which +could not be foreseen,--that the Administration had never authorized +any specific engagement with Hamet, an inefficient person, and not at +all the man he was supposed to be,--and that the alliance with him was +much too expensive and dangerous to justify its further prosecution. +Unfortunately for this view of the case, the dealings of the United +States with Hamet dated back to the beginning of the war with Tripoli. A +diversion in his favor was no new project, but had been considered for +more than three years. Eaton and Cathcart had recommended it in 1801, +and Government approved of the plan. In 1802, when Jusuf Pacha offered +Hamet the Beyship of Benghazi and Derne, to break up these negotiations, +the United States Consuls promised him Jusuf's throne, if he would +refuse the offer, and threatened, if he accepted it, to treat him as an +enemy, and to send a frigate to prevent him from landing at Derne. +Later, when the Bey of Tunis showed some inclination to surrender Hamet +to his brother, the Consuls furnished him with the means of escape to +Malta. In 1803, he crossed over to Derne in an English brig, hoping to +receive assistance from the American fleet; but Commodore Morris left +him to his own resources; he was unable to hold his ground, and fled to +Egypt. All this was so well known at home, that members of the +Opposition in Congress jokingly accused the Administration of +undertaking to decide constitutional questions for the people +of Tripoli.</p> + +<p>Before the news of this flight into Egypt reached the United States, +Eaton had been instructed by the President to take command of an +expedition on the coast of Barbary in connection with Hamet. It had been +determined to furnish a few pieces of field-artillery, a thousand stand +of arms, and forty thousand dollars as a loan to the Pretender. But when +the President heard of Hamet's reverses, he withheld the supplies, and +sent Eaton out as "General Agent for the several Barbary States," +without special instructions. The Secretary of the Navy wrote at the +same time to Commodore Barron:--"With respect to the Ex-Bashaw of +Tripoli, we have no objection to your availing yourself of his +cooperation with you against Tripoli, if you shall, upon a full view of +the subject, after your arrival upon the station, consider his +cooperation expedient. The subject is committed entirely to your +discretion. In such an event, you will, it is believed, find Mr. Eaton +extremely useful to you."</p> + +<p>After Commodore Barron had reached his station, he did consider the +"coöperation" expedient; and ordered Hull in the Argus to Alexandria +with Eaton in search of Hamet, "the legitimate sovereign of the reigning +Bashaw of Tripoli." If Eaton succeeded in finding the Pacha, Hull was to +carry him and his suite to Derne, "or such other place as may be +determined the most proper for coöperating with the naval force under my +command against the common enemy ... You may assure the Bashaw of the +support of my squadron at Benghazi or Derne, and that I will take the +most effectual measures with the forces under my command for cooperating +with him against the usurper his brother, and for reëstablishing him in +the Regency of Tripoli. Arrangements to this effect with him are +confided to the discretion with which Mr. Eaton is vested by the +Government."</p> + +<p>It would seem from these extracts that Eaton derived full authority from +Barron to act in this matter, independently of his commission as +"General Agent." We do not perceive that he exceeded a reasonable +discretion in the "arrangements" made with Hamet. After so many +disappointments, the refugee could not be expected to leave a +comfortable situation and to risk his head without some definite +agreement as to the future; and the convention made with him by Eaton +did not go beyond what Hamet had a right to demand, or the instructions +of the Commodore,--even in Article II., which was afterward particularly +objected to by the Government. It ran thus:--</p> + +<p>"The Government of the United States shall use their utmost exertions, +so far as comports with their own honor and interest, their subsisting +treaties, and the acknowledged law of nations, to reëstablish the said +Hamet Bashaw in the possession of his sovereignty of Tripoli against the +pretensions of Joseph Bashaw," etc.</p> + +<p>We should add, that Hamet, to satisfy himself of the truth of Eaton's +representations, sent one of his followers to Barron, who confirmed the +treaty; and that the Commodore, when he received Eaton's despatch, +announcing his departure from Aboukir, wrote back a warm approval of his +energy, and notified him that the Argus and the Nautilus would be sent +immediately to Bomba with the necessary stores and seven thousand +dollars in money. Barron added,--"You may depend upon the most active +and vigorous support from the squadron, as soon as the season and our +arrangements will permit us to appear in force before the +enemy's walls."</p> + +<p>So much for Eaton's authority to pledge the faith of the United States. +As to the question of expense: the whole cost of the expedition, up to +the evacuation of Derne, was thirty-nine thousand dollars. Eaton +asserted, and we see no reason to doubt his accuracy, that thirty +thousand more would have carried the American flag triumphantly into +Tripoli. Lear paid sixty thousand for peace.</p> + +<p>Hamet was set on shore at Syracuse with thirty followers. Two hundred +dollars a month were allowed him for the support of himself and of them, +until particular directions should be received from the United States +concerning him. He wrote more than once to the President for relief, +resting his claims upon Eaton's convention and the letter of the +Secretary of State read to him by Consul Cathcart in 1802. In this +letter, the Secretary declared, that, in case of the failure of the +combined attack upon Derne, it would be proper for our Government "to +restore him to the situation from, which he was drawn, or to make some +other convenient arrangement that may be more eligible to him." Hamet +asked that at least the President would restore to him his wife and +family, according to the treaty, and send them all back to Egypt. "I +cannot suppose," he wrote, "that the engagements of an American agent +would be disputed by his Government, ... or that a gentleman has pledged +towards me the honor of his country on purpose to deceive me."</p> + +<p>Eaton presented these petitions to the President and to the public, and +insisted so warmly upon the harsh treatment his ally had received from +the United States, that two thousand four hundred dollars were sent to +him in 1806, and again, in 1807, Davis, Consul for Tripoli, was directed +to insist upon the release of the wife and children. They were delivered +up by Jusuf in 1807, and taken to Syracuse in an American sloop-of-war. +Here ended the relations of the United States with Hamet Caramanli.<a name="FNanchor5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p> + +<p>Throughout this whole African chapter, the darling economy of the +Administration was a penny-wise policy which resulted in the usual +failure. Already in 1802, Mr. Gallatin reported that two millions and a +half, in round numbers, had been paid in tribute and presents. The +expense of fitting out the four squadrons is estimated by Mr. Sabine at +three millions and a half. The tribute extorted after 1802 and the cost +of keeping the ships in the Mediterranean amount at the lowest estimate +to two millions more. Most of this large sum might have been saved by +giving an adequate force and full powers to Commodore Dale, who had +served under Paul Jones, and knew how to manage such matters.</p> + +<p>Unluckily for their fame, the Administration was equally parsimonious in +national spirit and pluck, and did their utmost to protect themselves +against the extravagance of such reckless fellows as Preble, Decatur, +and Eaton. In the spring of 1803, while Preble was fitting out his +squadron, Mr. Simpson, Consul at Tangier, was instructed to buy the +good-will of the Emperor of Morocco. He disobeyed his instructions, and +the Emperor withdrew his demands when he saw the American ships. About +the same time, the Secretary of State wrote to Consul Cathcart in +relation to Tripoli:--</p> + +<p>"It is thought best that you should not be tied down to a refusal of +presents, whether to be included in the peace, or to be made from time +to time during its continuance,--especially as in the latter case the +title to the presents will be a motive to its continuance,--to admit +that the Bashaw shall receive in the first instance, including the +consular present, the sum of $20,000, and at the rate afterwards of +$8,000 or $10,000 a year ... The presents, whatever the amount or +purpose of them, (except the consular present, which, as usual, may +consist of jewelry, cloth, etc.,) must be made in money and not in +stores, to be biennial rather than annual; <i>and the arrangement of the +presents is to form no part of the public treaty, if a private promise +and understanding can be substituted.</i>"</p> + +<p>After notifying Cathcart of his appointment to Tunis, the Secretary +directs him to evade the thirty-six-gun frigate, and to offer the Bey +ten thousand dollars a year for peace, to be arranged in the same +underhand way.</p> + +<p>Tripoli refused the money; it was not enough. The Bey of Tunis rejected +both the offer and the Consul. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson that he +considered some of Cathcart's expressions insulting, and that he +insisted upon the thirty-six-gun frigate. Mr. Jefferson answered on the +27th of January, 1804, after he knew of the insult to Morris and of the +expulsion of Eaton. Beginning with watery generalities about "mutual +friendships and the interests arising out of them," he regretted that +there should be any misconception of his motives on the part of the Bey. +"Such being our regard for you, it is with peculiar concern I learn from +your letter that Mr. Cathcart, whom I had chosen from a confidence in +his integrity, experience, and good dispositions, has so conducted +himself as to incur your displeasure. In doing this, be assured he has +gone against the letter and spirit of his instructions, which were, that +his deportment should be such as to make known my esteem and respect for +your character both personal and public, and to cultivate your +friendship by all the attentions and services he could render.... In +selecting another character to take the place of Mr. Cathcart, I shall +take care to fix on one who, I hope, will better fulfil the duties of +respect and esteem for you, and who, in so doing only, will be the +faithful representative and organ of our earnest desire that the peace +and friendship so happily subsisting between the two countries may be +firm and permanent."</p> + +<p>Most people will agree with Eaton, that "the spirit which dictated this +answer betrays more the inspiration of Carter's Mountain<a name="FNanchor6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> than of +Bunker Hill."</p> + +<p>Lear, who was appointed Consul-General in 1803, was authorized by his +instructions to pay twenty thousand dollars down and ten thousand a year +for peace, and a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars a man +for ransom.</p> + +<p>When Barron's squadron anchored at Malta, Consul O'Brien came on board +to say that he had offered, by authority, eight thousand dollars a year +to Tunis, instead of the frigate, and one hundred and ten thousand to +Tripoli for peace and the ransom of the crew of the Philadelphia, and +that both propositions had been rejected.</p> + +<p>Finally, after fitting out this fourth squadron, at an expense of one +million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and with Eaton in +possession of Derne, the Administration paid sixty thousand dollars for +peace and ransom, when Preble, ten months previously, could have +obtained both for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thus they +spent two millions to save ninety thousand, and left the principle of +tribute precisely where it was before.</p> + +<p>What makes this business still more remarkable is, that the +Administration knew from the reports of our consuls and from the +experience of our captains that the force of the pirates was +insignificant, and that they were wretched sailors and poor shots. +Sterret took a Tripolitan cruiser of fourteen guns after an engagement +of thirty minutes; he killed or wounded fifty of her crew, and did not +lose a man, nor suffer any material damage in his hull or rigging. There +was no one killed on the American side when Decatur burned the +Philadelphia. The Constitution was under the fire of the Tripolitan +batteries for two hours without losing a man, and was equally fortunate +when she ran in a second time and lay within musket-shot of the mole, +exposed to the fire of the enemy for three-quarters of an hour. These +Tripolitan batteries mounted one hundred and fifteen guns. Three years +later, Captain Ichabod Sheffield, of the schooner Mary Ann, furnished in +person an example of the superiority of the Yankee over the Turk. Consul +Lear had just given forty-eight thousand dollars to the Dey of Algiers, +in full payment of tribute "up to date." Nevertheless, the Mary Ann, of +and from New York to Leghorn, was seized in the Straits of Gibraltar by +an Algerine corsair. A prize-crew of nine Turks was sent on board; the +captain, two men, and a boy left in her to do the work; she was ordered +to Algiers; and the pirate sailed away. Having no instructions from +Washington, Sheffield and his men determined to strike a blow for +liberty, and fixed upon their plan. Algiers was in sight, when Sheffield +hurled the "grains" overboard, and cried that he had struck a fish. Four +Turks, who were on deck, ran to the side to look over. Instantly the +Americans threw three of them into the sea. The others, hearing the +noise, hurried upon deck. In a hand-to-hand fight which followed two +more were killed with handspikes, and the remaining four were +overpowered and sent adrift in a small boat. Sheffield made his way, +rejoicing, to Naples. When the Dey heard how his subjects had been +handled, he threatened to put Lear in irons and to declare war. It cost +the United States sixteen thousand dollars to appease his wrath.</p> + +<p>The cruise of the Americans against Tripoli differed little, except in +the inferiority of their force, from numerous attacks made by European +nations upon the Regencies. Venice, England, France, had repeatedly +chastised the pirates in times past. In 1799, the Portuguese, with one +seventy-four-gun ship, took two Tripolitan cruisers, and forced the +Pacha to pay them eleven thousand dollars. In 1801, not long before our +expedition, the French Admiral Gaunthomme over-hauled two Tunisian +corsairs in chase of some Neapolitan vessels. He threw all their guns +overboard, and bade them beware how they provoked the wrath of the First +Consul by plundering his allies. But all of them left, as we did, the +principle of piracy or payments as they found it. At last this evil was +treated in a manner more creditable to civilization. In 1812, the +Algerines captured an American vessel, and made slaves of the crew. +After the peace with England, in 1815, Decatur, in the Guerrière, sailed +into the Mediterranean, and captured off Cape de Gat, in twenty-five +minutes, an Algerine frigate of forty-six guns and four hundred men. On +board the Guerrière, four were wounded, and no one killed. Two days +later, off Cape Palos, he took a brig of twenty-two guns and one hundred +and eighty men. He then sailed into the harbor of Algiers with his +prizes, and offered peace, which was accepted. The Dey released the +American prisoners, relinquished all claims to tribute in future, and +promised never again to enslave an American. Decatur, on our part, +surrendered his prizes, and agreed to consular presents,--a mitigated +form of tribute, similar in principle, but, at least, with another +name. From Algiers he went to Tunis, and demanded satisfaction of that +Regency for having permitted a British man-of-war to retake in their +port two prizes to Americans in the late war with England. The Bey +submitted, and paid forty-six thousand dollars. He next appeared before +Tripoli, where he compelled the Pacha to pay twenty-six thousand +dollars, and to surrender ten captives, as an indemnity for some +breaches of international law. In fifty-four days he brought all Barbary +to submission. It is true, that, the next spring, the Dey of Algiers +declared this treaty null, and fell back upon the time-honored system of +annual tribute. But it was too late. Before it became necessary for +Decatur to pay him another visit, Lord Exmouth avenged the massacre of +the Neapolitan fishermen at Bona by completely destroying the fleet and +forts of Algiers, in a bombardment of seven hours. Christian prisoners +of every nation were liberated in all the Regencies, and the +slave-system, as applied to white men, finally abolished.</p> + +<p>Preble, Eaton, and Decatur are our three distinguished African officers. +As Barron's squadron did not fire a shot into Tripoli, indeed never +showed itself before that port, to Eaton alone belongs the credit of +bringing the Pacha to terms which the American Commissioner was willing +to accept. The attack upon Derne was the feat of arms of the fourth +year, and finished the war.</p> + +<p>Ours is not a new reading of the earlier relations of the United States +with the Barbary powers. The story can be found in the Collection of +State Papers, and more easily in the excellent little books of Messrs. +Sabine and Felton. But a "popular version" despises documents. Under the +pressure of melodrama, history will drift into Napoleon's "fable agreed +upon"; and if it be true, as Emerson says, that "no anchor, no cable, no +fence, avail to keep a fact a fact," it is not at all likely that a +paper in a monthly magazine will do it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<br><br><br> +<h2>SUNSHINE.</h2> +<br> +<p>I have always worked in the carpet-factories. My father and mother +worked there before me and my sisters, as long as they lived. My sisters +died first;--the one, I think, out of deep sorrow; the other from +too much joy.</p> + +<p>My older sister worked hard, knew nothing else but work, never thought +of anything else, nor found any joy in work, scarcely in the earnings +that came from it. Perhaps she pined for want of more air, shut up in +the rooms all day, not caring to find it in walking or in the fields, or +even in books. Household-work awaited her daily after the factory-work, +and a dark, strange religion oppressed and did not sustain her, Sundays. +So we scarcely wondered when she died. It seemed, indeed, as if she had +died long ago,--as if the life had silently passed away from her, +leaving behind a working body that was glad at last to find a rest it +had never known before.</p> + +<p>My other sister was far different. Very much younger, not even a shadow +of the death that had gone before weighed heavily upon her. Everybody +loved her, and her warm, flashing spirit that came out in her sunny +smile. She died in a season of joy, in the first flush of summer. She +died, as the June flowers died, after their happy summer-day of life.</p> + +<p>At last I was left alone, to plod the same way, every night and +morning,--out with the sunrise from the skirts of the town, over the +bridge across the stream that fell into our great river which has +worked for us so long, to the tall, grim factory-building where my work +awaited me, and home again at night. I lived on in the house we all of +us had lived in. At first it was alone in the wood. But the town crept +out to meet it, and soon but little woodland was left around it. "Gloomy +Robert" they called me, as I walked back and forth upon the same track, +seldom lifting my head to greet friend or stranger. Though I walked over +well-known ground, my thoughts were wandering in strange romances. My +evening-readings furnished the land I lived in,--seldom this Western +home, but the East, from Homer's time to the days of Haroun Alraschid. I +was so faithful at my work that my responsibilities were each year +increased; and though my brain lived in dreams, I had sufficient use of +it for my little needs each day. I never forgot to answer the wants of +the greedy machines while I was within sound of them; but away from them +I forgot all external sight and sound. I can remember in my boyhood once +I was waked from my reveries. I was walking beneath a high stone-wall, +with my eyes and head bent down as usual, when I was roused by a shower +of rose-buds that fell over my shoulders and folded arms. I heard +laughter, and looked up to see a childish face with sunny, golden curls +tumbling over it; and a surprised voice cried out, "Gloomy Robert is +looking up!" The picture of the face hung in my memory long after, with +the sound of the happy voice, as though it came out of another world. +But it remained only a picture, and I never asked myself whether that +sunny face ever made any home happy, nor did I ever listen for that +voice again from behind the high stone-wall.</p> + +<p>Many years of my life passed away. There were changes in the factories. +The machines grew more like human beings, and we men could act more like +machines. There were fewer of us needed; but I still held my place, and +my steadiness gave me a position.</p> + +<p>One day, in the end of May, I was walking early in the morning towards +the factories, as usual, when suddenly there fell across my path a +glowing beam of sunshine that lighted up the grass before me. I stopped +to see how the green blades danced in its light, how the sunshine fell +down the sloping, bank across the stream below. Whirring insects seemed +to be suddenly born in its beam. The stream flowed more gayly, the +flowers on its brim were richer in color. A voice startled me. It was +only that of one of my fellow-workmen, as he shouted, "Look at Gloomy +Robert!--there's a sunbeam in his way, and he stumbles over it!" It was +really so. I had stumbled over a beam of sunlight. I had never observed +the sunshine before. Now, what life it gave, as it gleamed under the +trees! I kept on my way, but the thought of it followed me all up the +weary stairs into the high room where the great machines were standing +silently. Suddenly, after my work began, through a high narrow window +poured a strip of sunshine. It fell across the colored threads which +were weaving diligently their work. This day the work was of an +unusually artistic nature. We have our own artists in the mills, artists +who must work under severe limitations. Within a certain space their +fancy revels, and then its lines are suddenly cut short. Nature scatters +her flowers as she pleases over the field, does not measure her groups +to see that they stand symmetrically, nor count her several daisies that +they may be sure to repeat themselves in regular order. But our artist +must fit his stems to certain angles so that their lines may be +continuous, constantly repeating themselves, the same group recurring, +yet in a hidden monotony.</p> + +<p>My pattern of to-day had always pleased me, for we had woven many yards +of it before,--the machines and I. There were rich green leaves and +flowers, gay flowers that shone in light and hid themselves in shade, +and I had always admired their grace and coloring. To-day they had +seemed to me cold and dusky. All my ideas that I had gained from +conventional carpet-flowers, which, woven almost beneath my hand, had +seemed to rival Nature's, all these ideas had been suddenly swept away. +My eyes had opened upon real flowers waving in real sunshine; and my +head grew heavy at the sound of the clanking machine weaving out yards +of unsunned flowers. If only that sunshine, I thought, would light up +these green leaves, put a glow on these brilliant flowers, instead of +this poor coloring which tries to look like sunshine, we might rival +Nature. But the moment I was so thinking, the rays of sunlight I have +spoken of fell on the gay threads. They seemed, before my eyes, to seize +upon the poor yellow fibres which were trying to imitate their own glow, +and, winding themselves round them, I saw the shuttle gather these rays +of sunlight into the meshes of its work. I was to stand there till noon. +So, long before I left, the gleam of sunshine had left the narrow window +and was hidden from the rest of the long room by the gray stone-walls of +another building which rose up outside. But as long as they lingered +over the machine that I was watching, I saw, as though human fingers +were placing them there, rays of sunlight woven in among the green +leaves and brilliant flowers.</p> + +<p>After that gleam had gone, my work grew dark and dreary, and, for the +first time, my walls seemed to me like prison-walls. I longed for the +end of my day's work, and rejoiced that the sun had not yet set when I +was free again. I was free to go out across the meadows, up the hills, +to catch the last rays of sunset. Then coming home, I stooped to pick +the flowers which grew by the wayside in the waning light.</p> + +<p>All that June which followed, I passed my leisure hours and leisure days +in the open air, in the woods. I chased the sunshine from the fields in +under the deep trees, where it only flickered through the leaves. I +hunted for flowers, too, beginning with the gay ones which shone with +color. I wondered how it was they could drink in so much of the sun's +glow. Then I fell to studying all the science of color and all the +theories which are woven about it. I plunged into books of chemistry, to +try to find out how it was that certain flowers should choose certain +colors out from the full beam of light. After the long days, I sat late +into the night, studying all that books could tell me. I collected +prisms, and tried, in scattering the rays, to learn the properties of +each several pencil of light. I grew very wise and learned, but never +came nearer the secret I was searching for,--why it was that the Violet, +lying so near the Dandelion, should choose and find such a different +dress to wear. It was not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at +first. My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups. The +Saint-John's-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower. I trained +the vines which had been drooping round our old house,--the gray +time-worn house; the "natural-colored house," the neighbors called it. I +thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be +scarlet, as I trained up the brilliant scarlet trumpet-flower which my +sister had planted long ago.</p> + +<p>So the summer passed away. My companions and neighbors did not wonder +much, that, after studying so many books, I should begin to study +flowers and botany. And November came. My occupation was not yet taken +away, for Golden-Rod and the Asters gleamed along the dusty roadside, +and still underneath the Maples there lay a sunny glow from the yellow +leaves not yet withered beneath them.</p> + +<p>One day I received a summons from our overseer, Mr. Clarkson, to visit +him in the evening. I went, a little disturbed, lest he might have some +complaint to make of the engrossing nature of my present occupations. +This I was almost led to believe, from the way in which he began to +speak to me. His perorations, to be sure, were apt to be far wide of his +subject; and this time, as usual, I could allow him two or three +minutes' talk before it became necessary for me to give him my +attention.</p> + +<p>At last it came out. I was wanted to go up to Boston about a marvellous +piece of carpet which had appeared from our mills. It had lain in the +warehouse some time, had at last been taken to Boston, and a large +portion of it had been sold, the pattern being a favorite one. But +suddenly there had been a change. In opening one of the rolls and +spreading it broadly in the show-room of Messrs. Gobelin's warehouse, it +had appeared the most wonderful carpet that ever was known. A real +sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and +dance among them as on a broad meadow. It shed a radiance which paled +the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high +windows. It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had +been obliged to ask a high price of admission for the many that flocked +to see it. They had eagerly examined the other rolls of carpeting, in +the hope of finding a repetition of the wonder, and were inclined at one +time to believe that this magical effect was owing to a new method of +lighting their apartments. But it was only in this beautiful pattern and +through a certain portion of it that this wonderful appearance was +shown. Some weeks ago they had sent to our agent to ask if he knew the +origin of this wonderful tapestry. He had consulted with the designer of +the pattern, who had first claimed the discovery of the combination of +colors by which such an effect was produced, but he could not account +for its not appearing throughout the whole work. My master had then +examined some of the workmen, and learned, in the midst of his +inquiries, what had been my late occupations and studies.</p> + +<p>"If," he continued, "I had been inclined to apply any of my discoveries +to the work which I superintended, he was willing, and his partners were +willing, to forgive any interference of that sort, of mine, in affairs +which were strictly their own, as long as the discoveries seemed of so +astonishing a nature."</p> + +<p>I am not able to give all our conversation. I could only say to my +employer, that this was no act of mine, though I felt very sure that the +sunshine which astonished them in Messrs. Gobelin's carpet-store was the +very sunbeam that shone through the window of the factory on the 27th of +May, that summer. When he asked me what chemical preparation could +insure a repetition of the same wonderful effect, I could only say, +that, if sunlight were let in upon all the machines, through all the +windows of the establishment, a similar effect might be produced. He +stared at me. Our large and substantial mill was overshadowed by the +high stone-walls of the rival company. It had taken a large amount of +capital to raise our own walls; it would take a still larger to induce +our neighbors to remove theirs. So we parted,--my employer evidently +thinking that I was keeping something behind, waiting to make my profit +on a discovery so interesting to him. He called me back to tell me, +that, after working so long under his employ, he hoped I should never be +induced by higher wages or other proffers to leave for any rival +establishment.</p> + +<p>I was not left long in quiet. I received a summons to Boston. Mr. +Stuart, the millionnaire, had bought the wonderful carpet at an immense +price. He had visited our agent himself, had invited the designer to +dinner, and now would not be satisfied until I had made him a visit +in Boston.</p> + +<p>I went to his house. I passed up through broad stairways, and over +carpets such as I had never trod nor woven. I should have liked to +linger and satisfy my eyes with looking at the walls decorated with +paintings, and at the statuary, which seemed to beckon to me like moving +figures. But I passed on to the room where Mr. Stuart and his friends +awaited me. Here the first thing that struck me was the glowing carpet +across which I must tread. It was lying in an oval saloon, which had +been built, they told me, for the carpet itself. The light was admitted +only from the ceiling, which was so decorated that no clear sunlight +could penetrate it; but down below the sunbeams lay flickering in the +meadow of leaves, and shed a warm glow over the whole room.</p> + +<p>But my eyes directly took in many things besides the flowery ground +beneath me. At one end of the room stood a colossal bust of Juno, +smiling grandly and imperturbably, as if she were looking out from the +great far-away past. I think this would have held my looks and my +attention completely, but that Mr. Stuart must introduce me to his +friends. So I turned my glance away; but it was drawn directly towards a +picture which hung before me,--a face that drove away all recollection +of the colossal goddess. The golden hair was parted over a broad brow; +from the gentle, dreamy eyes there came a soft, penetrating glance, and +a vagueness as of fancy rested over the whole face. I scarcely heard a +word that was spoken to me as I looked upon this new charm, and I could +hardly find answers for the questions that surrounded me.</p> + +<p>But I was again roused from my dreamy wonderment by a real form that +floated in and sent away all visions of imagination. "My daughter," said +Mr. Stuart, and I looked up into the same dreamy eyes which had been +winning me in the picture. But these looked far beyond me, over me, +perhaps, or through me,--I could scarcely say which,--and the mouth +below them bent into a welcoming smile. While she greeted the other +guests, I had an opportunity to watch the stately grace of Mr. Stuart's +daughter, who played the part of hostess as one long accustomed to it.</p> + +<p>"A queen!" I had exclaimed to myself, as she entered the room, "and my +Juno!"</p> + +<p>The gentlemen to whom I had been introduced had been summoned earlier, +as in a learned committee, discussing the properties of the new +discovery. After the entrance of the ladies, I was requested to lead +Miss Stuart to dinner, and sat by her side through the clanging of +dishes and a similar clangor of the table-talk of tongues.</p> + +<p>"Speaking of light," said the Professor, turning to me, "why cannot you +bring, by your unknown chemical ways, some real sunlight into our rooms, +in preference to this metallic gas-light?"</p> + +<p>I turned to the windows, before which the servant had just drawn the +heavy, curtains still closer, to shut out the gleams of a glowing sunset +which had ventured to penetrate between its folds.</p> + +<p>"I see your answer," said Miss Stuart. "You wonder, as I do, why a +little piece of artificial sunlight should astonish us so much more than +the cheap sunlight of every day which the children play in on +the Common."</p> + +<p>"I think your method, Mr. Desmond," said the Chemist, "must be some +power you have found of concentrating all the rays of a pencil of light, +disposing in some way of their heating power. I should like to know if +this is a fluid agent or some solid substance."</p> + +<p>"I should like to see," interrupted another gentleman, "the anvil where +Mr. Desmond forges his beams. Could not we get up a party, Miss Stuart, +an evening-party, to see a little bit of sunlight struck out,--on a +moonshiny night, too?"</p> + +<p>"In my lectures on chemistry," began Mr. Jasper. He was interrupted by +Mr. Stuart.</p> + +<p>"You will have to write your lectures over again. Mr. Desmond has +introduced such new ideas upon chemistry that he will give you a chance +for a new course."</p> + +<p>"You forget," said the Chemist, "that the laws of science are the same +and immutable. My lectures, having once been written, are written. I +only see that Mr. Desmond has developed theories which I have myself +laid down. As our friend the Artist will tell us, sunlight is sunlight, +wherever you find it, whether you catch it on a carpet or on a +lady's face."</p> + +<p>"But I am quite ashamed," said Miss Stuart, "that we ladies so seldom +have the sunlight on our faces. I think we might agree to Mr. Green's +proposal to go out somewhere and see where the sunbeams really are +made. We shut them out with our curtains, and turn night into a +make-believe day."</p> + +<p>"But the sun is so trying!" put in Miss Lester. "Just think how much +more becoming candle-light is! There is not one of my dresses which +would stand a broad sunbeam."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Mr. Stuart, "that, when Mr. Desmond has perfected his +studies, we shall be able to roof over the whole of Boston with our +woven sunlight by day and gas-light by night, quite independent of fogs +and uncertain east-winds."</p> + +<p>So much of the dinner-conversation dwelt upon what was supposed to be +interesting to me, and a part of my profession. It was laggingly done; +for presently the talk fell into an easier flow,--a wonder about Mrs. +This, and speculation concerning Mr. That. Mr. Blank had gone to Europe +with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four +elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind. I +was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who +was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day. +In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her +personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her manner +of life, all were pulled to pieces, and discussed, dissected, and +classified, in the same way as I would handle one of the Composite.</p> + +<p>Miss Stuart spoke but little. She fluttered gayly over the livelier +conversation, but seemed glad to fall back into a sort of wearied +repose, where she appeared to be living in a higher atmosphere than the +rest of us. This air of repose the others seemed to be trying to reach, +when they got no farther than dulness; and some of the gentlemen, I +thought, made too great efforts in their attempts to appear bored. +Especially one of them exerted himself greatly to gape so often in the +face of a lady with whom he was striving to keep up an appearance of +conversation, that the exertion itself must have wearied him.</p> + +<p>After the ladies had left, the Chemist seated himself by me, that he +might, as he openly said, get out of me the secret of my sunshine. The +more I disowned the sunshine, the more he felt sure that I possessed +some secret clue to it. I need not say, that, in all my talk with these +gentlemen, I had constantly tried to show that I could claim no +influence in setting the sun's rays among the green carpeted leaves.</p> + +<p>I was urged to stay many days in Boston, was treated kindly, and invited +here and there. I grew to feel almost at home at Mr. Stuart's. He was +pleased to wonder at the education which I had given myself, as he +called it. I sat many long mornings in Miss Stuart's drawing-room, and +she had the power of making me talk of many things which had always been +hidden even from myself. It was hardly a sympathy with me which seemed +to unlock my inner thoughts; it was as though she had already looked +through them, and that I must needs bring them out for her use. That +same glance which I have already spoken of, which seemed to pass over +and through me, invited me to say in words what I felt she was beginning +to read with her eyes. We went together, the day before I was to leave +town, to the Gallery of Paintings.</p> + +<p>As we watched a fine landscape by Kensett, a stream of sunshine rested a +moment on the canvas, giving motion and color, as it were, to the +pictured sunlight.</p> + +<p>Miss Stuart turned to me.</p> + +<p>"Why will you not imprison sunlight in that way, Mr. Desmond? That would +be artistic."</p> + +<p>"You forget," I said, "if I could put the real sunlight into such a +picture, it would no longer be mine; I should be a borrower, not a +creator of light; I should be no more of an artist than I am now."</p> + +<p>"You will always refuse to acknowledge it," she said; "but you can never +persuade me that you have not the power to create a sunbeam. An +imprisoned sunbeam! The idea is absurd."</p> + +<p>"It is because the idea is so absurd," I said, "that, if I felt the +power were mine to imprison sunbeams, I should hardly care to repeat the +effort. The sunshine rests upon the grass, freely we say, but in truth +under some law that prevents its penetrating farther. A sunbeam existing +in the absence of the sun is, of course, an absurdity. Yet they are +there, the sunbeams of last spring, in your oval room, as I saw them one +day in May."</p> + +<p>"Which convinces me," said Miss Stuart, "that you are an artist. That is +not real sunshine. You have created it. You are born for an artist-life. +Do not go back to your drudgery."</p> + +<p>"Daily work," I answered, "must become mechanical work, if we perform it +in a servile way. A lawyer is perhaps inspired, when he is engaged in a +cause on which he thinks his reputation hangs; but, day by day, when he +goes down to the work that brings him his daily bread, he is quite as +likely to call it his drudgery as I my daily toil."</p> + +<p>She left her seat and walked with me towards a painting which hung not +far from us. It represented sunset upon the water. "The tender-curving +lines of creamy spray" were gathering up the beach; the light was +glistening across the waves; and shadows and light almost seemed to move +over the canvas.</p> + +<p>"There," said Miss Stuart, "is what I call work that is worthy. I know +there was inspiration in every touch of the brush. I know there was +happy life in the life that inspired that painting. It is worth while to +live and to show that one has been living in that way."</p> + +<p>"But I think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside +his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it +finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he +went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the +work,--because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy +was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The days of +drudgery hung heavily on the days of inspiration; and it was only when +he carried his heart into the most monotonous part of his work that he +found any inspiration in it, that he could feel he had accomplished +anything."</p> + +<p>We turned suddenly away into a room where we had not been before. I +could not notice the pictures that covered the walls for the sake of one +to which Miss Stuart led the way. After looking upon that, there could +be no thought of finding out any other. It possessed the whole room. The +inspiration which uplifted the eyes fell over the whole painting. We +looked at it silently, and it was not till we had left the building that +Miss Stuart said,--</p> + +<p>"We have seen there something which takes away all thought of artist or +style of painting or work. I have never been able to ask myself what is +the color of the eyes of that Madonna, or of her flowing hair, or the +tone of the drapery. I see only an expression that inspires the whole +figure, gives motion to the hands, life to the eyes, thought to the +lips, and soul to the whole being."</p> + +<p>"The whole inspiration, the whole work," I said, "is far above us. It is +quite above me. No, I am not an artist; my fingers do not tingle for the +brush. This is an inspiration I cannot reach; it floats above me. It +moves and touches me, but shows me my own powerlessness."</p> + +<p>I left Boston. I went back to winter, to my old home, to my every-day's +work. My work was not monotonous; or if one tone did often recur in it, +I built upon it, out of my heart and life, full chords of music. The +vision of Margaret Stuart came before my eyes in the midst of all +mechanical labor, in all the hours of leisure, in all the dreams of +night. My life, indeed, grew more varied than ever; for I found myself +more at ease with those around me, finding more happiness than I had +ever found before in my intercourse with others. I found more of myself +in them, more sympathy in their joy or sorrow, myself more of an equal +with those around me.</p> + +<p>The winter months passed quickly away. Mr. Clarkson frequently showed +his disappointment because the mills no longer produced the wonder of +last year. For me, it had almost passed out of my thoughts. It seemed +but a part of the baser fabric of that vision where Margaret Stuart +reigned supreme. I saw no way to help him; but more and more, daily, +rejoiced in the outer sunshine of the world, in the fresh, glowing +spring, in the flowers of May. So I was surprised again, when, near the +close of May, after a week of stormy weather, the sunlight broke through +the window where it had shone the year before. It hung a moment on the +threads of work,--then, seeming to spurn them, fell upon the ground.</p> + +<p>We were weaving, alas! a strange "arabesque pattern," as it was called, +with no special form,--so it seemed to my eyes,--bringing in gorgeous +colors, but set in no shape which Nature ever produced, either above the +earth or in metals or crystals hid far beneath. How I reproached myself, +on Mr. Clarkson's account, that I had not interceded, just for this one +day of sunshine, for some pattern that Nature might be willing to +acknowledge! But the hour was past, I knew it certainly, when the next +day the sun was clouded, and for many days we did not see its +face again.</p> + +<p>So the time passed away. Another summer came along, and another glowing +autumn, and that winter I did not go to Boston. Mr. Clarkson let me fall +back again into my commonplace existence. I was no longer more than one +of the common workmen. Perhaps, indeed, he looked upon, me with a +feeling of disappointment, as though a suddenly discovered diamond had +turned to charcoal in his hands. Sometimes he consulted me upon chemical +matters, finding I knew what the books held, but evidently feeling a +little disturbed that I never brought out any hidden knowledge.</p> + +<p>This second winter seemed more lonely to me. The star that had shone +upon me seemed farther away than ever. I could see it still. It was +hopelessly distant. My Juno! For a little while I could imagine she was +thinking of me, that my little name might be associated in her memory +with what we had talked of, what we had seen together, with some of the +high things which I knew must never leave her thoughts. But this +glimmering memory of me I knew must have faded away as her life went on, +varied as it was with change of faces, sounds of music, and whirl of +excitement. Then, too, I never heard her name mentioned. She was out of +my circle, as far away from my sphere as the heroines of those old +romances that I had read so long ago; but more life-like, more warm, +more sunny was her influence still. It uplifted my work, and crowned my +leisure with joy. I blessed the happy sunshine of that 27th of May, +which in a strange way had been the clue that led to my knowledge +of her.</p> + +<p>The longest winter-months melt away at last into spring, and so did +these. May came with her promises and blights of promise. Recalling, +this time, how sunshine would come with the latter end of May through +the dark walls, I begged of Mr. Clarkson that a favorite pattern of mine +might be put upon the looms. Its design was imagined by one of my +companions in my later walks. He was an artist of the mills, and had +been trying to bring within the rigid lines that were required some of +the grace and freedom of Nature. He had scattered here some water-lilies +among broad green leaves. My admiration for Nature, alas! had grown only +after severe cultivation among the strange forms which we carpet-makers +indulge in with a sort of mimicry of Nature. So I cannot be a fair judge +of this, even as a work of art. I see sometimes tapestries in a meadow +studded with buttercups, and I fancy patterns for carpets when I see a +leaf casting its shadow upon a stone. So I may be forgiven for saying +that these water-lilies were dear to me as seeming like Nature, as they +were lying upon their green leaves.</p> + +<p>Mr. Clarkson granted my request, and for a few days, this pattern was +woven by the machine. These trial-days I was excited from my usual +calmness. The first day the sunshine did not reach the narrow window. +The second day we had heavy storm and rain. But the third day, not far +from the expected hour, the sunshine burst through the little space. It +fell upon my golden threads; it seemed directly to embrace them +joyously, to encircle them closely. The sunlight seemed to incorporate +itself with the woolly fibre, to conceal itself among the work where the +shuttle chose to hide it. I fancied a sort of laughing joy, a clatter +and dash in the machinery itself, as though there were a happy time, +where was usually only a monotonous whirl. I could scarcely contain +myself till noon.</p> + +<p>When I left my room, I found, on inquiry, that Mr. Clarkson was not in +the building, and was to be away all day. I went out into the air for a +free breath, and looked up into the glowing sky, yet was glad to go back +again to my machines, which I fancied would greet me with an unwonted +joy. But, as I passed towards the stairway, I glanced into one of the +lower rooms, where some of the clerks were writing. I fancied Mr. +Clarkson might be there. There were women employed in this room, and +suddenly one who was writing at a desk attracted my attention. I did not +see her face; but the impression that her figure gave me haunted me as I +passed on. Some one passing me saw my disturbed look.</p> + +<p>"What have you seen? a ghost?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Who is writing in that room? Can you tell me?" I said.</p> + +<p>"You know them all," was his answer, "except the new-comer, Miss Stuart. +Have not you heard the talk of her history,--how the father has failed +and died and all that, and how the daughter is glad enough to get work +under Mr. Clarkson's patronage?"</p> + +<p>The bell was ringing that called me, and I could not listen to more. My +brain was whirling uncertainly, and I doubted if I ought to believe my +ears. I went back to my work more dazed and bewildered than ever in my +youthful days. I forgot the wonder of the morning. It was quite outshone +by the wonder of the afternoon. I longed for my hour of release. I +longed for a time for thought,--to learn whether what had been told me +could be true. When the time came, I hastened down-stairs; but I found +the door of the office closed. Its occupants had all gone. I hastened +through the village, turned back again, and on the bridge over the +little stream met Margaret Stuart. She was the same. It made no +difference what were her surroundings, she was the same; there was the +same wonderful glance, the same smile of repose. It made no difference +where or how I met her, she ruled me still. She greeted me with the same +air and manner as in her old home when I saw her first.</p> + +<p>She told me afterwards of the changes and misfortunes of the past year, +of her desire for independence, and how she found she was little able to +uphold it herself.</p> + +<p>"Some of my friends," she said, "were very anxious I should teach +singing,--I had such a delicious voice, which had been so well +cultivated. I could sing Italian opera-songs and the like. But I found I +could only sing the songs that pleased me, and it was doubtful whether +they would happen to suit the taste or the voice of those I should try +to teach. For, I must confess it, I have never cultivated my voice +except for my own pleasure, and never for the sake of the art. I did try +to teach music a little while, and, oh, it was hopeless! I remembered +some of our old talks about drudgery, and thought it had been a happy +thing for me, if I had ever learned how to drudge over anything. What I +mean is, I have never learned how to go through a monotonous duty, how +to give it an inspiration which would make it possible or endurable. It +would have been easier to summon up all my struggling for the sake of +one great act of duty. I did not know how to scatter it over work day +after day the same. Worse than all, in spite of all my education, I did +not know enough of music to teach it."</p> + +<p>She went on, not merely this evening, but afterwards, to tell me of the +different efforts she had made to earn a living for herself with the +help of kind friends.</p> + +<p>"At last," she said, "I bethought me of my handwriting, of the 'elegant' +notes which used to receive such praise; and when I met Mr. Clarkson one +day in Boston, I asked him what price he would pay me for it. I will +tell you that he was very kind, very thoughtful for me. He fancied the +work he had to offer would be distasteful to me; but he has made it as +agreeable, as easy to be performed, as can be done. My aunt was willing +to come here with me. She has just enough to live upon herself, and we +are likely to live comfortably together here. So I am trying that sort +of work you praised so much when you were with me; and I shall be glad, +if you can go on and show me what inspiration can bring into it."</p> + +<p>So day after day I saw her, and evening after evening we renewed the old +talks. The summer passed on, and the early morning found her daily at +her work, every day pursuing an unaccustomed labor. Her spirit seemed +more happy and joyous than ever. She seemed far more at home than in the +midst of crowded streets and gay, brilliant rooms. Her expression was +more earnest and spiritual than ever,--her life, I thought, gayer +and happier.</p> + +<p>So I thought till one evening, when we had walked far away down the +little stream that led out of the town. We stopped to look into its +waters, while she leaned against the trunk of a tree overshadowed it. We +watched the light and shade that nickered below, the shadow of the +clover-leaves, of the long reeds that hung almost across the stream. The +quiet was enhanced by the busy motion below, the bustle of little animal +life, the skimming of the water-insects, the tender rustling of the +leaves, and the gentle murmuring of the stream itself. Then I looked at +her, from the golden hair upon her head down to its shadow in the brook +below. I saw her hands folded over each other, and, suddenly, they +looked to me very thin and white and very weary. I looked at her again, +and her whole posture was one of languor and weariness,--the languor of +the body, not a weariness of the soul. There was a happy smile on the +lips, and a gleam of happiness from under the half-closed eyes. But, oh, +so tired and faint did the slender body look that I almost feared to see +the happier spirit leave it, as though it were incumbered by something +which could not follow it.</p> + +<p>"Margaret!" I exclaimed. "You are wearing yourself away. You were never +made for such labor. You cannot learn this sort of toil. You are of the +sunshine, to play above the dusty earth, to gladden the dreary places. +Look at my hands, that are large for work,--at my heavy shoulders, +fitted to bear the yoke. Let me work for us both, and you shall still be +the inspiration of my work, and the sunshine that makes it gold. The +work we talked of is drudgery for you; you cannot bear it."</p> + +<p>I think she would not agree to what I said about her work. She "had +began to learn how to find life in every-day work, just as she saw a new +sun rise every day." But she did agree that we would work together, +without asking where our sunshine came from, or our inspiration.</p> + +<p>So it was settled. And her work was around and within the old +"natural-colored" house, whose walls by this time were half-embowered in +vines. There was gay sunshine without and within. And the lichen was +yellow that grew on the deeply sloping roof, and we liked to plant +hollyhocks and sunflowers by the side of the quaint old building, while +scarlet honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers and gay convolvuli gladdened +the front porch.</p> + +<p>There was but one question that was left to be disputed between us. +Margaret still believed I was an artist, all-undeveloped.</p> + +<p>"Those sunbeams"--</p> + +<p>"I had nothing to do with them. They married golden threads that seemed +kindred to them."</p> + +<p>"It is not true. Sunbeams cannot exist without the sun. Your magnetic +power, perhaps, attracted the true sunbeam, and you recreated others."</p> + +<p>She fancies, if I would only devote myself to Art, I might become an +American Murillo, and put a Madonna upon canvas.</p> + +<p>But before we carried the new sunshine into the old house, I had been +summoned again by Mr. Clarkson. Another wonderful piece of carpeting had +gone out from the works, discovered by our agent before it had left our +warehouse. It was the Water-Lily pattern,--lilies sitting among green +leaves with sunshine playing in and out and among them. So dazzling it +seemed, that it shed a light all round the darkened walls of the +warehouse. It was priceless, he thought, a perfect unique. Better, +almost, that never such a pattern should appear again. It ought to +remain the only one in the world.</p> + +<p>And it did so remain. The rival establishment built a new chimney to +their mill, which shut out completely all sunshine or hope of sunshine +from our narrow windows. This was accomplished before the next May, and +I showed Mr. Clarkson how utterly impossible it was for the most +determined sunbeam ever to mingle itself with our most inviting fabrics. +Mr. Clarkson pondered a long time. We might build our establishment a +story higher; we might attempt to move it. But here were solid changes, +and the hopes were uncertain. Affairs were going on well, and the +reputation of the mills was at its height. And the carpets of sunshine +were never repeated.</p> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>THE TWO TONGUES.</h2> +<br> + +<p>Whoever would read a profound political pamphlet under the guise of a +brilliant novel may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay +overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the +curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the <i>prolétaire</i> +in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness, +and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober truth of present +history. And we are often tempted to bind up the novel of the dashing +Parliamenteer with our copy of "Ivanhoe," that we may thus have, side by +side, from the pens of the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli and Sir +Walter Scott, the beginning and the end of these eight hundred years of +struggle between Norman rule and Saxon endurance. For let races and +families change as they will, there have ever been in England two +nations; and the old debate of Wamba and Gurth in the forest-glade by +Rotherwood is illustrated by the unconscious satires of last week's +"Punch." In Chartism, Reform-Bills, and Strikes, in the etiquette which +guards the Hesperides of West-End society, in the rigid training which +stops many an adventurer midway in his career, are written the old +characters of the forest-laws of Rufus and the Charter of John. Races +and families change, but the distinction endures, is stamped upon all +things pertaining to both.</p> + +<p>We in America, who boast our descent from this matrimony of Norman and +Saxon, claim also that we have blent the features of the two into one +homogeneous people. In this country, where the old has become new, and +the new is continually losing its raw lustre before the glitter of some +fresher splendor, the traces of the contest are all but obliterated. +Only our language has come to us with the brand of the fatherland upon +it. In our mother-tongue prevails the same principle of dualism, the +same conflict of elements, which not all the lethean baptism of the +Atlantic could wash out. The two nations of England survive in the two +tongues of America.</p> + +<p>We beg the reluctant reader not to prematurely pooh-pooh as a "miserable +mouse" this conclusion, thinking that we are only serving up again that +old story of Wamba and Gurth with an added <i>sauce-piquante</i> from Dean +Trench. We admit that we allude to that original composition of English +past and present from a Latin and a Teutonic stock. But that is to us +not an ultimate, but a primal fact. It is the premise from which we +propose to trace out the principle now living and working in our present +speech. We commence our history with that strife of the tongues which +had at the outset also their battle of Hastings, their field of Sanilac. +There began the feud which to-day continues to divide our language, +though the descendants of the primitive stocks are inextricably mingled.</p> + +<p>For it is as in "Sibyl." That novel showed us the peer's descendants at +the workman's forge, while the manufacturer's grandchildren were wearing +the ermine and the strawberry-leaves. There is the constant passing to +and fro across the one border-line which never changes. Dandy Mick and +Devilsdust save a little money and become "respectable." We can follow +out their history after Mr. Disraeli leaves them. They marry Harriet and +Caroline, and contrive to educate a sharp boy or two, who will rise to +become superintendents in the mills and to speculate in cotton-spinning. +They in turn send into trade, with far greater advantages, their sons. +The new generation, still educating, and, faithful to the original +impulse, putting forth its fresh and aspiring tendrils, gets one boy +into the church, another at the bar, and keeps a third at the great +<i>Rouge-et-Noir</i> table of commerce. Some one of their stakes has a run of +luck. Either it is my Lord Eldon who sits on the wool-sack, or the young +curate bids his Oxford laurels against a head-mastership of a public +school and covers his baldness with a mitre, or Jones Lloyd steps from +his back parlor into the carriage which is to take Lord Overstone to the +House of Peers. From the day when young Osborne, the bold London +'prentice, leaped into the Thames to fish up thence his master's +daughter, and brought back, not only the little lady, but the ducal +coronet of Leeds in prospective, to that when Thomas Newcome the elder +walked up to the same London that he might earn the "bloody hand" for +Sir Brian and Sir Barnes, English life has been full of such gallant +achievements.</p> + +<p>So it has been with the words these speak. The phrases of the noble +Canon Chaucer have fallen to the lips of peasants and grooms, while many +a pert Cockney saying has elbowed its sturdy way into her Majesty's High +Court of Parliament. Yet still there are two tongues flowing through our +daily talk and writing, like the Missouri and Mississippi, with distinct +and contrasted currents.</p> + +<p>And this appears the more strikingly in this country, where other +distinctions are lost. We have an aristocracy of language, whose +phrases, like the West-End men of "Sibyl," are effeminate, extravagant, +conventional, and prematurely worn-out. These words represent ideas +which are theirs only by courtesy and conservatism, like the law-terms +of the courts, or the "cant" of certain religious books. We have also a +plebeian tongue, whose words are racy, vigorous, and healthy, but which +men look askance at, when met in polite usage, in solemn literature, and +in sermons. Norman and Saxon are their relative positions, as in the old +time when "Ox" was for the serf who drove a-field the living animal, and +"Beef" for the baron who ate him; but their lineage is counter-crossed +by a hundred, nay, a thousand vicissitudes.</p> + +<p>With this aristocracy of speech we are all familiar. We do not mean with +the speech of our aristocracy, which is quite another thing, but that +which is held appropriate for "great occasions," for public parade, and +for pen, ink, and types. It is cherished where all aristocracies +flourish best,--in the "rural districts." There is a style and a class +of words and phrases belonging to country newspapers, and to the city +weeklies which have the largest bucolic circulation, which you detect in +the Congressional eloquence of the honorable member for the Fifteenth +District, Mass., and in the Common-School Reports of Boston Corner,--a +style and words that remind us of the country gentry whose titles date +back to the Plantagenets. They look so strangely beside the brisk, +dapper curtnesses in which metropolitan journals transact their daily +squabbles! We never write one of them out without an involuntary +addition of quotation-marks, as a New-Yorker puts to his introduction of +his verdant cousin the supplementary, "From the Jerseys." Their +etymological Herald's Office is kept by schoolmasters, and especially +schoolma'ams, or, in the true heraldic tongue, "Preceptresses of +Educational Seminaries." You may find them in Mr. Hobbs, Jr.'s, +celebrated tale of "The Bun-Baker of Cos-Cob," or in Bowline's thrilling +novelette of "Beauty and Booty, or The Black Buccaneer of the Bermudas." +They glitter in the train of "Napoleon and his Marshals," and look down +upon us from the heights of "The Sacred Mountains."</p> + +<p>Occasionally you will find them degraded from their high estate and +fallen among the riff-raff of slang. They become "seedy" words, stripped +of their old meaning, mere <i>chevaliers d'industrie</i>, yet with something +of the air noble about them which distinguishes them from the born +"cad." The word "convey" once suffered such eclipse, (we are glad to say +it has come up again,) and consorted, unless Falstaff be mistaken, with +such low blackguards as "nim" and "cog" and "prig" and similar +"flash" terms.</p> + +<p>But we do not propose to linger among the "upper-ten" of the +dictionaries. The wont of such is to follow the law of hereditary +aristocracies: the old blood gets thin, there is no sparkle to the +<i>sangre azul</i>, the language dies out in poverty. The strong, new, +popular word forces its way up, is heard at the bar, gets quoted in the +pulpit, slips into the outer ring of good society. King Irving or King +Emerson lays his pen across its shoulder and it rises up ennobled, till +finally it is accepted of the "Atlantic Monthly," and its +court-presentation is complete.</p> + +<p>We have thus indicated the nature of the great contest in language +between the conventional and the idiomatic. Idioms are just what their +name implies. They are the commonalty of language,--private, proletarian +words, who do the work, "<i>dum alteri tulerunt honores</i>." They come to us +from all handiworks and callings, where you will always find them at +their posts. Sharp, energetic, incisive, they do the hard labor of +speech,--that of carrying heavy loads of thought and shaping new ideas.</p> + +<p>We think them vulgar at first, and savoring of the shop; but they are +useful and handy, and we cannot do without them. They rivet, they forge, +they coin, they "fire up," "brake up," "switch off," "prospect," "shin" +for us when we are "short," "post up" our books, and finally ourselves, +"strike a lead," "follow a trail," "stand up to the rack," "dicker," +"swap," and "peddle." They are "whole teams" beside the "one-horse" +vapidities which fail to bear our burdens. The Norman cannot keep down +the Saxon. The Saxon finds his Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Now "Mose" brings +his Bowery Boys into our parlor, or Cromwell Judd recruits his Ironsides +from the hamlets of the Kennebec.</p> + +<p>We declare for the prolétaires. We vote the working-words ticket. We +have to plead the cause of American idioms. Some of them have, as we +said, good blood in them and can trace their lineage and standing to the +English Bible and Book of Common Prayer; others are "new men," born +under hedge-rows and left as foundlings at furnace-doors. And before we +go farther, we have a brief story to tell in illustration of the +two tongues.</p> + +<p>A case of assault and battery was tried in a Western court. The +plaintiff's counsel informed the jury in his opening, that he was +"prepared to prove that the defendant, a steamboat-captain, menaced his +client, an English traveller, and put him in bodily fear, commanding him +to vacate the avenue of the steamboat with his baggage, or he would +precipitate him into the river." The evidence showed that the captain +called out,--"Stranger, ef you don't tote your plunder off that +gang-plank, I'll spill you in the drink."</p> + +<p>We submit that for terseness and vigor the practitioner at the bar of +the Ohio had the better of the learned counsel who appeared at the bar +of justice, albeit his client was in a Cockney mystification at +the address.</p> + +<p>The illustration will serve our turn. It points to a class of phrases +which are indigenous to various localities of the land, in which the +native thought finds appropriate, bold, and picturesque utterance. And +these in time become incorporate into the universal tongue. Of them is +the large family of political phrases. These are coined in moments of +intense excitement, struck out at white heat, or, to follow our leading +metaphor, like the speakers who use them, come upon the stump in their +shirt-sleeves. Every campaign gives us a new horde. Some die out at +once; others felicitously tickle the public ear and ring far and wide. +They "speak for Buncombe," are Barn-Burners, Old Hunkers, Hard Shells, +Soft Shells, Log-Rollers, Pipe-Layers, Woolly Heads, Silver Grays, +Locofocos, Fire-Eaters, Adamantines, Free Soilers, Freedom Shriekers, +Border Ruffians. They spring from a bon-mot or a retort. The log-cabin +and hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the +Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers +may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious +arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, to transfer the balance of +power to his own party. One of his opponents, poring over the map of the +Commonwealth, was struck by the odd look of the geographical lines which +thus were drawn, curving in and out among the towns and counties. "It +looks," said he, "like a Salamander." "Looks like a <i>Gerry</i>-mander!" +ejaculated another; and the term stuck long and closely.</p> + +<p>Now and then you have the aristocratic and democratic sides of an idea +in use at the same time. Those who style themselves "Gentlemen of the +Press" are known to the rest of mankind as "Dead Heads,"--being, for +paying purposes, literally, <i>capita mortua</i>.</p> + +<p>So, too, our colleges are provided, over and above the various dead +languages of their classic curriculum, with the two tongues. The one +serves the young gentlemen, especially in their Sophomoric maturity, +with appropriate expressions for their literary exercises and public +flights. The other is for their common talk, tells who "flunked" and was +"deaded," who "fished" with the tutor, who "cut" prayers, and who was +"digging" at home. Each college, from imperial Harvard and lordly Yale +to the freshest Western "Institution," whose three professors fondly +cultivate the same number of aspiring Alumni, has its particular dialect +with its quadrennial changes. The just budded Freshmen of the class of +'64 could hardly without help decipher "The Rebelliad," which in the +Consulship of Plancus Kirkland was the epic of the day. The good old +gentlemen who come up to eat Commencement dinners and to sing with +quavery voices the annual psalm thereafter, are bewildered in the mazes +of the college-speech of their grandsons. Whence come these phrases few +can tell. Like witty Dr. S------'s "quotation," which never was +anything else, they started in life as sayings, springing full-grown, +like Pallas Athene, from the laboring brain of some Olympic Sophister. +Here in the quiet of our study in the country, we wonder if the boys +continue as in our day to "create a shout," instead of "making a call," +upon their lady acquaintances,--if they still use "ponies,"--if they +"group," and get, as we did, "parietals" and "publics" for the same.</p> + +<p>The police courts contribute their quota. Baggage-smashing, +dog-smudging, ring-dropping, watch-stuffing, the patent-safe men, the +confidence men, garroters, shysters, policy-dealers, mock-auction Peter +Funks, bogus-ticket swindlers, are all terms which have more or less +outgrown the bounds of their Alsatia of Thieves' Latin and are known +of men.</p> + +<p>Even the pulpit, with its staid decorums, has its idioms, which it +cannot quite keep to itself. We hear in the religious world of +"professors," and "monthly concerts," (which mean praying, and not +psalmody,) of "sensation-preaching," (which takes the place of the +"painful" preaching of old times,) of "platform-speakers," of +"revival-preachers," of "broad pulpits," and "Churches of the Future," +of the "Eclipse of Faith" and the "Suspense of Faith," of "liberal" +Christians, (with no reference to the contribution-plates,) of +"subjective" and "objective" sermons, "Spurgeonisms," and "businessmen's +meetings." And we can never think without a smile of that gifted genius, +whoever he was, who described a certain public exercise as <i>"the most +eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience."</i> He surely created +a new and striking idiom.</p> + +<p>The boys do, as Young America should, their share. And the sayings of +street urchins endure with singular tenacity. Like their sports, which +follow laws of their own, uninfluenced by meteorological considerations, +tending to the sedentary games of marbles in the cold, chilly spring, +and bursting into base-and foot-ball in the midsummer solstice, strict +tradition hands down from boy to boy the well-worn talk. There are still +"busters," as in our young days, and the ardent youth upon floating +cakes of ice "run bendolas" or "kittly-benders," or simply "benders." In +different latitudes the phrase varies,--one-half of it going to Plymouth +Colony, and the other abiding in Massachusetts Bay. And this tendency to +dismember a word is curiously shown in that savory fish which the Indian +christened "scup-paug." Eastward he swims as "scup," while at the +Manhattan end of the Sound he is fried as "porgie." And apropos of him, +let us note a curious instance of the tenacity of associated ideas. The +street boys of our day and early home were wont to term the <i>hetairai</i> +of the public walks "scup." The young Athenians applied to the classic +courtesans the epithet of [Greek: saperdion], the name of a small fish +very abundant in the Black Sea. Here now is a bit of slang which may +fairly be warranted to keep fresh in any climate.</p> + +<p>But boy-talk is always lively and pointed; not at all precise, but very +prone to prosopopeia; ever breaking out of the bounds of legitimate +speech to invent new terms of its own. Dr. Busby addresses Brown, Jr., +as Brown Secundus, and speaks to him of his "young companions." Brown +himself talks of "the chaps," or "the fellows," who in turn know Brown +only as Tom Thumb. The power of nicknaming is a school-boy gift, which +no discouragement of parents and guardians can crush out, and which +displays thoroughly the idiomatic faculty. For a man's name was once +<i>his</i>, the distinctive mark by which the world got at his identity. +Long, Short, White, Black, Greathead, Longshanks, etc., told what a +person in the eyes of men the owner presented. The hereditary or +aristocratic process has killed this entirely. Men no longer make their +names; even the poor foundlings, like Oliver Twist, are christened +alphabetically by some Bumble the Beadle. But the nickname restores his +lost rights, and takes the man at once out of the <i>ignoble vulgus</i> to +give him identity. We recognize this gift and are proud of our +nicknames, when we can get them to suit us. Only the sharp judgment of +our peers reverses our own heraldry and sticks a surname like a burr +upon us. The nickname is the idiom of nomenclature. The sponsorial +appellation is generally meaningless, fished piously out of Scripture or +profanely out of plays and novels, or given with an eye to future +legacies, or for some equally insufficient reason apart from the name +itself. So that the gentleman who named his children One, Two, and +Three, was only reducing to its lowest term the prevailing practice. But +the nickname abides. It has its hold in affection. When the "old boys" +come together in Gore Hall at their semi-centennial Commencement, or the +"Puds" or "Pores" get together after long absence, it is not to inquire +what has become of the Rev. Dr. Heavysterne or his Honor Littleton Coke, +but it is, "Who knows where Hockey Jones is?" and "Did Dandy Glover +really die in India?" and "Let us go and call upon Old Sykes" or "Old +Roots" or "Old Conic-Sections,"--thus meaning to designate +Professor----, LL.D., A.A.S., F.R.S., etc. A college president who had +no nickname would prove himself, <i>ipso facto</i>, unfit for his post. It is +only dreadfully affected people who talk of "Tully"; the sensible all +cling to the familiar "Chick-Pea" or Cicero, by which the wart-faced +orator was distinguished. For it is not the boys only, but all American +men, who love nicknames, the idioms of nomenclature. The first thing +which is done, after a nominating convention has made its platform and +balloted for its candidates, is to discover or invent a nickname: Old +Hickory, Tippecanoe, The Little Giant, The Little Magician, The Mill-Boy +of the Slashes, Honest John, Harry of the West, Black Dan, Old Buck, Old +Rough and Ready. A "good name" is a tower of strength and many votes.</p> + +<p>And not only with candidates for office, the spots on whose "white +garments" are eagerly sought for and labelled, but in the names of +places and classes the principle prevails, the democratic or Saxon +tongue gets the advantage. Thus, we have for our states, cities, and +ships-of-war the title of fondness which drives out the legal title of +ceremony. Are we not "Yankees" to the world, though to the diplomatists +"citizens of the United States of America"? We have a Union made up upon +the map of Maine, New Hampshire, etc., to California; we have another in +the newspapers, composed of the Lumber State, the Granite State, the +Green-Mountain State, the Nutmeg State, the Empire State, the Keystone +State, the Blue Hen, the Old Dominion, of Hoosiers, Crackers, Suckers, +Badgers, Wolverines, the Palmetto State, and Eldorado. We have the +Crescent City, the Quaker City, the Empire City, the Forest City, the +Monumental City, the City of Magnificent Distances. We hear of Old +Ironsides sent to the Mediterranean to relieve the Old Tea-Wagon, +ordered home. Everywhere there obtains the Papal principle of taking a +new title upon succeeding to any primacy. The Norman imposed his laws +upon England; the courts, the parish-registers, the Acts of Parliament +were all his; but to this day there are districts of the Saxon Island +where the postman and census-taker inquire in vain for Adam Smith and +Benjamin Brown, but must perforce seek out Bullhead and Bandyshins. So +indomitable is the Saxon.</p> + +<p>We have not done yet with our national idioms. In the seaboard towns +nautical phrases make tarry the talk of the people. "Where be you +a-cruising to?" asks one Nantucket matron of her gossip. "Sniver-dinner, +I'm going to Egypt; Seth B. has brought a letter from Turkey-wowner to +Old Nancy." "Dressed-to-death-and-drawers-empty, don't you see we're +goin' to have a squall? You had better take in your stu'n'-sails." The +good woman was dressed up, intending, "<i>as soon as ever</i> dinner was +over," to go, not to the land of the Pharaohs, but to the negro-quarter +of the town, with a letter which "Seth B." (her son, thus identified by +his middle letter) had brought home from Talcahuana.</p> + +<p>For the rural idioms we refer the reader to the late Sylvester Judd's +"Margaret" and "Richard Edney," and to the Jack Downing Letters.</p> + +<p>The town is not behind the country. For, whatever is the current fancy, +pugilism, fire-companies, racing, railway-building, or the opera, its +idioms invade the talk. The Almighty Dollar of our worship has more +synonymes than the Roman Pantheon had divinities. We are not +"well-informed," but "posted" or "posted up." We are not "hospitably +entreated" any more, but "put through." We do not "meet with +misadventure," but "see the elephant," which we often do through the +Hibernian process of "fighting the tiger."</p> + +<p>Purists deplore this, but it is inevitable; and if one searches beneath +the surface, there is often a curious deposit of meaning, sometimes +auriferous enough to repay our use of cradle and rocker. We "panned +out," the other day, a phrase which gave us great delight, and which +illustrated a fact in New England history worth noting. We were puzzling +over the word "socdollager," which Bartlett, we think, defines as +"Anything very large and striking,"--<i>Anglicé</i>, a "whopper,"--"also a +peculiar fish-hook." The word first occurs in print, we believe, in Mr. +Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of +Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that +there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon +us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology." +This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or +"j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis, +both because its words were familiar to all without book, and because it +served instead of the chanted creed of their Anglican forefathers. The +last thing, after which nothing could properly follow, the most +important and most conspicuous of all, it represented to our Yankee +Walton the crowning hope of his life,--the big bass, after taking which +he might put hook-and-line on the shelf. By a slight transposition, +natural enough to untrained organs, "doxology" became "socdollager."</p> + +<p>We are not making a dictionary of Americanisms, but merely wandering a +little way into our native forests. We refer to the prevalent habit of +idiomatic speech as a fact that makes part of our literature. It cannot +be ignored, nor do we see how it is to be avoided. It is well, of +course, to retain the sterling classic basis of our speech as we +received it from abroad, and to this all that is best and purest in our +literature past and present will tend. But we hold to no Know-Nothing +platform which denies a right of naturalization to the worthy. As Ruskin +says of the river, that it does not make its bed, but finds it, seeking +out, with infinite pains, its appointed channel, so thought will seek +its expression, guided by its inner laws of association and sympathy. If +the mind and heart of a nation become barbarized, no classic culture can +keep its language from corruption. If its ideas are ignoble, it will +turn to the ignoble and vulgar side of every word in its tongue, it will +affix the mean sense it desires to utter where it had of old no place. +It converts the prince's palace into a stable or an inn; it pulls down +the cathedral and the abbey to use the materials for the roads on which +it tramples. It is good to sanctify language by setting some of its +portions apart for holy uses,--at least, by preserving intact the high +religious association which rests upon it. The same silver may be +moulded to the altar-chalice or the Bacchic goblet; but we touch the one +with reverent and clean hands, while the other is tossed aside in the +madness of the revel. Men clamor for a new version of the Sacred +Scriptures, and profess to be shocked at its plain outspokenness, +forgetting that to the pure all things are pure, and that to the +prurient all things are foul. It was a reverent and a worshipping age +that gave us that treasure, and so long as we have the temper of +reverence and worship we shall not ask to change it.</p> + +<p>And to return once more to our original illustration. We have the two +nations also in us, the Norman and the Saxon, the dominant and the +aspiring, the patrician and the <i>prolétaire</i>. The one rules only by +right of rule, the other rises only by right of rising. The power of +conservatism perishes, when there is no longer anything to keep; the +might of radicalism overflows into excess, when the proper check is +taken away or degraded. So long as the noble is noble and "<i>noblesse +oblige</i>," so long as Church and State are true to their guiding and +governing duties, the elevation of the base is the elevation of the +whole. If the standards of what is truly aristocratic in our language +are standards of nobility of thought, they will endure and draw up to +them, on to the episcopal thrones and into the Upper House of letters, +all that is most worthy. Whatever makes the nation's life will make its +speech. War was once the career of the Norman, and he set the seal of +its language upon poetry. Agriculture was the Saxon's calling, and he +made literature a mirror of the life he led. We in this new land are +born to new heritages, and the terms of our new life must be used to +tell our story. The Herald's College gives precedence to the +Patent-Office, and the shepherd's pipe to the steam-whistle. And since +all literature which can live stands only upon the national speech, we +must look for our hopes of coming epics and immortal dramas to the +language of the land, to its idioms, in which its present soul abides +and breathes, and not to its classicalities, which are the empty shells +upon its barren sea-shore.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>MIDSUMMER AND MAY.</h2> + +<p>[Continued.]</p> +<br> +<p>II.</p> + +<p>When Miss Kent, the maternal great-aunt of Mr. Raleigh, devised her +property, the will might possibly have been set aside as that of a +monomaniac, but for the fact that he cared too little about anything to +go to law for it, and for the still more important fact that the +heirs-at-law were sufficiently numerous to ingulf the whole property and +leave no ripple to attest its submerged existence, had he done so; and +on deserting it, he was better pleased to enrich the playfellow of his +childhood than a host of unknown and unloved individuals. I cannot say +that he did not more than once regret what he had lost: he was not of a +self-denying nature, as we know; on the contrary, luxurious and +accustomed to all those delights of life generally to be procured only +through wealth. But, for all that, there had been intervals, ere his +thirteen years' exile ended, in which, so far from regret, he +experienced a certain joy at remembrance of this rough and rugged point +of time where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to one of action +and freedom and real life. He had been happy in reaching India before +his uncle's death, in applying his own clear understanding to the +intricate entanglements of the affairs before him, in rescuing his +uncle's commercial good name, and in securing thus for himself a +foothold on the ladder of life, although that step had not occurred to +him till thrust there by the pressure of circumstances. For the rest, I +am not sure that Mr. Raleigh did not find his path suiting him well +enough. There was no longer any charm in home; he was forbidden to think +of it. That strange summer, that had flashed into his life like the +gleam of a carnival-torch into quiet rooms, must be forgotten; the forms +that had peopled it, in his determination, should become shadows. +Valiant vows! Yet there must have come moments, in that long lapse of +days and years, when the whole season gathered up its garments and swept +imperiously through his memory: nights, when, under the shadow of the +Himmaleh, the old passion rose at spring-tide and flooded his heart and +drowned out forgetfulness, and a longing asserted itself, that, if +checked as instantly by honor as despair, was none the less insufferable +and full of pain,--warm, wide, Southern nights, when all the stars, +great and golden, leaned out of heaven to meet him, and all ripe +perfumes, wafted by their own principle of motion, floated in the rich +dusk and laden air about him, and the phantom of snow on topmost heights +sought vainly to lend him its calm. Days also must have showered their +fervid sunshine on him, as he journeyed through plains of rice, where +all the broad reaches whitening to harvest filled him with intense and +bitterest loneliness. What region of spice did not recall the noons when +they two had trampled the sweet-fern on wide, high New England pastures, +and breathed its intoxicating fragrance? and what forest of the tropics, +what palms, what blooms, what gorgeous affluence of color and of growth, +equalled the wood on the lake-shores, with its stately hemlocks, its +joyous birches, its pale-blue, shadow-blanched violets? Nor was this +regret, that had at last become a part of the man's identity, entirely a +selfish one. He had no authority whatever for his belief, yet believe he +did, that, firmly and tenderly as he loved, he was loved, and of the two +fates his was not the harder. But a man, a man, too, in the stir of the +world, has not the time for brooding over the untoward events of his +destiny that a woman has; his tender memories are forever jostled by +cent. per cent.; he meets too many faces to keep the one in constant and +unchanging perpetuity sacredly before his thought. And so it happened +that Mr. Raleigh became at last a silent, keen-eyed man, with the shadow +of old and enduring melancholy on his life, but with no certain +sorrow there.</p> + +<p>In the course of time his business-connections extended themselves; he +was associated with other men more intent than he upon their aim; +although not wealthy, years might make him so; his name commanded +respect. Something of his old indifference lingered about him; it was +seldom that he was in earnest; he drifted with the tide, and, except to +maintain a clear integrity before God and men and his own soul, exerted +scarcely an effort. It was not an easy thing for him to break up any +manner of life; and when it became necessary for one of the firm to +visit America, and he as the most suitable was selected, he assented to +the proposition with not a heart-beat. America was as flat a wilderness +to him as the Desert of Sahara. On landing in India, he had felt like a +semi-conscious sleeper in his dream, the country seemed one of +phantasms: the Lascars swarming in the port,--the merchants wrapped in +snowy muslins, who moved like white-robed bronzes faintly animate,--the +strange faces, modes, and manners,--the stranger beasts, immense, and +alien to his remembrance; all objects that crossed his vision had seemed +like a series of fantastic shows; he could have imagined them to be the +creations of a heated fancy or the weird deceits of some subtle draught +of magic. But now they had become more his life than the scenes which he +had left; this land with its heats and its languors had slowly and +passively endeared itself to him; these perpetual summers, the balms and +blisses of the South, had unconsciously become a need of his nature. One +day all was ready for his departure; and in the clipper ship Osprey, +with a cargo for Day, Knight, and Company, Mr. Raleigh bade farewell +to India.</p> + +<p>The Osprey was a swift sailer and handled with consummate skill, so that +I shall not venture to say in how few days she had weathered the Cape, +and, ploughing up the Atlantic, had passed the Windward Islands, and off +the latter had encountered one of the severest gales in Captain +Tarbell's remembrance, although he was not new to shipwreck. If Mr. +Raleigh had found no time for reflection in the busy current of affairs, +when, ceasing to stand aside, he had mingled in the turmoil and become a +part of the generations of men, he could not fail to find it in this +voyage, not brief at best, and of which every day's progress must assure +him anew toward what land and what people he was hastening. Moreover, +Fate had woven his lot, it seemed, inextricably among those whom he +would shun; for Mr. Laudersdale himself was deeply interested in the +Osprey's freight, and it would be incumbent upon him to extend his +civilities to Mr. Raleigh. But Mr. Raleigh was not one to be cozened by +circumstances more than by men.</p> + +<p>The severity of the gale, which they had met some three days since, had +entirely abated; the ship was laid to while the slight damage sustained +was undergoing repair, and rocked heavily under the gray sky on the +long, sullen swell and roll of the grayer waters. Mr. Raleigh had just +come upon deck at dawn, where he found every one in unaccountable +commotion. "Ship to leeward in distress," was all the answer his +inquiries could obtain, while the man on the topmast was making his +observations. Mr. Raleigh could see nothing, but every now and then the +boom of a gun came faintly over the distance. The report having been +made, it was judged expedient to lower a boat and render her such +assistance as was possible. Mr. Raleigh never could tell how it came to +pass that he found himself one of the volunteers in this +dangerous service.</p> + +<p>The disabled vessel proved to be a schooner from the West Indies in a +sinking condition. A few moments sufficed to relieve a portion of her +passengers, sad wretches who for two days had stared death in the face, +and they pulled back toward the Osprey. A second and third journey +across the waste, and the remaining men prepared to lower the last woman +into the boat, when a stout, but extremely pale individual, who could no +longer contain his frenzy of fear, clambered down the chains and dropped +in her place. There was no time to be lost, and nothing to do but +submit; the woman was withdrawn to wait her turn with the captain and +crew, and the laden boat again labored back to the ship. Each trip in +the heavy sea and the blinding rain occupied no less than a couple of +hours, and it was past noon when, uncertain just before if she might yet +be there, they again came within sight of the little schooner, slowly +and less slowly settling to her doom. As they approached her at last, +Mr. Raleigh could plainly detect the young woman standing at a little +distance from the anxious group, leaning against the broken mast with +crossed arms, and looking out over the weary stretch with pale, grave +face and quiet eyes. At the motion of the captain, she stepped forward, +bound the ropes about herself, and was swung over the side to await the +motion of the boat, as it slid within reach on the top of the long wave, +or receded down its shining, slippery hollow. At length one swell brought +it nearer, Mr. Raleigh's arms snatched the slight form and drew her +half-fainting into the boat, a cloak was tossed after, and one by one +the remainder followed; they were all safe, and some beggared. The bows +of the schooner already plunged deep down in the gaping gulfs, they +pulled bravely away, and were tossed along from billow to billow.</p> + +<p>"You are very uncomfortable, Mademoiselle Le Blanc?" asked the rescued +captain at once of the young woman, as she sat beside him in the +stern-sheets.</p> + +<p>"<i>Moi?</i>" she replied. "<i>Mais non, Monsieur.</i>"</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh wrapped the cloak about her, as she spoke. They were +equidistant from the two vessels, neither of which was to be seen, the +rain fell fast into the hissing brine, their fate still uncertain. There +was something strangely captivating and reassuring in this young girl's +equanimity, and he did not cease speculating thereon till they had again +reached the Osprey, and she had disappeared below.</p> + +<p>By degrees the weather lightened; the Osprey was on the wing again, and +a week's continuance of this fair wind would bring them into port. The +next day, toward sunset, as Mr. Raleigh turned about in his regular +pacing of the deck, he saw at the opposite extremity of the ship the +same slight figure dangerously perched upon the taffrail, leaning over, +now watching the closing water, and now eagerly shading her eyes with +her hand to observe the ship which they spoke, as they lay head to the +wind, and for a better view of which she had climbed to this position. +It was not Mr. Raleigh's custom to interfere; if people chose to drown +themselves, he was not the man to gainsay them; but now, as his walk +drew him toward her, it was the most natural thing in the world to pause +and say,--</p> + +<p>"<i>Il serait fâcheux, Mademoiselle, lorsqu' on a failli faire naufrage, +de se noyer</i>"--and, in want of a word, Mr. Raleigh ignominiously +descended to his vernacular--"with a lee-lurch."</p> + +<p>The girl, resting on the palm of one hand, and unsupported otherwise, +bestowed upon him no reply, and did not turn her head. Mr. Raleigh +looked at her a moment, and then continued his walk. Returning, the +thing happened as he had predicted, and, with a little quick cry, +Mademoiselle Le Blanc was hanging by her hands among the ropes. Reaching +her with a spring, "<i>Viens, petite!</i>" he said, and with an effort placed +her on her feet again before an alarm could have been given.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah! mais je crus c'en était fait de moi!</i>" she exclaimed, drawing in +her breath like a sob. In an instant, however, surveying Mr. Raleigh, +the slight emotion seemed to yield to one of irritation, that she had +been rescued by him; for she murmured quickly, in English, head +haughtily thrown back and eyes downcast,--"Monsieur thinks that I owe +him much for having saved my life!"</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle best knows its worth," said he, rather amused, and turning +away.</p> + +<p>The girl was still looking down; now, however, she threw after him a +quick glance.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tenez!</i>" said she, imperiously, and stepping toward him. "You fancy me +very ungrateful," she continued, lifting her slender hand, and with the +back of it brushing away the floating hair at her temples. "Well, I am +not, and at some time it may be that I prove it. I do not like to owe +debts; but, since I must, I will not try to cancel them with thanks."</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh bowed, but said nothing. She seemed to think it necessary to +efface any unpleasant impression, and, with a little more animation and +a smile, added,--</p> + +<p>"The Captain Tarbell told me your name, Mr. Raleigh, and that you had +not been at home for thirteen years. <i>Ni moi non plus</i>,--at least, I +suppose it is home where I am going; yet I remember no other than the +island and my"--</p> + +<p>And here the girl opened her eyes wide, as if determined that they +should not fill with tears, and looked out over the blue and sparkling +fields around them. There was a piquancy in her accent that made the +hearer wish to hear further, and a certain artlessness in her manner not +met with recently by him. He moved forward, keeping her beside him.</p> + +<p>"Then you are not French," he said.</p> + +<p>"I? Oh, no,--nor Creole. I was born in America; but I have always lived +with mamma on the plantation; <i>et maintenant, il y a six mois qu'elle +est morte!</i>"</p> + +<p>Here she looked away again. Mr. Raleigh's glance followed hers, and, +returning, she met it bent kindly and with a certain grave interest upon +her. She appeared to feel reassured, somewhat protected by one so much +her elder.</p> + +<p>"I am going now to my father," she said, "and to my other mother."</p> + +<p>"A second marriage," thought Mr. Raleigh, "and before the orphan's +crapes are"--Then, fearful lest she should read his thought, he +added,--"And how do you speak such perfect English?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my father came to see us every other year, and I have written home +twice a week since I was a little child. Mamma, too, spoke as much +English as French."</p> + +<p>"I have not been in America for a long time," said Mr. Raleigh, after a +few steps. "But I do not doubt that you will find enjoyment there. It +will be new: womanhood will have little like youth for you; but, in +every event, it is well to add to our experience, you know."</p> + +<p>"What is it like, Sir? But I know! Rows of houses, very counterparts of +rows of houses, and they of rows of houses yet beyond. Just the +toy-villages in boxes, uniform as graves and ugly as bricks"--</p> + +<p>"Brick houses are not such ugly things. I remember one, low and wide, +possessed of countless gables, covered with vines and shaded with +sycamores; it could not have been so picturesque, if built of the marble +of Paros, and gleaming temple-white through masks of verdure."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me that I, too, remember such a one," said she, dreamily. +"<i>Mais non, je m'y perds</i>. Yet, for all that, I shall not find the New +York avenues lined with them."</p> + +<p>"No; the houses there are palaces."</p> + +<p>"I suppose, then, I am to live in a palace," she answered, with a light +tinkling laugh. "That is fine; but one may miss the verandas, all the +whiteness and coolness. How one must feel the roof!"</p> + +<p>"Roofs should be screens, and not prisons, not shells, you think?" said +Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"At home," she replied, "our houses are, so to say, parasols; in those +cities they must be iron shrouds. <i>Ainsi soit il!</i>" she added, and +shrugged her shoulders like a little fatalist.</p> + +<p>"You must not take it with such desperation; perhaps you will not be +obliged to wear the shroud."</p> + +<p>"Not long, to be sure, at first. We go to freeze in the country, a place +with distant hills of blue ice, my old nurse told me,--old Ursule. Oh, +Sir, she was drowned! I saw the very wave that swept her off!"</p> + +<p>"That was your servant?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then, perhaps, I have some good news for you. She was tall and large?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oui</i>."</p> + +<p>"Her name was Ursule?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oui! je dis que oui!</i>"</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh laughed at her eagerness. "She is below, then," he +said,--"not drowned. There is Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds, will you take this +young lady to her servant, Ursule, the woman you rescued?"</p> + +<p>And Mademoiselle Le Blanc disappeared under that gentleman's escort.</p> + +<p>The ordinary restraints of social life not obtaining so much on board +ship as elsewhere, Mr. Raleigh saw his acquaintance with the pale young +stranger fast ripening into friendliness. It was an agreeable variation +from the monotonous routine of his voyage, and he felt that it was not +unpleasant to her. Indeed, with that childlike simplicity that was her +first characteristic, she never saw him without seeking him, and every +morning and every evening it became their habit to pace the deck +together. Sunrise and twilight began to be the hours with which he +associated her; and it was strange, that, coming, as she did, out of the +full blaze of tropical suns, she yet seemed a creature that had taken +life from the fresh, cool, dewy hours, and that must fairly dissolve +beneath the sky of noon. She puzzled him, too, and he found singular +contradictions in her: to-night, sweetness itself,--to-morrow, petulant +as a spoiled child. She had all a child's curiosity, too; and he amused +himself by seeing, at one time, with what novelty his adventures struck +her, when, at another, he would have fancied she had always held Taj and +Himmaleh in her garden. Now and then, excited, perhaps, by emulation and +wonder, her natural joyousness broke through the usually sad and quiet +demeanor; and she related to him, with dramatic <i>abandon</i>, scenes of her +gay and innocent island-life, so that he fancied there was not an +emotion in her experience hidden from his knowledge, till, all-unaware, +he tripped over one reserve and another, that made her, for the moment, +as mysterious a being as any of those court-ladies of ancient <i>régimes</i>, +in whose lives there were strange <i>lacunae</i>, and spaces of shadow. And a +peculiarity of their intercourse was, that, let her depart in what freak +or perversity she pleased, she seemed always to have a certainty of +finding him in the same mood in which she had left him,--as some bright +wayward vine of Southern forests puts out a tendril to this or that +enticing point, yet, winding back, will find its first support +unchanged. Shut out, as Mr. Raleigh had been, from any but the most +casual female society, he found a great charm in this familiarity, and, +without thinking how lately it had begun or how soon it must cease, he +yielded himself to its presence. At one hour she seemed to him an +impetuous and capricious thing, for whose better protection the accident +of his companionship was extremely fortunate,--at another hour, a woman +too strangely sweet to part with; and then Mr. Raleigh remembered that +in all his years he had really known but two women, and one of these had +not spent a week in his memory.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle Le Blanc came on deck, one evening, and, wrapping a soft, +thick mantle round her, looked about for a minute, shaded her eyes from +the sunset, meantime, with a slender, transparent hand, bowed to one, +spoke to another, slipped forward and joined Mr. Raleigh, where he +leaned over the ship's side.</p> + +<p>"<i>Voici ma capote!</i>" said she, before he was aware of her approach. +"<i>Ciel! qu'il fait frais!</i>"</p> + +<p>"We have changed our skies," said Mr. Raleigh, looking up.</p> + +<p>"It is not necessary that you should tell me that!" she replied. "I +shiver all the time. I shall become a little iceberg, for the sake of +floating down to melt off Martinique!"</p> + +<p>"Warm yourself now in the sunset; such a blaze was kindled for the +purpose."</p> + +<p>"Whenever I see a sunset, I find it to be a splendid fact, <i>une +jouissance vraie, Monsieur</i>, to think that men can paint,--that these +shades, which are spontaneous in the heavens, and fleeting, can be +rivalled by us and made permanent,--that man is more potent than light."</p> + +<p>"But you are all wrong in your <i>jouissance</i>."</p> + +<p>She pouted her lip, and hung over the side in an attitude that it seemed +he had seen a hundred times before.</p> + +<p>"That sunset, with all its breadth and splendor, is contained in every +pencil of light."</p> + +<p>She glanced up and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! a part of its possibilities. Which proves?"--</p> + +<p>"That color is an attribute of light and an achievement of man." +<br><br> + "Cà et là,<br> + Toute la journée,<br> + Le vent vain va<br> + En sa tournée,"<br> +<br> +hummed the girl, with a careless dismissal of the subject.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh shut up the note-book in which he had been writing, and +restored it to his pocket. She turned about and broke off her song.</p> + +<p>"There is the moon on the other side," she said, "floating up like a +great bubble of light. She and the sun are the scales of a balance, I +think; as one ascends, the other sinks."</p> + +<p>"There is a richness in the atmosphere, when sunset melts into moonrise, +that makes one fancy it enveloping the earth like the bloom on a plum."</p> + +<p>"And see how it has powdered the sea! The waters look like the wings of +the <i>papillon bleu</i>."</p> + +<p>"It seems that you love the sea."</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly. I have thought that we islanders were like those Chinese +who live in great <i>tanka</i>-boats on the rivers; only our boat rides at +anchor. To climb up on the highest land, and see yourself girt with +fields of azure enamelled in sheets of sunshine and fleets of sails, and +lifted against the horizon, deep, crystalline, and translucent as a +gem,--that makes one feel strong in isolation, and produces keen races. +Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I think that isolation causes either vivid characteristics or idiocy, +seldom strong or healthy ones; and I do not value race."</p> + +<p>"Because you came from America!"--with an air of disgust,--"where there +is yet no race, and the population is still too fluctuating for the +mould of one."</p> + +<p>"I come from India, where, if anywhere, there is race."</p> + +<p>"But, pshaw! that was not what we were talking about."</p> + +<p>"No, Mademoiselle, we were speaking of an element even more fluctuating +than American population."</p> + +<p>"Of course I love the sea; but if the sea loves me, it is the way a cat +loves the mouse."</p> + +<p>"It is always putting up a hand to snatch you?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I am sent to Nineveh and persist in shipping for Tarshish. I +never enter a boat without an accident. The Belle Voyageuse met +shipwreck, and I on board. That was anticipated, though, by all the +world; for the night before we set sail,--it was a very murk, hot night, +--we were all called out to see the likeness of a large merchantman +transfigured in flames upon the sky,--spars and ropes and hull one net +and glare of fire."</p> + +<p>"A mirage, probably, from some burning ship at sea."</p> + +<p>"No, I would rather think it supernatural. Oh, it was frightful! Rather +superb, though, to think of such a spectral craft rising to warn us with +ghostly flames that the old Belle Voyageuse was riddled with rats!"</p> + +<p>"Did it burn blue?" asked Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you're going to make fun of me, I'll tell you nothing more!"</p> + +<p>As she spoke, Capua, who had considered himself, during the many years +of wandering, both guiding and folding star to his master, came up, with +his eyes rolling fearfully in a lively expansion of countenance, and +muttered a few words in Mr. Raleigh's ear, lifting both hands in comical +consternation the while.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Raleigh, following him, and, meeting +Captain Tarbell at the companion-way, the three descended together.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh was absent some fifteen minutes, at the end of that time +rejoining Mademoiselle Le Blanc.</p> + +<p>"I did not mean to make fun of you," said he, resuming the conversation +as if there had been no interruption. "I was watching the foam the +Osprey makes in her speed, which certainly burns blue. See the flashing +sparks! now that all the red fades from the west, they glow in the moon +like broken amethysts."</p> + +<p>"What did you mean, then?" she asked, pettishly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wished to see if the idea of a burning ship was so terrifying."</p> + +<p>"Terrifying? No; I have no fear; I never was afraid. But it must, in +reality, be dreadful. I cannot think of anything else so appalling."</p> + +<p>"Not at all timid?"</p> + +<p>"Mamma used to say, those that know nothing fear nothing."</p> + +<p>"Eminently your case. Then you cannot imagine a situation in which you +would lose self-possession?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely. Isn't it people of the finest organization, comprehensive, +large-souled, that are capable of the extremes either of courage or +fear? Now I am limited, so that, without rash daring or pale panic, I +can generally preserve equilibrium."</p> + +<p>"How do you know all this of yourself?" he asked, with an amused air.</p> + +<p>"<i>Il se présentait des occasions</i>," she replied, briefly.</p> + +<p>"So I presumed," said he. "Ah? They have thrown out the log. See, we +make progress. If this breeze holds!"</p> + +<p>"You are impatient, Mr. Raleigh. You have dear friends at home, whom you +wish to see, who wish to see you?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, with a certain bitterness in his tone. "There is no +one to whom I hasten, no one who waits to receive me."</p> + +<p>"No one? But that is terrible! Then why should you wish to hasten? For +me, I would always be willing to loiter along, to postpone home +indefinitely."</p> + +<p>"That is very generous, Mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Raleigh"--</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I wish--please--you must not say Mademoiselle. Nobody will address me +so, shortly. Give me my name,--call me Marguerite. <i>Je vous en +prie</i>."</p> + +<p>And she looked up with a blush deepening the apple-bloom of her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Marguerite? Does it answer for pearl or for daisy with you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they called me so because I was such a little round white baby. I +couldn't have been very precious, though, or she never would have parted +with me. Yes, I wish we might drift on some lazy current for years. I +hate to shorten the distance. I stand in awe of my father, and I do not +remember my mother."</p> + +<p>"Do not remember?"</p> + +<p>"She is so perfect, so superb, so different from me! But she ought to +love her own child!"</p> + +<p>"Her own child?"</p> + +<p>"And then I do not know the customs of this strange land. Shall I be +obliged to keep an establishment?"</p> + +<p>"Keep an establishment?"</p> + +<p>"It is very rude to repeat my words so! You oughtn't! Yes, keep an +establishment!"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>"No, it is I who am rude."</p> + +<p>"Not at all,--but mysterious. I am quite in the dark concerning you."</p> + +<p>"Concerning me?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, Miss Marguerite, it is my turn now."</p> + +<p>"Oh! It must be----This is your mystery, <i>n'est ce pas?</i> Mamma was my +grandmamma. My own mother was far too young when mamma gave her in +marriage; and, to make amends, mamma adopted me and left me her name and +her fortune. So that I am very wealthy. And now shall I keep an +establishment?"</p> + +<p>"I should think not," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, you constantly reassure me? Home grows less and less a +bugbear when you speak of it. How strange! It seems as if I had known +you a year, instead of a week."</p> + +<p>"It would probably take that period of time to make us as well +acquainted under other circumstances."</p> + +<p>"I wish you were going to be with us always. Shall you stay in America, +Mr. Raleigh?"</p> + +<p>"Only till the fall. But I will leave you at your father's door"----</p> + +<p>And then Mr. Raleigh ceased suddenly, as if he had promised an +impossibility.</p> + +<p>"How long before we reach New York?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"In about nine hours," he replied,--adding, in unconscious undertone, +"if ever."</p> + +<p>"What was that you said to yourself?" she asked, in a light and gayly +inquisitive voice, as she looked around and over the ship. "Why, how +many there are on deck! It is such a beautiful night, I suppose. Eh, +Mr. Raleigh?"</p> + +<p>"Are you not tired of your position?" he asked. "Sit down beside me +here." And he took a seat.</p> + +<p>"No, I would rather stand. Tell me what you said."</p> + +<p>"Sit, then, to please me, Marguerite, and I will tell you what I said."</p> + +<p>She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood of her capote, +with its rich purple, dropping from the fluttering yellow hair that the +moonlight deepened into gold, and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling +with her breath, like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still +warm and soft, with his own, which was icy. She withdrew it, turned her +eyes, whose fair, faint lustre, the pale forget-me-not blue, was +darkened by the antagonistic light to an amethystine shadow, +inquiringly upon him.</p> + +<p>"There is some danger," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Yes. When you are not a mark for general observation, you shall hear +it."</p> + +<p>"I would rather hear it standing."</p> + +<p>"I told you the condition."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall go and ask Captain Tarbell."</p> + +<p>"And come sobbing back to me for 'reassurance.'"</p> + +<p>"No," she said, quickly, "I should go down to Ursule."</p> + +<p>"Ursule has a mattress on deck; I assisted her up."</p> + +<p>"There is the captain! Now"----</p> + +<p>He seized her hand and drew her down beside him. For an instant she +would have resisted, as the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks +attested,--and then, with the instinctive feminine baseness that compels +every woman, when once she has met her master, she submitted.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, if you are offended," said he. "But the captain cannot +attend to you now, and it is necessary to be guarded in movement; for a +slight thing on such occasions may produce a panic."</p> + +<p>"You should not have forced me to sit," said she, in a smothered voice, +without heeding him; "you had no right."</p> + +<p>"This right, that I assume the care of you."</p> + +<p>"Monsieur, you see that I am quite competent to the care of myself."</p> + +<p>"Marguerite, I see that you are determined to quarrel."</p> + +<p>She paused a moment, ere replying; then drew a little nearer and turned +her face toward him, though without looking up.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, then!" said she. "But I would rather be naughty and +froward, it lets me stay a child, and so you can take me in keeping, and +I need not think for myself at all. But if I act like a woman grown, +then comes all the responsibility, and I must rely on myself, which is +such trouble now, though I never felt it so before,--I don't know why. +Don't you see?" And she glanced at him with her head on one side, and +laughing archly.</p> + +<p>"You were right," he replied, after surveying her a moment; "my +proffered protection is entirely superfluous."</p> + +<p>She thought he was about to go, and placed her hand on his, as it lay +along the side. "Don't leave me," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I have no intention of leaving you," he said.</p> + +<p>"You are very good. I have never seen one like you. I love you well." +And, bathed in moonlight, she raised her face and her glowing lips +toward him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh gazed in the innocent eyes a moment, to seek the extent of +her meaning, and felt, that, should he take advantage of her childlike +forgetfulness, he would be only reënacting the part he had so much +condemned in one man years before. So he merely bent low over the hand +that lay in his, raised it, and touched his lips to that. In an instant +the color suffused her face, she snatched the hand away, half rose +trembling from her seat, then sank into it again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Soit, Monsieur!</i>" she exclaimed, abruptly. "But you have not told me +the danger."</p> + +<p>"It will not alarm you now?" he replied, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I have said that I am not a coward."</p> + +<p>"I wonder what you would think of me when I say that without doubt I +am."</p> + +<p>"You, Mr. Raleigh?" she cried, astonishment banishing anger.</p> + +<p>"Not that I betray myself. But I have felt the true heart-sinking. Once, +surprised in the centre of an insurrection, I expected to find my hair +white as snow, if I escaped."</p> + +<p>"Your hair is very black. And you escaped?"</p> + +<p>"So it would appear."</p> + +<p>"They suffered you to go on account of your terror? You feigned death? +You took flight?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly, neither."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it," she said, imperiously.</p> + +<p>Though Mr. Raleigh had exchanged the singular reserve of his youth for a +well-bred reticence, he scarcely cared to be his own hero.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," said she. "It will shorten the time; and that is what you are +trying to do, you know."</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"It was once when I was obliged to make an unpleasant journey into the +interior, and a detachment was placed at my service. We were in a +suspected district quite favorable to their designs, and the commanding +officer was attacked with illness in the night. Being called to his +assistance, I looked abroad and fancied things wore an unusual aspect +among the men, and sent Capua to steal down a covered path and see if +anything were wrong. Never at fault, he discovered a revolt, with +intent to murder my companion and myself, and retreat to the mountains. +Of course there was but one thing to do. I put a pistol in my belt and +walked down and in among them, singled out the ringleader, fixed him +with my eye, and bade him approach. My appearance was so sudden and +unsuspected that they forgot defiance."</p> + +<p>"<i>Bien</i>, but I thought you were afraid."</p> + +<p>"So I was. I could not have spoken a second word. I experienced intense +terror, and that, probably, gave my glance a concentration of which I +was unaware and by myself incapable; but I did not suffer it to waver; I +could not have moved it, indeed; I kept it on the man while he crept +slowly toward me. I shall never forget the horrible sensation. I did not +dare permit myself to doubt his conquest; but if I had failed, as I then +thought, his approach was like the slow coil of a serpent about me, and +it was his glittering eyes that had fixed mine, and not mine his. At my +feet, I commanded him, with a gesture, to disarm. He obeyed, and I +breathed; and one by one they followed his example. Capua, who was +behind me, I sent back with the weapons, and in the morning gave them +their choice of returning to town with their hands tied behind their +backs, or of going on with me and remaining faithful. They chose the +latter, did me good service, and I said nothing about the affair."</p> + +<p>"That was well. But were you really frightened?"</p> + +<p>"So I said. I cannot think of it yet without a slight shudder."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and a rehearsal. Your eyes charge bayonets now. I am not a Sepoy."</p> + +<p>"Well, you are still angry with me?"</p> + +<p>"How can I be angry with you?"</p> + +<p>"How, indeed? So much your senior that you owe me respect, Miss +Marguerite. I am quite old enough to be your father."</p> + +<p>"You are, Sir?" she replied, with surprise. "Why, are you fifty-five +years old?"</p> + +<p>"Is that Mr. Laudersdale's age?"</p> + +<p>"How did you know Mr. Laudersdale Was my father?"</p> + +<p>"By an arithmetical process. That is his age?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and yours?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly. I was thirty-seven last August."</p> + +<p>"And will be thirty-eight next?"</p> + +<p>"That is the logical deduction."</p> + +<p>"I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just twice my age."</p> + +<p>"By what courier will you make it reach me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I forgot. But--Mr. Raleigh?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he replied, turning to look at her,--for his eyes had been +wandering over the deck.</p> + +<p>"I thought you would ask me to write to you."</p> + +<p>"No, that would not be worth while."</p> + +<p>His face was too grave for her to feel indignation.</p> + +<p>"Why?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"It would give me great pleasure, without doubt. But in a week you will +have too many other cares and duties to care for such a burden."</p> + +<p>"That shows that you do not know me at all. <i>Vous en avez usé mal avec +moi!</i>"</p> + +<p>Though Mr. Raleigh still looked at her, he did not reply. She rose and +walked away a few steps, coming back.</p> + +<p>"You are always in the right, and I consequently in the wrong," she +said. "How often to-night have I asked pardon? I will not put up +with it!"</p> + +<p>"We shall part in a few hours," he replied; "when you lose your temper, +I lose my time."</p> + +<p>"In a few hours? Then is the danger which you mentioned past?"</p> + +<p>"I scarcely think so."</p> + +<p>"Now I am not going to be diverted again. What is this dreadful danger?"</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the +port before our situation becomes apparently worse,--that we do not take +to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the +Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several +other becauses,--that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the +captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape"----</p> + +<p>"<i>Allez au hut!</i>"</p> + +<p>"That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of +excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail +into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal."</p> + +<p>"Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite +faint. Soon recovering herself,--</p> + +<p>"And what do you think of the mirage now?" she asked. "Where is Ursule? +I must go to her," she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting +to her feet.</p> + +<p>"Shall I accompany you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no."</p> + +<p>"She lies on a mattress there, behind that group,"--nodding in the +implied direction; "and it would be well, if you could lie beside her +and get an hour's rest."</p> + +<p>"Me? I couldn't sleep. I shall come back to you,--may I?" And she was +gone.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had left him, when, a +half-hour afterward, she returned.</p> + +<p>"Where is your cloak?" he asked, rising to receive her.</p> + +<p>"I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly."</p> + +<p>"You will not take cold?"</p> + +<p>"I? I am on fire myself."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you."</p> + +<p>"It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not?--drifting on before +the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire and all red-hot raging +turbulence. Just look up the long sparkling length of these white, full +shrouds, swelling and curving like proud swans, in the gale,--and then +imagine the devouring monster below in his den!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> imagine it. Be quiet and sit beside me. Half the night is +gone."</p> + +<p>"I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driving forward to +destruction on fearful breakers, drank and sang and died madly. I wish +the whole ship's company would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or +that we might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance,--dance +wildly into death and daylight."</p> + +<p>"We have nothing to do with death," said Mr. Raleigh. "Our foe is simply +time. You dance, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. I dance well,--like those white fluttering butterflies,--as if +I were <i>au gré du vent</i>."</p> + +<p>"That would not be dancing well."</p> + +<p>"It would not be dancing well to <i>be</i> at the will of the wind, but it is +perfection to appear so."</p> + +<p>"The dance needs the expression of the dancer's will. It is breathing +sculpture. It is mimic life beyond all other arts."</p> + +<p>"Then well I love to dance. And I do dance well. Wait,--you shall see."</p> + +<p>He detained her.</p> + +<p>"Be still, little maid!" he said, and again drew her beside him, though +she still continued standing.</p> + +<p>At this moment the captain approached.</p> + +<p>"What cheer?" asked Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"No cheer," he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger-nails into his +palm. "The planks forward are already hot to the hand. I tremble at +every creak of cordage, lest the deck crash in and bury us all."</p> + +<p>"You have made the Sandy Hook light?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; too late to run her ashore."</p> + +<p>"You cannot try that at the Highlands?"</p> + +<p>"Certain death."</p> + +<p>"The wind scarcely"----</p> + +<p>"Veered a point I am carrying all sail. But if this tooth of fire gnaws +below, you will soon see the masts go by the board. And then we are +lost, indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Courage! she will certainly hold together till you can hail the +pilots."</p> + +<p>"I think no one need tremble when he has such an instance of +fearlessness before him," replied the captain, bowing to Marguerite; +and turning away, he hid his suspense and pain again under a calm +countenance.</p> + +<p>Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had heard the whole of +the conversation, and he felt the hand in his growing colder as it +continued. He wondered if it were still the same excitement that sent +the alternate flush and pallor up her cheek. She sat down, leaning her +head back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and suffering +the light, fine hair to blow about her temples before the steady breeze. +He bent over to look into her eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless.</p> + +<p>"Marguerite!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>She tried to speak, but the teeth seemed to hinder the escape of her +words, and to break them into bits of sound; a shiver shook her from +head to foot.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if this is fear," she succeeded in saying. "Oh, if there were +somewhere to go, something to hide me! A great horror is upon me! I am +afraid! <i>Seigneur Dieu! Mourir par le feu! Périssons alors au plus +vite!</i>" And she shuddered, audibly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh passed his arm about her and gathered her closer to himself. +He saw at once, that, sensitive as she was to every impression, this +fear was a contagious one, a mere gregarian affinity, and that she +needed the preponderating warmth and strength of a protecting presence, +the influence of a fuller vitality. He did not speak, but his touch must +in some measure have counteracted the dread that oppressed her. She +ceased trembling, but did not move.</p> + +<p>The westering moon went to bury herself in banks of cloud; the wind +increasing piped and whistled in strident threatening through the +rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No +murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they +drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one +voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light +was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the +forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. +Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all the people. The +captain's voice thundered through the tumult, and instantly the mates +sprang forward and the jib went crashing overboard. Mr. Raleigh tore his +eyes away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them by chance +on two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with +intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with +hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting +prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat +at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into +file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if +possible, the flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed over +to Ursule.</p> + +<p>The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to the girl a +portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and +rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve +with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and +unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else +broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of +breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place +was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to +leave below the stings of the blistering deck. None waited on the order +of their going, but thronged and sprang precipitately. Ursule was at +once deposited in safety. The captain moved to conduct Marguerite +across, but she drew back and clung to Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"<i>J'ai honte</i>," she said; "<i>je ne bougerai pas plus tót que vous.</i>"</p> + +<p>The breath of the fierce flames scorched her cheek as she spoke, the +wind of their roaring progress swept her hair. He lifted her over +without further consultation, and still kept her in his care.</p> + +<p>There was a strange atmosphere on board the little vessels, as they +labored about and parted from the doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with +awe and joy at their deliverance; others broke the tense strain of the +last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the panting engines they +answered with waiting heart-beats, as it sent them farther from the +fearful wonder, now blazing in multiplex lines of fire against the gray +horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration of +a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze with him. An hour +silently passed, and as the fiery phantom faded into dawn and distance +she sang sweetly the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another +voice took up the measure, stronger and clearer; those who knew nothing +of the words caught the spirit of the tune; and no choral service ever +pealed up temple-vaults with more earnest accord than that in which this +chant of grateful, exultant devotion now rose from rough-throated men +and weary women in the crisp air and yellowing spring-morning.</p> + +<p>As the moment of parting approached, Marguerite stood with folded hands +before Mr. Raleigh, looking sadly down the harbor.</p> + +<p>"I regret all that," she said,--"these days that seem years."</p> + +<p>"An equivocal phrase," he replied, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"But you know what I mean. I am going to strangers; I have been with +you. I shall find no one so kind to me as you have been, Monsieur."</p> + +<p>"Your strangers can be much kinder to you than I have been."</p> + +<p>"Never! I wish they did not exist! What do I care for them? What do they +care for me? They do not know me; I shall shock them. I miss you, I hate +them, already. <i>Non! Personne ne m'aime, et je n'aime personne!</i>" she +exclaimed, with low-toned vehemence.</p> + +<p>"Rite," began Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"Rite! No one but my mother ever called me that. How did you know it?"</p> + +<p>"I have met your mother, and I knew you a great many years ago."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Raleigh!" And there was the least possible shade of unconscious +regret in the voice before it added,--"And what was I?"</p> + +<p>"You were some little wood-spirit, the imp of a fallen cone, mayhap, or +the embodiment of birch-tree shadows. You were a soiled and naughty +little beauty, not so different from your present self, and who kissed +me on the lips."</p> + +<p>"And did you refuse to take the kiss?"</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"You were a child then," he said. "And I was not"----</p> + +<p>"Was not?"----</p> + +<p>Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the shock prevented Mr. +Raleigh's finishing his sentence.</p> + +<p>"Ursule is with us, or on the other one?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"With us."</p> + +<p>"That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by which to prove my +identity."</p> + +<p>"As if there could be two such maidens in the world!"</p> + +<p>Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tarbell her address, and +returning, they were shortly afterward seated side by side in a coach, +Capua and Ursule following in another. As they stopped at the destined +door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She lingered a moment +ere taking it,--not to say adieu, nor to offer him cheek or lip again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Que je te remercie!</i>" she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "<i>Que je +te trouve bon!</i>" and sprang before him up the steps.</p> + +<p>He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined +them; he reëntered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall.</p> + +<p>The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's +business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally +lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and +proceeded at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he +found that affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had +been instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the +overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could +take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months +of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a +little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at +first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the +seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him. +Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him, +if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the +lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues +of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate +and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,-- +<br><br> + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie,<br> + brave Charlie!<br> +<br> + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine<br> + wi' McLean!"<br> +<br> +Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best +to remain long in the city; he would be glad to know if sight of the old +scenes could renew a throb. He answered his letters, replenished his +wardrobe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. At noon +of the second day thereafter he found Mr. McLean's coach, with that +worthy gentleman in person, awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it +paused at the foot of his former garden, with a strange sense of the +world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him,--a face less round and rosy +than once, as the need of pink cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and +bright as youth.</p> + +<p>"The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the first greeting, +putting his hands on her shoulders and smiling down at her benevolently.</p> + +<p>"Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking her head. "I +expected this stain on your skin; but, dear me! your eyes look as if you +had not a friend in the world."</p> + +<p>"How can they look so, when you give me such a welcome?"</p> + +<p>"Dear old Roger, you <i>are</i> just the same," said she, bestowing a little +caress upon his sleeve. "And if you remember the summer before you went +away, you will not find that pleasant company so very much +changed either."</p> + +<p>"I do not expect to find them at all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then they will find you; because they are all here,--at least the +principals; some with different names, and some, like myself, with +duplicates,"--as a shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother +and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over rosy blushes.</p> + +<p>After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. Raleigh turned again +to Mrs. McLean.</p> + +<p>"And who are there here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"There is Mrs. Purcell,--you remember Helen Heath? Poor Mrs. Purcell, +whom you knew, died, and her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary, +who is single and speechless yet; and Captain, now Colonel, Purcell +makes a very good silent partner. He is hunting in the West, on +furlough; she is here alone. There is Mrs. Heath,--you never have +forgotten her?"</p> + +<p>"Not I."</p> + +<p>"There is"------</p> + +<p>"And how came you all in the country so early in the season,--anybody +with your devotion to company?"</p> + +<p>"To be made April fools, John says."</p> + +<p>"Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will be."</p> + +<p>"I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter; and Mrs. Laudersdale +and I agreed, that, the moment the snow was off the ground up here, we +would fly away and be at rest."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Laudersdale? Can she come here?"</p> + +<p>"Goodness! Why not? The last few summers we have always spent +together."</p> + +<p>"She is with you now, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I didn't mean to tell, but +keep her as a surprise. Of course, you will be a surprise to +everybody.--There, run along, children; we'll follow.--Yes, won't it be +delightful, Roger? We can all play at youth again."</p> + +<p>"Like skeletons in some Dance of Death!" he exclaimed. "We shall be +hideous in each other's sight."</p> + +<p>"McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding the late misanthropy; +"Helen is a girl; the ghost of the prior Mrs. Purcell shall be +<i>rediviva</i>; and Katy there"------</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin.</p> + +<p>"Before you have shuffled off mortality for the whole party, sit down +under this hedge,--here is an opportune bench,--and give me accounts +from the day of my departure."</p> + +<p>"Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible! The ocean in a tea-cup? Let +me see,--you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn't you? Well, +she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It was odd to +miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once. Mrs. +Laudersdale was ill; I don't know exactly what the trouble was. You know +she had been in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer; +and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old city-life, she +became oppressed with a speechless melancholy, I believe, so that the +doctors foreboded insanity. She expressed great disinclination to follow +their advice, and her husband finally banished them all. It was a great +care to him; he altered much. McLean surmised that she didn't like to +see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround +her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and +raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her +sight during the greater part of the winter. I don't know whether she +became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she +conquered it, and decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing, +or what happened. But one cold March evening he set out for his home, +dreary, as usual, he thought; and he found the fire blazing and +reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich +shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as +you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and +impenetrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, "I have +manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has +now and then reported from his conversation. I dare say there isn't a +bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale isn't a man to publish his affairs; +but <i>I</i> believe it. One thing is certain: Mrs. Laudersdale withdrew from +society one autumn and returned one spring, and has queened it +ever since."</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Laudersdale with you?"</p> + +<p>"No. But he will come with their daughter shortly."</p> + +<p>"And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to do. Mrs. Purcell +gossips and lounges, as if she were playing with the world for +spectator. Mrs. Laudersdale lounges, and attacks things with her +finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them. Mrs. McLean gossips +and scolds, as if it depended on her to keep the world in order."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to keep me under the hedge all night?"</p> + +<p>"This is pretty well! Hush! Who is that?"</p> + +<p>As Mrs. McLean spoke, a figure issued from the tall larches on the left, +and crossed the grass in front of them,--a woman, something less tall +than a gypsy queen might be, the round outlines of her form rich and +regular, with a certain firm luxuriance, still wrapped in a morning-robe +of palm-spread cashmere. In her hand she carried various vines and +lichens that had maintained their orange-tawny stains under the winter's +snow, and the black hair that was folded closely over forehead and +temple was crowned with bent sprays of the scarlet maple-blossom. As +vivid a hue dyed her cheek through warm walking, and with a smile of +unconscious content she passed quickly up the slope and disappeared +within the doorway. She impressed the senses of the beholder like some +ripe and luscious fruit, a growth of sunshine and summer.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. McLean, drawing breath again, "who is it?"</p> + +<p>"Really, I cannot tell," replied Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"Nor guess?"</p> + +<p>"And that I dare not."</p> + +<p>"Must I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Was it Mrs. Laudersdale?"</p> + +<p>"And shouldn't you have known her?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely."</p> + +<p>"Mercy! Then how did you know me? She is unaltered."</p> + +<p>"If that is Mrs. Purcell, at the window, she does not recognize me, you +see; neither did ------. Both she and yourself are nearly the same; one +could not fail to know either of you; but of the Mrs. Laudersdale of +thirteen years ago there remains hardly a vestige."</p> + +<p>If Mrs. McLean, at this testimony, indulged in that little inward +satisfaction which the most generous woman may feel, when told that her +color wears better than the color of her dearest friend, it must have +been quickly quenched by the succeeding sentence.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she is certainly more beautiful than I ever dreamed of a woman's +being. If she continues, I do not know what perfect thing she will +become. She is too exquisite for common use. I wonder her husband is not +jealous of every mote in the air, of rain and wind, of every day that +passes over her head,--since each must now bear some charm from her in +its flight."</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh was talking to Mrs. McLean as one frequently reposes +confidence in a person when quite sure that he will not understand a +word you say.</p> + +<p>An hour afterward, Mrs. Purcell joined Mrs. McLean.</p> + +<p>"So that is Mr. Raleigh, is it?" she said. "He looks as if he had made +the acquaintance of Siva the Destroyer. There's nothing left of him. Is +he taller, or thinner, or graver, or darker, or what? My dear Kate, your +cousin, that promised to be such a hero, has become a mere +man-of-business. Did you ever burn firecrackers? You have probably found +some that just fizzed out, then." And Mrs. Purcell took an attitude.</p> + +<p>"Roger is a much finer man than he was, I think,--so far as I could +judge in the short time we have seen each other," replied Mrs. McLean, +with spirit.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," continued Mrs. Purcell, "what makes the Laudersdale so +gay? No? She has a letter from her lord, and he brings you that little +Rite next week. I must send for the Colonel to see such patterns of +conjugal felicity as you and she. Ah, there is the tea-bell!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh was standing with one hand on the back of his chair, when +Mrs. Laudersdale entered. The cheek had resumed its usual pallor, and +she was in her customary colors of black and gold. She carried a +curiously cut crystal glass, which she placed on the sideboard, and then +moved toward her chair. Her eye rested casually for a moment on Mr. +Raleigh, as she crossed the threshold, and then returned with a species +of calm curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Laudersdale has forgotten me?" he asked, with a bow. His voice, +not susceptible of change in its tone of Southern sweetness, +identified him.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," she replied, moving toward him, and offering him her hand +quietly. "I am happy at meeting Mr. Raleigh again." And she took +her seat.</p> + +<p>There was something in her grasp that relieved him. It was neither +studiedly cold, nor absurdly brief, nor traitorously tremulous. It was +simply and forgetfully indifferent. Mr. Raleigh surveyed her with +interest during the light table-talk. He had been possessed with a +restless wish to see her once more, to ascertain if she had yet any +fraction of her old power over him; he had all the more determinedly +banished himself from the city,--to find her in the country. Now he +sought for some trace of what had formerly aroused his heart. He rose +from table convinced that the woman whom he once loved with the whole +fervor of youth and strength and buoyant life was no more, that she did +not exist, and that Mr. Raleigh might experience a new passion, but his +old one was as dead as the ashes that cover the Five Cities of the +Plain. He wondered how it might be with her. For a moment he cursed his +inconstancy; then he feared lest she were of larger heart and firmer +resolve than he,--lest her love had been less light than his; he could +scarcely feel himself secure of freedom,--he must watch. And then stole +in a deeper sense of loneliness than exile and foreign tongues had +taught him,--the knowledge of being single and solitary in the world, +not only for life, but for eternity.</p> + +<p>The evening was passed in the recitation of affairs by himself and his +cousins alone together, and until a week completed its tale of dawns and +sunsets there was the same diurnal recurrence of question and answer. +One day, as the afternoon was paling, Rite came.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh had fallen asleep on the vine-hidden seat outside the +bay-window, and was awakened, certainly not by Mrs. Laudersdale's +velvets trailing over the drawing-room carpet. She was just entering, +slow-paced, though in haste. She held out both of her beautiful arms. A +little form of airy lightness, a very snow-wreath, blew into them.</p> + +<p>"<i>O ma maman! Est ce que c'est toi</i>," it cried. "<i>O comme tu es douce! +Si belle, si molle, si chère!</i>" And the fair head was lying beneath the +dark one, the face hidden in the bent and stately neck.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh left his seat, unseen, and betook himself to another abode. +As he passed the drawing-room door, on his return, he saw the mother +lying on a lounge, with the slight form nestled beside her, playing with +it as some tame leopardess might play with her silky whelp. It was +almost the only portion of the maternal nature developed within her.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if the tea-hour were a fated one. Mr. Raleigh had been out +on the water and was late. As he entered, Rite sprang up, +half-overturning her chair, and ran to clasp his hand.</p> + +<p>"I did not know that you and Mr. Raleigh were acquainted," said Mrs. +McLean.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Madam, Mr. Raleigh and I had the pleasure of being shipwrecked +together," was the reply; and except that Mrs. Laudersdale required +another napkin where her cup had spilled, all went on smoothly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laudersdale took Marguerite entirely to herself for a while. She +seemed, at first, to be like some one suddenly possessed of a new sense, +and who did not know in the least what to do with it; but custom and +familiarity destroyed this sentiment. She did not appear to entertain a +doubt of her child's natural affection, but she had care to fortify it +by the exertion of every charm she possessed. From the presence of +dangerous rivals in the house, an element of determination blended with +her manner, and she moved with a certain conscious power, as if +wonderful energies were but half-latent with her, as if there were +kingdoms to conquer and crowns to win, and she the destined instrument +You would have selected her, at this time of her lavish devotion to +Marguerite, as the one woman of complete capability, of practical +effective force, and have declared that there was nothing beyond her +strength. The relation between herself and her child was certainly as +peculiar as anything else about them; the disparity of age seemed so +slight that they appeared like sisters, full of mutual trust, the +younger leaning on the elder for support in the most trivial affairs. +They walked through the woods together, learned again its glades and +coverts, searched its early treasure of blossoms; they went out on the +lake and spent long April afternoons together, floating about cove and +inlet of island-shores; they returned with innocent gayety to that house +which once the mother, in her moment of passion, had fancied to be a +possible heaven of delight, and which, since, she had found to be a very +indifferent limbo. For, after all, we derive as much happiness from +human beings as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that +bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was +careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this +woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never +bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the +little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or +whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that +estranged the past from the present, there was nothing to tell; it +seemed, nevertheless, as if they could have no closer bond, had they +read each other's thoughts from birth.</p> + +<p>That this assumption of Marguerite could not continue exclusive Mr. +Raleigh found, when now and then joined in his walks by an airy figure +flitting forward at his side: now and then; since Mrs. Laudersdale, +without knowing how to prevent, had manifested an uneasiness at every +such rencontre;--and that it could not endure forever, another +gentleman, without so much reason, congratulated himself,--Mr. Frederic +Heath, the confidential clerk of Day, Knight, and Company,--a rather +supercilious specimen, quite faultlessly got up, who had accompanied her +from New York at her father's request, and who already betrayed every +symptom of the suitor. Meanwhile, Mrs. McLean's little women clamorously +demanded and obtained a share of her attention,--although Capua and +Ursule, with their dark skins, brilliant dyes, and equivocal dialects, +were creatures of a more absorbing interest.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, Marguerite came into the drawing-room by one door, as Mr. +Raleigh entered by another; her mother was sitting near the window, and +other members of the family were in the vicinity, having clustered +preparatory to the tea-bell.</p> + +<p>Marguerite had twisted tassels of the willow-catkins in her hair, +drooping things, in character with her wavy grace, and that sprinkled +her with their fragrant yellow powder, the very breath of spring; and in +one hand she had imprisoned a premature lace-winged fly, a fairy little +savage, in its sheaths of cobweb and emerald, and with its jewel eyes.</p> + +<p>"Dear!" said Mrs. Purcell, gathering her array more closely about her. +"How do you dare touch such a venomous sprite?"</p> + +<p>"As if you had an insect at the North with a sting!" replied Marguerite, +suffering it, a little maliciously, to escape in the lady's face, and +following the flight with a laugh of childlike glee.</p> + +<p>"Here are your snowflakes on stems, mamma," she continued, dropping +anemones over her mother's hands, one by one;--"that is what Mr. Raleigh +calls them. When may I see the snow? You shall wrap me in eider, that I +may be like all the boughs and branches. How buoyant the earth must be, +when every twig becomes a feather!" And she moved toward Mr. Raleigh, +singing, "Oh, would I had wings like a dove!"</p> + +<p>"And here are those which, if not daffodils, yet<br><br> + + "'Come before the swallow dares, and take<br> + The winds of March with beauty,'"<br> +<br> +he said, giving her a basket of hepaticas and winter-green.</p> + +<p>Marguerite danced away with the purple trophy, and, emptying a carafe +into a dish of moss that stood near, took them to Mrs. Laudersdale, and, +sitting on the footstool, began to rearrange them. It was curious to +see, that, while Mrs. Laudersdale lifted each blossom and let the stem +lie across her hand, she suffered it to fall into the place designated +for it by Marguerite's fingers, that sparkled in the mosaic till double +wreaths of gold-threaded purple rose from the bed of vivid moss and +melted into a fringe of the starry spires of winter-green.</p> + +<p>"Is it not sweet?" said she then, bending over it.</p> + +<p>"They have no scent," said her mother.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, indeed! the very finest, the most delicate, a kind of aërial +perfume; they must of course alchemize the air into which they waste +their fibres with some sweetness."</p> + +<p>"A smell of earth fresh from 'wholesome drench of April rains,'" said +Mr. Raleigh, taking the dish of white porcelain between his brown, +slender hands. "An immature scent, just such an innocent breath as +should precede the epigea, that spicy, exhaustive wealth of savor, that +complete maturity of odor, marriage of daphne and linnaea. The charm of +these first bidders for the year's favor is neither in the ethereal +texture, the depth or delicacy of tint, nor the large-lobed, +blood-stained, ancient leaves. This imponderable soul gives them such a +helpless air of babyhood."</p> + +<p>"Is fragrance the flower's soul?" asked Marguerite. "Then anemones are +not divinely gifted. And yet you said, the other day, that to paint my +portrait would be to paint an anemone."</p> + +<p>"A satisfactory specimen in the family-gallery," said Mrs. Purcell.</p> + +<p>"A flaw in the indictment!" replied Mr. Raleigh. "I am not one of those +who paint the lily."</p> + +<p>"Though you've certainly added a perfume to the violet," remarked Mr. +Frederic Heath, with that sweetly lingering accent familiarly called the +drawl, as he looked at the hepaticas.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it very complimentary, at any rate," continued +Marguerite. "They are not lovely after bloom,--only the little +pink-streaked, budded bells, that hang so demurely. <i>Oui, dà!</i> I have +exchanged great queen magnolias for rues; what will you give me for +pomegranates and oleanders?"</p> + +<p>"Are the old oleanders in the garden yet?" asked Mrs. Laudersdale.</p> + +<p>"Not the very same. The hurricane destroyed those, years ago; these are +others, grand and rosy as sunrise sometimes."</p> + +<p>"It was my Aunt Susanne who planted those, I have heard."</p> + +<p>"And it was your daughter Rite who planted these."</p> + +<p>"She buried a little box of old keepsakes at its foot, after her brother +had examined them,--a ring or two, a coin from which she broke and kept +one half"------</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! we found the little box, found it when Mr. Heath was in +Martinique, all rusted and moulded and falling apart, and he wears that +half of the coin on his watch-chain. See!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laudersdale glanced up indifferently, but Mrs. Purcell sprang from +her elegant lounging and bent to look at her brother's chain.</p> + +<p>"How odd that I never noticed it, Fred!" she exclaimed. "And how odd +that I should wear the same!" And, shaking her <i>châtelaine</i>, she +detached a similar affair.</p> + +<p>They were placed side by side in Mr. Raleigh's hand; they matched +entirely, and, so united, they formed a singular French coin of value +and antiquity, the missing figures on one segment supplied by the other, +the embossed profile continued and lost on each, the scroll begun by +this and ended by that; they were plainly severed portions of the +same piece.</p> + +<p>"And this was buried by your Aunt Susanne Le Blanc?" asked Mrs. Purcell, +turning to Mrs. Laudersdale again, with a flush on her cheek.</p> + +<p>"So I presume."</p> + +<p>"Strange! And this was given to mamma by her mother, whose maiden name +was Susan White. There's some <i>diablerie</i> about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is a part of the ceremony of money-hiding," said Mr. Raleigh. +"Kidd always buried a little imp with his pots of gold, you know, to +work deceitful charms on the finder."</p> + +<p>"Did he?" said Marguerite, earnestly.</p> + +<p>They all laughed thereat, and went in to tea.</p> + +<p>[To be continued.]</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>EPITHALAMIA.</h2> +<br> + +<h2>I.</h2> + +<h2>THE WEDDING.</h2> +<p> + O Love! the flowers are blowing in park and field,<br> + With love their bursting hearts are all revealed.<br> + So come to me, and all thy fragrance yield!<br> +<br> + O Love! the sun is sinking in the west,<br> + And sequent stars all sentinel his rest.<br> + So sleep, while angels watch, upon my breast!<br> +<br> + O Love! the flooded moon is at its height,<br> + And trances sea and land with tranquil light.<br> + So shine, and gild with beauty all my night!<br> +<br> + O Love! the ocean floods the crooked shore,<br> + Till sighing beaches give their moaning o'er.<br> + So, Love, o'erflow me, till I sigh no more!<br> +</p> +<h2>II.</h2> + +<h2>THE GOLDEN WEDDING.</h2> +<p> + O wife! the fragrant Mayflower now appears,<br> + Fresh as the Pilgrims saw it through their tears.<br> + So blows our love through all these changing years.<br> +<br> + O wife! the sun is rising in the east,<br> + Nor tires to shine, while ages have increased.<br> + So shines our love, and fills my happy breast<br> +<br> + O wife! on yonder beach the ocean sings,<br> + As when it bore the Mayflower's drooping wings.<br> + So in my heart our early love-song rings.<br> +<br> + O wife! the moon and stars slide down the west<br> + To make in fresher skies their happy quest.<br> + So, Love, once more we'll wed among the blest!<br> +</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>ARTHUR HALLAM.</h2> + +<p>We were standing in the old English church at Clevedon on a summer +afternoon. And here, said my companion, pausing in the chancel, sleeps +Arthur Hallam, the friend of Alfred Tennyson, and the subject of "In +Memoriam." +<br><br> + "'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand<br> + Where he in English earth is laid."<br> +<br> +His burial-place is on a hill overhanging the Bristol Channel, a spot +selected by his father as a fit resting-place for his beloved boy. +And so<br><br> + + "They laid him by the pleasant shore,<br> + And in the hearing of the wave."<br> +<br> +Dying at twenty-two, the hope and pride of all who knew him, "remarkable +for the early splendor of his genius," the career of this young man +concentres the interest of more than his native country. Tennyson has +laid upon his early grave a poem which will never let his ashes be +forgotten, or his memory fade like that of common clay. What Southey so +felicitously says of Kirke White applies most eloquently to young +Hallam:--"Just at that age when the painter would have wished to fix his +likeness and the lover of poetry would delight to contemplate him, in +the fair morning of his virtues, the full spring-blossom of his hopes,-- +just at that age hath death set the seal of eternity upon him, and the +beautiful hath been made permanent."</p> + +<p>Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place, London, on the 1st of +February, 1811. The eldest son of Henry Hallam, the eminent historian +and critic, his earliest years had every advantage which culture and +moral excellence could bring to his education. His father has feelingly +commemorated his boyish virtues and talents by recording his "peculiar +clearness of perception, his facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above +all, an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his sense +of what was right and becoming." From that tearful record, not publicly +circulated, our recital is partly gathered. Companions of his childhood +have often told us well-remembered incidents of his life, and this is +the too brief story of his earthly career.</p> + +<p>When about eight years of age, Arthur resided some time in Germany and +Switzerland, with his father and mother. He had already become familiar +with the French language, and a year later he read Latin with some +facility. Although the father judiciously studied to repress his son's +marked precocity of talent, Arthur wrote about this time several plays +in prose and in rhyme,--compositions which were never exhibited, +however, beyond the family-circle.</p> + +<p>At ten years of age he became a pupil at a school in Putney, under the +tuition of an excellent clergyman, where he continued two years. He then +took a short tour on the Continent, and, returning, went to Eton, where +he studied nearly five years. While at Eton, he was reckoned, according +to the usual test at that place, not a first-rate Latin student, for his +mind had a predominant bias toward English literature, and there he +lingered among the exhaustless fountains of the earlier poetry of his +native tongue. One who knew him well in those years has described him to +us as a sweet-voiced lad, moving about the pleasant playing-fields of +Eton with a thoughtful eye and a most kindly expression. Afterwards, as +Tennyson, singing to the witch-elms and the towering sycamore, paints +him, he mixed in all the simple sports, and loved to gather a happy +group about him, as he lay on the grass and discussed grave questions of +state. And again,--<br><br> + + "Thy converse drew us with delight,<br> + The men of rathe and riper years:<br> + The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,<br> + Forgot his weakness in thy sight."</p> + +<p>His taste for philosophical poetry increased with his years, and +Wordsworth and Shelley became his prime favorites. His contributions to +the "Eton Miscellany" were various, sometimes in prose and now and then +in verse. A poet by nature, he could not resist the Muse's influence, +and he expressed a genuine emotion, oftentimes elegantly, and never +without a meaning.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1827 he left Eton, and travelled with his parents eight +months in Italy. And now began that life of thought and feeling so +conspicuous to the end of his too brief career. Among the Alps his whole +soul took the impress of those early introductions to what is most +glorious and beautiful in Nature. After passing the mountains, Italian +literature claimed his attention, and he entered upon its study with all +the ardor of a young and earnest student. An Abbate who recognized his +genius encouraged him with his assistance in the difficult art of +Italian versification, and, after a very brief stay in Italy, at the age +of seventeen, he wrote several sonnets which attracted considerable +attention among scholars. Very soon after acquiring the Italian +language, the great Florentine poet opened to him his mystic visions. +Dante became his worship, and his own spirit responded to that of the +author of the "Divina Commedia."</p> + +<p>His growing taste led him to admire deeply all that is noble in Art, and +he soon prized with enthusiasm the great pictures of the Venetian, the +Tuscan, and the Roman schools. "His eyes," says his father, "were fixed +on the best pictures with silent, intense delight." One can imagine him +at this period wandering with all the ardor of youthful passion through +the great galleries, not with the stolid stony gaze of a coldblooded +critic, but with that unmixed enthusiasm which so well becomes the +unwearied traveller in his buoyant days of experience among the unveiled +glories of genius now first revealed to his astonished vision.</p> + +<p>He returned home in 1828, and went to reside at Cambridge, having been +entered, before his departure for the Continent, at Trinity College. It +is said that he cared little for academical reputation, and in the +severe scrutiny of examination he did not appear as a competitor for +accurate mathematical demonstrations. He knew better than those about +him where his treasures lay,--and to some he may have seemed a dreamer, +to others an indifferent student, perhaps. His aims were higher than the +tutor's black-board, and his life-thoughts ran counter to the usual +college-routine. Disordered health soon began to appear, and a too rapid +determination of blood to the brain often deprived him of the power of +much mental labor. At Florence he had been seized with a slight attack +of the same nature, and there was always a tendency to derangement of +the vital functions. Irregularity of circulation occasioned sometimes a +morbid depression of spirits, and his friends anxiously watched for +symptoms of returning health. In his third Cambridge year he grew +better, and all who knew and loved him rejoiced in his +apparent recovery.</p> + +<p>About this time, some of his poetical pieces were printed, but withheld +from publication. It was the original intention for the two friends, +Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, to publish together; but the idea was +abandoned. Such lines as these the young poet addressed to the man who +was afterwards to lend interest and immortality to the story of his +early loss:--<br><br> + + "Alfred, I would that you beheld me now,<br> + Sitting beneath a mossy, ivied wall<br> + On a quaint bench, which to that structure old<br> + Winds an accordant curve. Above my head<br> + Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves,<br> + Seeming received into the blue expanse<br> + That vaults this summer noon. Before me lies<br> + A lawn of English verdure, smooth, and bright,<br> + Mottled with fainter hues of early hay,<br> + Whose fragrance, blended with the rose-perfume<br> + From that white flowering bush, invites my sense<br> + To a delicious madness,--and faint thoughts<br> + Of childish years are borne into my brain<br> + By unforgotten ardors waking now.<br> + Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade<br> + Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown<br> + Is the prime labor of the pettish winds,<br> + That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves<br> + Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies,<br> + And the gay humming things that summer loves,<br> + Through the warm air, or altering the bound<br> + Where yon elm-shadows in majestic line<br> + Divide dominion with the abundant light."<br> +<br> +And this fine descriptive passage was also written at this period of his +life:-- +<br><br> + + "The garden trees are busy with the shower<br> + That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk,<br> + Lowly and sweetly, as befits the hour,<br> + One to another down the grassy walk.<br> + Hark! the laburnum from his opening flower<br> + This cheery creeper greets in whisper light,<br> + While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night,<br> + Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore.<br> + What shall I deem their converse? Would they hail<br> + The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud,<br> + Or the half-bow rising like pillared fire?<br> + Or are they sighing faintly for desire<br> + That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,<br> + And dews about their feet may never fail?"</p> + +<p>The first college prize for English declamation was awarded to him this +year; and his exercise, "The Conduct of the Independent Party during the +Civil War," greatly improved his standing at the University. Other +honors quickly followed his successful essay, and he was chosen to +deliver an oration in the College Chapel just before the Christmas +vacation. This was in the year 1831. He selected as his subject the one +eminently congenial to his thought; and his theme, "The Influence of +Italian upon English Literature," was admirably treated. The oration is +before us as we write, and we turn the pages with a fond and loving eye. +We remember, as we read, his brief sojourn,--that he died "in the sweet +hour of prime,"--and we are astonished at the eloquent wisdom displayed +by a lad of twenty summers. "I cannot help considering," he says, "the +sonnets of Shakspeare as a sort of homage to the Genius of Christian +Europe, necessarily exacted, although voluntarily paid, before he was +allowed to take in hand the sceptre of his endless dominion." And he +ends his charming disquisition in these words;--"An English mind that +has drunk deep at the sources of Southern inspiration, and especially +that is imbued with the spirit of the mighty Florentine, will be +conscious of a perpetual freshness and quiet beauty resting on his +imagination and spreading gently over his affections, until, by the +blessing of Heaven, it may be absorbed without loss in the pure inner +light of which that voice has spoken, as no other can,-- +<br><br> + "'Light intellectual, yet full of love,<br> + Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy,<br> + Joy, every other sweetness far above.'"</p> + +<p>It was young Hallam's privilege to be among Coleridge's favorites, and +in one of his poems Arthur alludes to him as a man in whose face "every +line wore the pale cast of thought." His conversations with "the old man +eloquent" gave him intense delight, and he often alluded to the +wonderful talks he had enjoyed with the great dreamer, whose magical +richness of illustration took him captive for the time being.</p> + +<p>At Abbotsford he became known to Sir Walter Scott, and Lockhart thus +chronicles his visit:--</p> + +<p>"Among a few other friends from a distance, Sir Walter received this +summer [1829] a short visit from Mr. Hallam, and made in his company +several of the little excursions which had in former days been of +constant recurrence. Mr. Hallam had with him his son, Arthur, a young +gentleman of extraordinary abilities, and as modest as able, who not +long afterwards was cut off in the very bloom of opening life and +genius. His beautiful verses, 'On Melrose seen in Company with Scott,' +have since been often printed." +<br><br> + "I lived an hour in fair Melrose:<br> + It was not when 'the pale moonlight'<br> + Its magnifying charm bestows;<br> + Yet deem I that I 'viewed it right.'<br> + The wind-swept shadows fast careered,<br> + Like living things that joyed or feared,<br> + Adown the sunny Eildon Hill,<br> + And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crowned well.<br> +<br> + "I inly laughed to see that scene<br> + Wear such a countenance of youth,<br> + Though many an age those hills were green,<br> + And yonder river glided smooth,<br> + Ere in these now disjointed walls<br> + The Mother Church held festivals,<br> + And full-voiced anthemings the while<br> + Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the echoing aisle.<br> +<br> + "I coveted that Abbey's doom:<br> + For if, I thought, the early flowers<br> + Of our affection may not bloom,<br> + Like those green hills, through countless hours,<br> + Grant me at least a tardy waning<br> + Some pleasure still in age's paining;<br> + Though lines and forms must fade away,<br> + Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay!<br> +<br> + "But looking toward the grassy mound<br> + Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie,<br> + Who, living, quiet never found,<br> + I straightway learnt a lesson high:<br> + And well I knew that thoughtful mien<br> + Of him whose early lyre had thrown<br> + Over these mouldering walls the magic of its tone.<br> +<br> + "Then ceased I from my envying state,<br> + And knew that aweless intellect<br> + Hath power upon the ways of Fate,<br> + And works through time and space uncheck'd.<br> + That minstrel of old Chivalry<br> + In the cold grave must come to be;<br> + But his transmitted thoughts have part<br> + In the collective mind, and never shall depart.<br> +<br> + "It was a comfort, too, to see<br> + Those dogs that from him ne'er would rove,<br> + And always eyed him reverently,<br> + With glances of depending love.<br> + They know not of that eminence<br> + Which marks him to my reasoning sense;<br> + They know but that he is a man,<br> + And still to them is kind, and glads them all he can.<br> +<br> + "And hence their quiet looks confiding,<br> + Hence grateful instincts seated deep,<br> + By whose strong bond, were ill betiding,<br> + They'd risk their own his life to keep.<br> + What joy to watch in lower creature<br> + Such dawning of a moral nature,<br> + And how (the rule all things obey)<br> + They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!"</p> + +<p>At the University he lived a sweet and gracious life. No man had truer +or fonder friends, or was more admired for his excellent +accomplishments. Earnest in whatever he attempted, his enthusiasm for +all that was high and holy in literature stamped his career at Trinity +as one of remarkable superiority. "I have known many young men, both at +Oxford and elsewhere, of whose abilities I think highly, but I never met +with one whom I considered worthy of being put into competition with +Arthur for a moment," writes his early and intimate friend. "I can +scarcely hope to describe the feelings with which I regarded him, much +less the daily beauty of his existence, out of which they grew," writes +another of his companions. Politics, literature, philosophy he discussed +with a metaphysical subtilty marvellous in one so young. The highest +comprehension seemed native to his mind, so that all who came within the +sphere of his influence were alike impressed with his vast and various +powers. The life and grace of a charmed circle, the display of his gifts +was not for show, and he never forgot to keep the solemn injunction, +<i>"My son, give me thine heart,"</i> clearly engraven before him.</p> + +<p>Among his favorite authors, while at the University, we have been told +he greatly delighted in the old dramatists, Webster, Heywood, and +Fletcher. The grace and harmony of style and versification which he +found particularly in the latter master became one of his favorite +themes, and he often dwelt upon this excellence. He loved to repeat the +sad old strains of Bion; and Aeschylus and Sophocles interested +him deeply.</p> + +<p>On leaving Cambridge, he took his degree and went immediately to London +to reside with his father. It was a beautiful relation which always +existed between the elder and the younger scholar; and now, as soon as +Arthur had been entered on the boards of the Inner Temple, the father +and son sat down to read law together. Legal studies occupied the young +student till the month of October, 1832, when he became an inmate of the +office of an eminent conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Although he +applied himself diligently to obtain a sound practical knowledge of the +profession he had chosen, his former habits of literary pursuit did not +entirely desert him. During the winter he translated most of the sonnets +in the "Vita Nuova," and composed a dramatic sketch with Raffaello for +the hero. About this period he wrote brief, but excellent, memoirs of +Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the "Gallery of Portraits," then +publishing by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But his +time, when unoccupied at the office, was principally devoted to +metaphysical research and the history of philosophical opinion. His +spirits, sometimes apt to be graver than is the wont of youth, now +became more animated and even gay, so that his family were cheered on to +hope that his health was firmly gaining ground. The unpleasant symptoms +which manifested themselves in his earlier years had almost entirely +disappeared, when an attack of intermittent fever in the spring of 1833 +gave the fatal blow to his constitution. In August, the careful, tender +father took his beloved son into Germany, trusting to a change of +climate for restoration. Travelling slowly, they lingered among the +scenes connected with a literature and a history both were so familiar +with, and many pleasant and profitable hours of delightful converse +gladdened Arthur's journey. It is difficult to picture a more +interesting group of travellers through the picturesque regions they +were again exploring.</p> + +<p>No child was ever more ardently loved--nay, worshipped--by his father +than Arthur Hallam. The parallel, perhaps, exists in Edmund Burke's fond +attachment for and subsequent calamity in the loss of his son Richard. +That passage in the life of the great statesman is one of the most +affecting in all biographical literature. "The son thus deeply +lamented," says Prior, "had always conducted himself with much filial +duty and affection. Their confidence on all subjects was even more +unreserved than commonly prevails between father and son, and their +esteem for each other higher.... The son looked to the father as one of +the first, if not the very first, character in history; the father had +formed the very highest opinion of the talents of the son, and among his +friends rated them superior to his own." The same confiding +companionship grew up between Henry Hallam and his eldest boy, and +continued till "death set the seal of eternity" upon the young and +gifted Arthur.</p> + +<p>The travellers were returning to Vienna from Pesth; a damp day set in +while they were on the journey; again intermittent fever attacked the +sensitive invalid, and suddenly, mysteriously, his life was ended. It +was the 15th of September, 1833, and Arthur Hallam lay dead in his +father's arms. Twenty-two brief years, and all high hopes for him, the +manly, the noble-spirited, this side the tomb, are broken down forever. +Well might his heart-crushed father sob aloud, "He seemed to tread the +earth as a spirit from some better world." The author of "Horae +Subsecivae" aptly quotes Shakspeare's memorable words, in connection +with the tragic bereavement of that autumnal day in Vienna:-- +<br><br> + "The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep<br> + Into my study of imagination;<br> + And every lovely organ of thy life<br> + Shall come apparelled in more precious habit,<br> + More moving delicate, and full of life,<br> + Into the eye and prospect of my soul,<br> + Than when thou liv'dst indeed."</p> + +<p>Standing by the grave of this young person, now made so renowned by the +genius of a great poet, whose song has embalmed his name and called the +world's attention to his death, the inevitable reflection is not of +sorrow. He sleeps well who is thus lamented, and "nothing can touch him +further."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>THE CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIUM.</h2> +<br> + +<p>It is not yet a year since I ceased to act as a Spiritual Medium. (I am +forced to make use of this title as the most intelligible, but I do it +with a strong mental protest.) At first, I desired only to withdraw +myself quietly from the peculiar associations into which I had been +thrown by the exercise of my faculty, and be content with the simple +fact of my escape. A man who joins the Dashaways does not care to have +the circumstance announced in the newspapers. "So, he was an habitual +drunkard," the public would say. I was overcome by a similar +reluctance,--nay, I might honestly call it shame,--since, although I had +at intervals officiated as a Medium for a period of seven years, my name +had been mentioned, incidentally, only once or twice in the papers +devoted especially to Spiritualism. I had no such reputation as that of +Hume or Andrew Jackson Davis, which would call for a public statement of +my recantation. The result would be, therefore, to give prominence to a +weakness, which, however manfully overcome, might be remembered to my +future prejudice.</p> + +<p>I find, however, that the resolution to be silent leaves me restless and +unsatisfied. And in reflecting calmly--objectively, for the first +time--upon the experience of those seven years, I recognize so many +points wherein my case is undoubtedly analogous to that of hundreds of +others who may be still entangled in the same labyrinth whence I have +but recently escaped, so clear a solution of much that is enigmatical, +even to those who reject Spiritualism, that the impulse to write weighs +upon me with the pressure of a neglected duty. I <i>cannot</i> longer be +silent, and, in the conviction that the truth of my statement will be +evident enough to those most concerned in hearing it, without the +authority of any name, (least of all, of one so little known as mine,) I +now give my confession to the world. The names of the individuals whom I +shall have occasion to introduce are, of course, disguised; but, with +this exception, the narrative is the plainest possible record of my own +experience. Many of the incidents winch I shall be obliged to describe +are known only to the actors therein, who, I feel assured, will never +foolishly betray themselves. I have therefore no fear that any harm can +result from my disclosures.</p> + +<p>In order to make my views intelligible to those readers who have paid no +attention to psychological subjects, I must commence a little in advance +of my story. My own individual nature is one of those apparently +inconsistent combinations which are frequently found in the children of +parents whose temperaments and mental personalities widely differ. This +class of natures is much larger than would be supposed. Inheriting +opposite, even conflicting, traits from father and mother, they assume, +as either element predominates, diverse characters; and that which is +the result of temperament (in fact, congenital inconsistency) is set +down by the unthinking world as moral weakness or duplicity. Those who +have sufficient skill to perceive and reconcile--or, at least, +govern--the opposing elements are few, indeed. Had the power come to me +sooner, I should have been spared the necessity of making these +confessions.</p> + +<p>From one parent I inherited an extraordinarily active and sensitive +imagination,--from the other, a sturdy practical sense, a disposition to +weigh and balance with calm fairness the puzzling questions which life +offers to every man. These conflicting qualities--as is usual in all +similar natures--were not developed in equal order of growth. The former +governed my childhood, my youth, and enveloped me with spells, which all +the force of the latter and more slowly ripened faculty was barely +sufficient to break. Luxuriant weeds and brambles covered the soil +which should have been ploughed and made to produce honest grain. +Unfortunately, I had no teacher who was competent to understand and +direct me. The task was left for myself, and I can only wonder, after +all that has occurred, how it has been possible for me to succeed. +Certainly, this success has not been due to any vigorous exercise of +virtue on my part, but solely to the existence of that cool, reflective +reason which lay <i>perdue</i> beneath all the extravagances of my mind.</p> + +<p>I possessed, even as a child, an unusual share of what phrenologists +call Concentrativeness. The power of absorption, of self-forgetfulness, +was at the same time a source of delight and a torment. Lost in some +wild dream or absurd childish speculation, my insensibility to outward +things was chastised as carelessness or a hardened indifference to +counsel. With a memory almost marvellous to retain those things which +appealed to my imagination, I blundered painfully over the commonest +tasks. While I frequently repeated the Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too +often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my +corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, +to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing +my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat +moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman +required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They +could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. +The closing hymn recalled me to myself, always with a shock, or sense of +pain, and sometimes even with a temporary nausea.</p> + +<p>This habit of abstraction--properly a complete <i>passivity</i> of the +mind--after a while developed another habit, in which I now see the root +of that peculiar condition which made me a Medium. I shall therefore +endeavor to describe it. I was sitting, one Sunday, just as the minister +was commencing his sermon, with my eyes carelessly following the fingers +of my right hand, as I drummed them slowly across my knee. Suddenly, the +wonder came into my mind,--How is it my fingers move? What set them +going? What is it that stops them? The mystery of that communication +between will and muscle, which no physiologist has ever fathomed, burst +upon my young intellect. I had been conscious of no intention of thus +drumming my fingers; they were in motion when I first noticed them: they +were certainly a part of myself, yet they acted without my knowledge or +design! My left hand was quiet; why did its fingers not move also? +Following these reflections came a dreadful fear, as I remembered Jane, +the blacksmith's daughter, whose elbows and shoulders sometimes jerked +in such a way as to make all the other scholars laugh, although we were +sorry for the poor girl, who cried bitterly over her unfortunate, +ungovernable limbs. I was comforted, however, on finding that I could +control the motion of my fingers at pleasure; but my imagination was too +active to stop there. What if I should forget how to direct my hands? +What if they should refuse to obey me? What if my knees, which were just +as still as the hymn-books in the rack before me, should cease to bend, +and I should sit there forever? These very questions seemed to produce a +temporary paralysis of the will. As my right hand lay quietly on my +knee, and I asked myself, with a stupid wonder, "Now, can I move it?" it +lay as still as before. I had only questioned, not willed. "No I cannot +move it," I said, in real doubt I was conscious of a blind sense of +exertion, wherein there was yet no proper exertion, but which seemed to +exhaust me. Fascinated by this new mystery, I contemplated my hand as +something apart from myself,--something subordinate to, but not +identical with, me. The rising of the congregation for the hymn broke +the spell, like the snapping of a thread.</p> + +<p>The reader will readily understand that I carried these experiences much +farther. I gradually learned to suspend (perhaps in imagination only, +but therefore none the less really) the action of my will upon the +muscles of my arms and legs; and I did it with the greater impunity, +from knowing that the stir consequent upon the conclusion of the +services would bring me to myself. In proportion as the will became +passive, the activity of my imagination was increased, and I experienced +a new and strange delight in watching the play of fantasies which +appeared to come and go independently of myself. There was still a dim +consciousness of outward things mingled with my condition; I was not +beyond the recall of my senses. But one day, I remember, as I sat +motionless as a statue, having ceased any longer to attempt to control +my dead limbs, more than usually passive, a white, shining mist +gradually stole around me; my eyes finally ceased to take cognizance of +objects; a low, musical humming sounded in my ears, and those creatures +of the imagination which had hitherto crossed my brain as <i>thoughts</i> now +spoke to me as audible voices. If there is any happy delirium in the +first stages of intoxication, (of which, thank Heaven, I have no +experience,) it must be a sensation very much like that which I felt. +The death of external and the birth of internal consciousness +overwhelmed my childish soul with a dumb, ignorant ecstasy, like that +which savages feel on first hearing the magic of music.</p> + +<p>How long I remained thus I know not. I was aroused, by feeling myself +violently shaken. "John!" exclaimed my mother, who had grasped my arm +with a determined hand,--"bless the boy! what ails him? Why, his face +is as white as a sheet!" Slowly I recovered my consciousness, saw the +church and the departing congregation, and mechanically followed my +parents. I could give no explanation of what had happened, except to say +that I had fallen asleep. As I ate my dinner with a good appetite, my +mother's fears were quieted. I was left at home the following Sunday, +and afterwards only ventured to indulge sparingly in the exercise of my +newly discovered faculty. My mother, I was conscious, took more note of +my presence than formerly, and I feared a repetition of the same +catastrophe. As I grew older and my mind became interested in a wider +range of themes, I finally lost the habit, which I classed among the +many follies of childhood.</p> + +<p>I retained, nevertheless, and still retain, something of that subtile +instinct which mocks and yet surpasses reason. My feelings with regard +to the persons whom I met were quite independent of their behavior +towards me, or the estimation in which they were held by the world. +Things which puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in +sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid +doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible +to understand my motives of action,--because, in fact, there were no +<i>motives</i>,--complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I +presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the +instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which +I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and was +generally able to distinguish between its suggestions and the mere +humors of my imagination. It is scarcely necessary to say that I assume +the existence of such a power, at the outset. I recognize it as a normal +faculty of the human mind,--not therefore universal, any more than the +genius which makes a poet, a painter, or a composer.</p> + +<p>My education was neither general nor thorough; hence I groped darkly +with the psychological questions which were presented to me. Tormented +by those doubts which at some period of life assail the soul of every +thinking man, I was ready to grasp at any solution which offered, +without very carefully testing its character. I eagerly accepted the +theory of Animal Magnetism, which, so far as it went, was satisfactory; +but it only illustrated the powers and relations of the soul in its +present state of existence; it threw no light upon that future which I +was not willing to take upon faith alone. Though sensible to mesmeric +influences, I was not willing that my spiritual nature should be the +instrument of another's will,--that a human being, like myself, should +become possessed of all my secrets and sanctities, touching the keys of +every passion with his unhallowed fingers. In the phenomena of +clairvoyance I saw only other and more subtile manifestations of the +power which I knew to exist in my own mind. Hence, I soon grew weary of +prosecuting inquiries which, at best, would fall short of solving my own +great and painful doubt,--Does the human soul continue to exist after +death? That it could take cognizance of things beyond the reach of the +five senses, I was already assured. This, however, might be a sixth +sense, no less material and perishable in its character than the others. +My brain, as yet, was too young and immature to follow the thread of +that lofty spiritual logic in the light of which such doubts melt away +like mists of the night. Thus, uneasy because undeveloped, erring +because I had never known the necessary guidance, seeking, but almost +despairing of enlightenment, I was a fit subject for any spiritual +epidemic which seemed to offer me a cure for worse maladies.</p> + +<p>At this juncture occurred the phenomena known as the "Rochester +Knockings." (My home, let me say, is in a small town not far from New +York.) I shared in the general interest aroused by the marvellous +stories, which, being followed by the no less extraordinary display of +some unknown agency at Norwalk, Connecticut, excited me to such a degree +that I was half-converted to the new faith before I had witnessed any +spiritual manifestation. Soon after the arrival of the Misses Fox in New +York I visited them in their rooms at the Howard House. Impressed by +their quiet, natural demeanor, the absence of anything savoring of +jugglery, and the peculiar character of the raps and movements of the +table, I asked my questions and applied my tests, in a passive, if not a +believing frame of mind. In fact, I had not long been seated, before the +noises became loud and frequent.</p> + +<p>"The spirits like to communicate with you," said Mrs. Fish: "you seem to +be nearer to them than most people."</p> + +<p>I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother, +and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained +correct answers to all my questions. I did not then remark, what has +since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I +knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind +at the time. The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression +upon me. Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train +that morning, I asked,--"Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind +communicate with me?" To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on +calling over the alphabet,--"<i>He is living!</i>"</p> + +<p>I returned home, very much puzzled. Precisely those features of the +exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me. The +searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the +manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me +favorably towards the spiritual theory. If disembodied souls, I said, +really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should +they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for +their visitations? What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in +places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than +when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination? In such +reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination, +while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical.</p> + +<p>Soon after this, circles began to be formed in my native town, for the +purpose of table-moving. A number of persons met, secretly at +first,--for as yet there were no avowed converts,--and quite as much for +sport as for serious investigation. The first evening there was no +satisfactory manifestation. The table moved a little, it is true, but +each one laughingly accused his neighbors of employing some muscular +force: all isolated attempts were vain. I was conscious, nevertheless, +of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind +my forgotten experiments in church. No rappings were heard, and some of +the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole thing +a delusion.</p> + +<p>A few evenings after this we met again. Those who were most incredulous +happened to be absent, while, accidentally, their places were filled by +persons whose temperaments disposed them to a passive seriousness. Among +these was a girl of sixteen, Miss Abby Fetters, a pale, delicate +creature, with blond hair and light-blue eyes. Chance placed her next to +me, in forming the ring, and her right hand lay lightly upon my left. We +stood around a heavy circular dining-table. A complete silence was +preserved, and all minds gradually sank into a quiet, passive +expectancy. In about ten minutes I began to feel, or to imagine that I +felt, a stream of light,--if light were a palpable substance,--a +something far finer and more subtile than an electric current, passing +from the hand of Miss Fetters through my own into the table. Presently +the great wooden mass began to move,--stopped,--moved again,--turned in +a circle, we following, without changing the position of our hands,--and +finally began to rock from side to side, with increasing violence. Some +of the circle were thrown off by the movements; others withdrew their +hands in affright; and but four, among whom were Miss Fetters and +myself, retained their hold. My outward consciousness appeared to be +somewhat benumbed, as if by some present fascination or approaching +trance, but I retained curiosity enough to look at my companion. Her +eyes, sparkling with a strange, steady light, were fixed upon the table; +her breath came quick and short, and her cheek had lost every trace of +color. Suddenly, as if by a spasmodic effort, she removed her hands; I +did the same, and the table stopped. She threw herself into a seat, as +if exhausted, yet, during the whole time, not a muscle of the hand which +lay upon mine had stirred. I solemnly declare that my own hands had been +equally passive, yet I experienced the same feeling of fatigue,--not +muscular fatigue, but a sense of <i>deadness</i>, as if every drop of nervous +energy had been suddenly taken from me.</p> + +<p>Further experiments, the same evening, showed that we two, either +together or alone, were able to produce the same phenomena without the +assistance of the others present. We did not succeed, however, in +obtaining any answers to our questions, nor were any of us impressed by +the idea that the spirits of the dead were among us. In fact, these +table-movings would not, of themselves, suggest the idea of a spiritual +manifestation. "The table is bewitched," said Thompson, a hard-headed +young fellow, without a particle of imagination; and this was really the +first impression of all: some unknown force, latent in the dead matter, +had been called into action. Still, this conclusion was so strange, so +incredible, that the agency of supernatural intelligences finally +presented itself to my mind as the readiest solution.</p> + +<p>It was not long before we obtained rappings, and were enabled to repeat +all the experiments which I had tried during my visit to the Fox family. +The spirits of our deceased relatives and friends announced themselves, +and generally gave a correct account of their earthly lives. I must +confess, however, that, whenever we attempted to pry into the future, we +usually received answers as ambiguous as those of the Grecian oracles, +or predictions which failed to be realized. Violent knocks or other +unruly demonstrations would sometimes interrupt an intelligent +communication which promised us some light on the other life: these, we +were told, were occasioned by evil or mischievous spirits, whose delight +it was to create disturbances. They never occurred, I now remember, +except when Miss Fetters was present. At the time, we were too much +absorbed in our researches to notice the fact.</p> + +<p>The reader will perceive, from what he knows of my previous mental +state, that it was not difficult for me to accept the theories of the +Spiritualists. Here was an evidence of the immortality of the +soul,--nay, more, of its continued individuality through endless future +existences. The idea of my individuality being lost had been to me the +same thing as complete annihilation. The spirits themselves informed us +that they had come to teach these truths. The simple, ignorant faith of +the Past, they said, was worn out; with the development of science, the +mind of man had become skeptical; the ancient fountains no longer +sufficed for his thirst; each new era required a new revelation; in all +former ages there had been single minds pure enough and advanced enough +to communicate with the dead and be the mediums of their messages to +men, but now the time had come when the knowledge of this intercourse +must be declared unto all; in its light the mysteries of the Past became +clear; in the wisdom thus imparted, that happy Future which seems +possible to every ardent and generous heart would be secured. I was not +troubled by the fact that the messages which proclaimed these things +were often incorrectly spelt, that the grammar was bad and the language +far from elegant. I did not reflect that these new and sublime truths +had formerly passed through my own brain as the dreams of a wandering +imagination. Like that American philosopher who looks upon one of his +own neophytes as a man of great and profound mind because the latter +carefully remembers and repeats to him his own carelessly uttered +wisdom, I saw in these misty and disjointed reflections of my own +thoughts the precious revelation of departed and purified spirits.</p> + +<p>How a passion for the unknown and unattainable takes hold of men is +illustrated by the search for the universal solvent, by the mysteries of +the Rosicrucians, by the patronage of fortune-tellers, even. Wholly +absorbed in spiritual researches,--having, in fact, no vital interest in +anything else,--I soon developed into what is called a Medium. I +discovered, at the outset, that the peculiar condition to be attained +before the tables would begin to move could be produced at will.<a name="FNanchor7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> I +also found that the passive state into which I naturally fell had a +tendency to produce that trance or suspension of the will which I had +discovered when a boy. External consciousness, however, did not wholly +depart. I saw the circle of inquirers around me, but dimly, and as +phantoms,--while the impressions which passed over my brain seemed to +wear visible forms and to speak with audible voices.</p> + +<p>I did not doubt, at the time, that spirits visited me, and that they +made use of my body to communicate with those who could hear them in no +other way. Beside the pleasant intoxication of the semi-trance, I felt a +rare joy in the knowledge that I was elected above other men to be their +interpreter. Let me endeavor to describe the nature of this possession. +Sometimes, even before a spirit would be called for, the figure of the +person, as it existed in the mind of the inquirer, would suddenly +present itself to me,--not to my outward senses, but to my interior, +instinctive knowledge. If the recollection of the other embraced also +the voice, I heard the voice in the same manner, and unconsciously +imitated it. The answers to the questions I knew by the same instinct, +as soon as the questions were spoken.</p> + +<p>If the question was vague, asked for information rather than +<i>confirmation</i>, either no answer came, or there was an impression of a +<i>wish</i> of what the answer might be, or, at times, some strange +involuntary sentence sprang to my lips. When I wrote, my hand appeared +to move of itself; yet the words it wrote invariably passed through my +mind. Even when blindfolded, there was no difference in its performance. +The same powers developed themselves in a still greater degree in Miss +Fetters. The spirits which spoke most readily through her were those of +men, even coarse and rude characters, which came unsummoned. Two or +three of the other members of our circle were able to produce motions in +the table; they could even feel, as they asserted, the touch of +spiritual hands; but, however much they desired it, they were never +personally possessed as we, and therefore could not properly be +called Mediums.</p> + +<p>These investigations were not regularly carried on. Occasionally the +interest of the circle flagged, until it was renewed by the visit of +some apostle of the new faith, usually accompanied by a "Preaching +Medium." Among those whose presence especially conduced to keep alive +the flame of spiritual inquiry was a gentleman named Stilton, the editor +of a small monthly periodical entitled "Revelations from the Interior." +Without being himself a Medium, he was nevertheless thoroughly +conversant with the various phenomena of Spiritualism, and both spoke +and wrote in the dialect which its followers adopted. He was a man of +varied, but not profound learning, an active intellect, giving and +receiving impressions with equal facility, and with an unusual +combination of concentrativeness and versatility in his nature. A +certain inspiration was connected with his presence. His personality +overflowed upon and influenced others. "My mind is not sufficiently +submissive," he would say, "to receive impressions from the spirits, but +my atmosphere attracts them and encourages them to speak." He was a +stout, strongly built man, with coarse black hair, gray eyes, large +animal mouth, square jaws, and short, thick neck. Had his hair been +cropped close, he would have looked very much like a prize-fighter; but +he wore it long, parted in the middle, and as meek in expression as its +stiff waves would allow.</p> + +<p>Stilton soon became the controlling spirit of our circle. His presence +really seemed, as he said, to encourage the spirits. Never before had +the manifestations been so abundant or so surprising. Miss Fetters, +especially, astonished us by the vigor of her possessions. Not only +Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe +Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens, +prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her +frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she +floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore +for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the +opposite cast. Hypatia, Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest +of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually +spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand, +and often without giving any clue to their personality. A practised +stenographer, engaged by Mr. Stilton, took down many of these +communications as they were spoken, and they were afterwards published +in the "Revelations." It was also remarked, that, while Miss Fetters +employed violent gestures and seemed to possess a superhuman strength, +I, on the contrary, sat motionless, pale, and with little sign of life +except in my voice, which, though low, was clear and dramatic in its +modulations. Stilton explained this difference without hesitation. "Miss +Abby," he said, "possesses soul-matter of a texture to which the souls +of these strong men naturally adhere. In the spirit-land the +superfluities repel each other; the individual souls seek to remedy +their imperfections: in the union of opposites only is to be found the +great harmonia of life. You, John, move upon another plane; through +what in you is undeveloped, these developed spirits are attracted."</p> + +<p>For two or three years, I must admit, my life was a very happy one. Not +only were those occasional trances an intoxication, nay, a coveted +indulgence, but they cast a consecration over my life. My restored faith +rested on the sure evidence of my own experience; my new creed contained +no harsh or repulsive feature; I heard the same noble sentiments which I +uttered in such moments repeated by my associates in the faith, and I +devoutly believed that a complete regeneration of the human race was at +hand. Nevertheless, it struck me sometimes as singular that many of the +Mediums whom I met--men and women chosen by spiritual hands to the same +high office--excited in my mind that instinct of repulsion on which I +had learned to rely as a sufficient reason for avoiding certain persons. +Far as it would have been from my mind, at that time, to question the +manifestations which accompanied them, I could not smother my mistrust +of their characters. Miss Fetters, whom I so frequently met, was one of +the most disagreeable. Her cold, thin lips, pale eyes, and lean figure +gave me a singular impression of voracious hunger. Her presence was +often announced to me by a chill shudder, before I saw her. Centuries +ago one of her ancestors must have been a ghoul or vampire. The trance +of possession seemed, with her, to be a form of dissipation, in which +she indulged as she might have catered for a baser appetite. The new +religion was nothing to her; I believe she valued it only on account of +the importance she obtained among its followers. Her father, a vain, +weak-minded man, who kept a grocery in the town, was himself a convert.</p> + +<p>Stilton had an answer for every doubt. No matter how tangled a labyrinth +might be exhibited to him, he walked straight through it.</p> + +<p>"How is it," I asked him, "that so many of my fellow-mediums inspire me +with an instinctive dislike and mistrust?"</p> + +<p>"By mistrust you mean dislike," he answered; "since you know of no +reason to doubt their characters. The elements of soul-matter are +differently combined in different individuals, and there are affinities +and repulsions, just as there are in the chemical elements. Your feeling +is chemical, not moral. A want of affinity does not necessarily imply an +existing evil in the other party. In the present ignorance of the world, +our true affinities can only he imperfectly felt and indulged; and the +entire freedom which we shall obtain in this respect is the greatest +happiness of the spirit-life."</p> + +<p>Another time I asked,--</p> + +<p>"How is it that the spirits of great authors speak so tamely to us? +Shakspeare, last night, wrote a passage which he would have been +heartily ashamed of, as a living man. We know that a spirit spoke, +calling himself Shakspeare; but, judging from his communication, it +could not have been he."</p> + +<p>"It probably was not," said Mr. Stilton. "I am convinced that all +malicious spirits are at work to interrupt the communications from the +higher spheres. We were thus deceived by one professing to be Benjamin +Franklin, who drew for us the plan of a machine for splitting shingles, +which we had fabricated and patented at considerable expense. On trial, +however, it proved to be a miserable failure, a complete mockery. When +the spirit was again summoned, he refused to speak, but shook the table +to express his malicious laughter, went off, and has never since +returned. My friend, we know but the alphabet of Spiritualism, the mere +A B C; we can no more expect to master the immortal language in a day +than a child to read Plato after learning his letters."</p> + +<p>Many of those who had been interested in the usual phenomena gradually +dropped off, tired, and perhaps a little ashamed, in the reaction +following their excitement; but there were continual accessions to our +ranks, and we formed, at last, a distinct clan or community. Indeed, the +number of <i>secret</i> believers in Spiritualism would never be suspected +by the uninitiated. In the sect, however, as in Masonry and the Catholic +Church, there are circles within circles,--concentric rings, whence you +can look outwards, but not inwards, and where he alone who stands at the +centre is able to perceive everything. Such an inner circle was at last +formed in our town. Its object, according to Stilton, with whom the plan +originated, was to obtain a purer spiritual atmosphere, by the exclusion +of all but Mediums and those non-mediumistic believers in whose presence +the spirits felt at ease, and thus invite communications from the +farther and purer spheres.</p> + +<p>In fact, the result seemed to justify the plan. The character of the +trance, as I had frequently observed, is vitiated by the consciousness +that disbelievers are present. The more perfect the atmosphere of +credulity, the more satisfactory the manifestations. The expectant +company, the dim light, the conviction that a wonderful revelation was +about to dawn upon us, excited my imagination, and my trance was really +a sort of delirium, in which I spoke with a passion and an eloquence I +had never before exhibited. The fear, which had previously haunted me, +at times, of giving my brain and tongue into the control of an unknown, +power, was forgotten; yet, more than ever, I was conscious of some +strong controlling influence, and experienced a reckless pleasure in +permitting myself to be governed by it. "Prepare," I concluded, (I quote +from the report in the "Revelations,") "prepare, sons of men, for the +dawning day! Prepare for the second and perfect regeneration of man! For +the prison-chambers have been broken into, and the light from the +interior shall illuminate the external! Ye shall enjoy spiritual and +passional freedom; your guides shall no longer be the despotism of +ignorant laws, nor the whip of an imaginary conscience,--but the natural +impulses of your nature, which are the melody of Life, and the natural +affinities, which are its harmony! The reflections from the upper +spheres shall irradiate the lower, and Death is the triumphal arch +through which we pass from glory to glory!"</p> + +<p>--I have here paused, deliberating whether I should proceed farther in +my narrative. But no; if any good is to be accomplished by these +confessions, the reader must walk with me through the dark labyrinth +which follows. He must walk over what may be considered delicate ground, +but he shall not be harmed. One feature of the trance condition is too +remarkable, too important in its consequences, to be overlooked. It is a +feature of which many Mediums are undoubtedly ignorant, the existence of +which is not even suspected by thousands of honest Spiritualists.</p> + +<p>Let me again anticipate the regular course of my narrative, and explain. +A suspension of the Will, when indulged in for any length of time, +produces a suspension of that inward consciousness of good and evil +which we call Conscience, and which can be actively exercised only +through the medium of the Will. The mental faculties and the moral +perceptions lie down together in the same passive sleep. The subject is, +therefore, equally liable to receive impressions from the minds of +others, and from their passions and lusts. Besides this, the germs of +all good and of all evil are implanted in the nature of every human +being; and even when some appetite is buried in a crypt so deep that its +existence is forgotten, let the warder be removed, and it will gradually +work its way to the light. Persons in the receptive condition which +belongs to the trance may be surrounded by honest and pure-minded +individuals, and receive no harmful impressions; they may even, if of a +healthy spiritual temperament, resist for a time the aggressions of evil +influences; but the final danger is always the same. The state of the +Medium, therefore, may be described as one in which the Will is passive, +the Conscience passive, the outward senses partially (sometimes wholly) +suspended, the mind helplessly subject to the operations of other minds, +and the passions and desires released from all restraining +influences.<a name="FNanchor8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> I make the statement boldly, after long and careful +reflection, and severe self-examination.</p> + +<p>As I said before, I did not entirely lose my external consciousness, +although it was very dim and dream-like. On returning to the natural +state, my recollection of what had occurred during the trance became +equally dim; but I retained a general impression of the character of the +possession. I knew that some foreign influence--the spirit of a dead +poet, or hero, or saint, I then believed--governed me for the time; that +I gave utterance to thoughts unfamiliar to my mind in its conscious +state; and that my own individuality was lost, or so disguised that I +could no longer recognize it. This very circumstance made the trance an +indulgence, a spiritual intoxication, no less fascinating than that of +the body, although accompanied by a similar reaction. Yet, behind all, +dimly evident to me, there was an element of terror. There were times +when, back of the influences which spoke with my voice, rose another,--a +vast, overwhelming, threatening power, the nature of which I could not +grasp, but which I knew was evil. Even when in my natural state, +listening to the harsh utterances of Miss Fetters or the lofty spiritual +philosophy of Mr. Stilton, I have felt, for a single second, the touch +of an icy wind, accompanied by a sensation of unutterable dread.</p> + +<p>Our secret circle had not held many sessions before a remarkable change +took place in the character of the revelations. Mr. Stilton ceased to +report them for his paper.</p> + +<p>"We are on the threshold, at last," said he; "the secrets of the ages +lie beyond. The hands of spirits are now lifting the veil, fold by fold. +Let us not be startled by what we hear: let us show that our eyes can +bear the light,--that we are competent to receive the wisdom of the +higher spheres, and live according to it."</p> + +<p>Miss Fetters was more than ever possessed by the spirit of Joe Manton, +whose allowance of grog having been cut off too suddenly by his death, +he was continually clamoring for a dram.</p> + +<p>"I tell you," yelled he, or rather she, "I won't stand sich meanness. I +ha'n't come all the way here for nothin'. I'll knock Erasmus all to +thunder, if you go for to turn me out dry, and let him come in."</p> + +<p>Mr. Stilton thereupon handed him, or her, a tumbler half-full of brandy, +which she gulped down at a single swallow. Joe Manton presently retired +to make room for Erasmus, who spoke for some time in Latin, or what +appeared to be Latin. None of us could make much of it; but Mr. Stilton +declared that the Latin pronunciation of Erasmus was probably different +from ours, or that he might have learned the true Roman accent from +Cicero and Seneca, with whom, doubtless, he was now on intimate terms. +As Erasmus generally concluded by throwing his arms, or rather the arms +of Miss Fetters, around the neck of Mr. Stilton,--his spirit +fraternizing, apparently, with the spirit of the latter,--we greatly +regretted that his communications were unintelligible, on account of the +superior wisdom which they might be supposed to contain.</p> + +<p>I confess, I cannot recall the part I played in what would have been a +pitiable farce, if it had not been so terribly tragical, without a +feeling of utter shame. Nothing but my profound sympathy for the +thousands and tens of thousands who are still subject to the same +delusion could compel me to such a sacrifice of pride. Curiously enough, +(as I thought <i>then</i>, but not now,) the enunciation of sentiments +opposed to my moral sense--the abolition, in fact, of all moral +restraint--came from my lips, while the actions of Miss Fetters hinted +at their practical application. Upon the ground that the interests of +the soul were paramount to all human laws and customs, I declared--or +rather, <i>my voice</i> declared--that self-denial was a fatal error, to +which half the misery of mankind could be traced; that the passions, +held as slaves, exhibited only the brutish nature of slaves, and would +be exalted and glorified by entire freedom; and that our sole guidance +ought to come from the voices of the spirits who communicated with us, +instead of the imperfect laws constructed by our benighted fellow-men. +How clear and logical, how lofty, these doctrines seemed! If, at times, +something in their nature repelled me, I simply attributed it to the +fact that I was still but a neophyte in the Spiritual Philosophy, and +incapable of perceiving the truth with entire clearness.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stilton had a wife,--one of those meek, amiable, simple-hearted +women whose individuality seems to be completely absorbed into that of +their husbands. When such women are wedded to frank, tender, protecting +men, their lives are truly blessed; but they are willing slaves to the +domestic tyrant. They bear uncomplainingly,--many of them even without a +thought of complaint,--and die at last with their hearts full of love +for the brutes who have trampled upon them. Mrs. Stilton was perhaps +forty years of age, of middle height, moderately plump in person, with +light-brown hair, soft, inexpressive gray eyes, and a meek, helpless, +imploring mouth. Her voice was mild and plaintive, and its accents of +anger (if she ever gave utterance to such) could not have been +distinguished from those of grief. She did not often attend our +sessions, and it was evident, that, while she endeavored to comprehend +the revelations, in order to please her husband, their import was very +far beyond her comprehension. She was now and then a little frightened +at utterances which no doubt sounded lewd or profane to her ears; but +after a glance at Mr. Stilton's face, and finding that it betrayed +neither horror nor surprise, would persuade herself that everything +must be right.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure," she once timidly whispered to me, "are you very sure, +Mr. ------, that there is no danger of being led astray? It seems +strange to me; but perhaps I don't understand it."</p> + +<p>Her question was so indefinite, that I found it difficult to answer. +Stilton, however, seeing me engaged in endeavoring to make clear to her +the glories of the new truth, exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"That's right, John! Your spiritual plane slants through many spheres, +and has points of contact with a great variety of souls. I hope my wife +will be able to see the light through you, since I appear to be too +opaque for her to receive it from me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Abijah!" said the poor woman, "you know it is my fault. I try to +follow, and I hope I have faith, though I don't see everything as +clearly as you do."</p> + +<p>I began also to have my own doubts, as I perceived that an "affinity" +was gradually being developed between Stilton and Miss Fetters. She was +more and more frequently possessed by the spirit of Erasmus, whose +salutations, on meeting and parting with his brother-philosopher, were +too enthusiastic for merely masculine love. But, whenever I hinted at +the possibility of mistaking the impulses of the soul, or at evil +resulting from a too sudden and universal liberation of the passions, +Stilton always silenced me with his inevitable logic. Having once +accepted the premises, I could not avoid the conclusions.</p> + +<p>"When our natures are in harmony with spirit-matter throughout the +spheres," he would say, "our impulses will always be in accordance. Or, +if there should be any temporary disturbance, arising from our necessary +intercourse with the gross, blinded multitude, we can always fly to our +spiritual monitors for counsel. Will not they, the immortal souls of the +ages past, who have guided us to a knowledge of the truth, assist us +also in preserving it pure?"</p> + +<p>In spite of this, in spite of my admiration of Stilton's intellect, and +my yet unshaken faith in Spiritualism, I was conscious that the harmony +of the circle was becoming impaired to me. Was I falling behind in +spiritual progress? Was I too weak to be the medium for the promised +revelations? I threw myself again and again into the trance, with a +recklessness of soul which fitted me to receive any, even the darkest +impressions, to catch and proclaim every guilty whisper of the senses, +and, while under the influence of the excitement, to exult in the age of +license which I believed to be at hand. But darker, stronger grew the +terror which lurked behind this spiritual carnival. A more tremendous +power than that which I now recognized as coming from Stilton's brain +was present, and I saw myself whirling nearer and nearer to its grasp. I +felt, by a sort of blind instinct, too vague to be expressed, that some +demoniac agency had thrust itself into the manifestations,--perhaps had +been mingled with them from the outset.</p> + +<p>For two or three months, my life was the strangest mixture of happiness +and misery. I walked about with the sense of some crisis hanging over +me. My "possessions" became fiercer and wilder, and the reaction so much +more exhausting that I fell into the habit of restoring myself by means +of the bottle of brandy which Mr. Stilton took care should be on hand, +in case of a visit from Joe Manton. Miss Fetters, strange to say, was +not in the least affected by the powerful draughts she imbibed. But, at +the same time, my waking life was growing brighter and brighter under +the power of a new and delicious experience. My nature is eminently +social, and I had not been able--indeed, I did not desire--wholly to +withdraw myself from intercourse with non-believers. There was too much +in society that was congenial to me to be given up. My instinctive +dislike to Miss Abby Fetters and my compassionate regard for Mrs. +Stilton's weakness only served to render the company of intelligent, +cultivated women more attractive to me. Among those whom I met most +frequently was Miss Agnes Honeywood, a calm, quiet, unobtrusive girl, +the characteristic of whose face was sweetness rather than beauty, while +the first feeling she inspired was respect rather than admiration. She +had just that amount of self-possession which conceals without +conquering the sweet timidity of woman. Her voice was low, yet clear; +and her mild eyes, I found, were capable, on occasion, of both flashing +and melting. Why describe her? I loved her before I knew it; but, with +the consciousness of my love, that clairvoyant sense on which I had +learned to depend failed for the first time. Did she love me? When I +sought to answer the question in her presence, all was confusion within.</p> + +<p>This was not the only new influence which entered into and increased the +tumult of my mind. The other half of my two-sided nature--the cool, +reflective, investigating faculty--had been gradually ripening, and the +questions which it now began to present seriously disturbed the +complacency of my theories. I saw that I had accepted many things on +very unsatisfactory evidence; but, on the other hand, there was much for +which I could find no other explanation. Let me be frank, and say, that +I do not now pretend to explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism. This, +however, I determined to do,--to ascertain, if possible, whether the +influences which governed me in the trance state came from the persons +around, from the exercise of some independent faculty of my own mind, or +really and truly from the spirits of the dead. Mr. Stilton appeared to +notice that some internal conflict was going on; but he said nothing in +regard to it, and, as events proved, he entirely miscalculated its +character.</p> + +<p>I said to myself,--"If this chaos continues, it will drive me mad. Let +me have one bit of solid earth beneath my feet, and I can stand until it +subsides. Let me throw over the best bower of the heart, since all the +anchors of the mind are dragging!" I summoned resolution. I made that +desperate venture which no true man makes without a pang of forced +courage; but, thank God! I did not make it in vain. Agnes loved me, and +in the deep, quiet bliss which this knowledge gave I felt the promise of +deliverance. She knew and lamented my connection with the Spiritualists; +but, perceiving my mental condition from the few intimations which I +dared to give her, discreetly held her peace. But I could read the +anxious expression of that gentle face none the less.</p> + +<p>My first endeavor to solve the new questions was to check the +<I>abandon</I> of the trance condition, and interfuse it with more of +sober consciousness. It was a difficult task; and nothing but the +circumstance that my consciousness had never been entirely lost enabled +me to make any progress. I finally succeeded, as I imagined, (certainty +is impossible,) in separating the different influences which impressed +me,--perceiving where one terminated and the other commenced, or where +two met and my mind vibrated from one to the other until the stronger +prevailed, or where a thought which seemed to originate in my own brain +took the lead and swept away with me like the mad rush of a prairie +colt. When out of the trance, I noticed attentively the expressions made +use of by Mr. Stilton and the other members of the circle, and was +surprised to find how many of them I had reproduced. But might they not, +in the first place, have been derived from me? And what was the vague, +dark Presence which still overshadowed me at such times? What was that +Power which I had tempted,--which we were all tempting, every time we +met,--and which continually drew nearer and became more threatening? I +knew not; <I>and I know not</I>. I would rather not speak or think of +it any more.</p> + +<p>My suspicions with regard to Stilton and Miss Fetters were confirmed by +a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should +treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, +but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there +was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon +the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual harmonies. Among +<I>us</I>, he said, there could be no more hatred or mistrust or +jealousy,--nothing but love, pure, unselfish, perfect love. "You, my +dear," (turning to Mrs. Stilton,) "belong to a sphere which is included +within my own, and share in my harmonies and affinities; yet the +soul-matter which adheres to you is of a different texture from mine. +Yours has also its independent affinities; I see and respect them; and +even though they might lead our bodies--our outward, material +lives--away from one another, we should still be true to that glorious +light of Jove which permeates all soul-matter."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Abijah!" cried Mrs. Stilton, really distressed, "how can you say +such a thing of me? You know I can never adhere to anybody else +but you!"</p> + +<p>Stilton would then call in my aid to explain his meaning, asserting that +I had a faculty of reaching his wife's intellect, which he did not +himself possess. Feeling a certain sympathy for her painful confusion of +mind, I did my best to give his words an interpretation which soothed +her fears. Then she begged his pardon, taking all the blame to her own +stupidity, and received his grudged, unwilling kiss with a restored +happiness which pained me to the heart.</p> + +<p>I had a growing presentiment of some approaching catastrophe. I felt, +distinctly, the presence of unhallowed passions in our circle; and my +steadfast love for Agnes, borne thither in my bosom, seemed like a pure +white dove in a cage of unclean birds. Stilton held me from him by the +superior strength of his intellect. I began to mistrust, even to hate +him, while I was still subject to his power, and unable to acquaint him +with the change in my feelings. Miss Fetters was so repulsive that I +never spoke to her when it could be avoided. I had tolerated her, +heretofore, for the sake of her spiritual gift; but now, when I began to +doubt the authenticity of that gift, her hungry eyes, her thin lips, her +flat breast, and cold, dry hands excited in me a sensation of absolute +abhorrence.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of Affinities had some time before been adopted by the +circle, as a part of the Spiritual Truth. Other circles, with which we +were in communication, had also received the same revelation; and the +ground upon which it was based, in fact, rendered its acceptance easy. +Even I, shielded as I was by the protecting arms of a pure love, sought +in vain for arguments to refute a doctrine, the practical operation of +which, I saw, might be so dangerous. The soul had a right to seek its +kindred soul: that I could not deny. Having found, they belonged to each +other. Love is the only law which those who love are bound to obey. I +shall not repeat all the sophistry whereby these positions were +strengthened. The doctrine soon blossomed and bore fruit, the nature of +which left no doubt as to the character of the tree.</p> + +<p>The catastrophe came sooner than I had anticipated, and partly through +my own instrumentality; though, in any case, it must finally have come. +We were met together at the house of one of the most zealous and +fanatical believers. There were but eight persons present,--the host and +his wife, (an equally zealous proselyte,) a middle-aged bachelor +neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Stilton, Miss Fetters and her father, and myself. +It was a still, cloudy, sultry evening, after one of those dull, +oppressive days when all the bad blood in a man seems to be uppermost in +his veins. The manifestations upon the table, with which we commenced, +were unusually rapid and lively. "I am convinced," said Mr. Stilton, +"that we shall receive important revelations to-night. My own mind +possesses a clearness and quickness, which, I have noticed, always +precede the visit of a superior spirit. Let us be passive and receptive, +my friends. We are but instruments in the hands of loftier +intelligences, and only through our obedience can this second advent of +Truth be fulfilled."</p> + +<p>He looked at me with that expression which I so well knew, as the signal +for a surrender of my will. I had come rather unwillingly, for I was +getting heartily tired of the business, and longed to shake off my habit +of (spiritual) intoxication, which no longer possessed any attraction, +since I had been allowed to visit Agnes as an accepted lover. In fact, I +continued to hold my place in the circle principally for the sake of +satisfying myself with regard to the real nature and causes of the +phenomena. On this night, something in Mr. Stilton's face arrested my +attention, and a rapid inspiration flashed through my mind. "Suppose," I +thought, "I allow the usual effect to be produced, yet reverse the +character of its operation? I am convinced that he has been directing +the current of my thought according to his will; let me now render +myself so thoroughly passive, that my mind, like a mirror, shall reflect +what passes through his, retaining nothing of my own except the simple +consciousness of what I am doing." Perhaps this was exactly what he +desired. He sat, bending forward a little over the table, his square +jaws firmly set, his eyes hidden beneath their heavy brows, and every +long, wiry hair on his head in its proper place. I fixed my eyes upon +him, threw my mind into a state of perfect receptivity, and waited.</p> + +<p>It was not long before I felt his approach. Shadow after shadow flitted +across the still mirror of my inward sense. Whether the thoughts took +words in his brain or in mine,--whether I first caught his disjointed +musings, and, by their utterance reacting upon him, gave system and +development to <I>his</I> thoughts,--I cannot tell. But this I know: +what I said came wholly from him,--not from the slandered spirits of the +dead, not from the vagaries of my own imagination, but from <I>him</I>. +"Listen to me!" I said. "In the flesh I was a martyr to the Truth, and I +am permitted to communicate only with those whom the Truth has made +free. You are the heralds of the great day; you have climbed from sphere +to sphere, until now you stand near the fountains of light. But it is +not enough that you see: your lives must reflect the light. The inward +vision is for you, but the outward manifestation thereof is for the +souls of others. Fulfil the harmonies in the flesh. Be the living music, +not the silent instruments."</p> + +<p>There was more, much more of this,--a plenitude of eloquent sound, which +seems to embody sublime ideas, but which, carefully examined, contains +no more palpable substance than sea-froth. If the reader will take the +trouble to read an "Epic of the Starry Heavens," the production of a +Spiritual Medium, he will find several hundred pages of the same +character. But, by degrees, the revelation descended to details, and +assumed a personal application. "In you, in all of you, the spiritual +harmonies are still violated," was the conclusion. "You, Abijah Stilton, +who are chosen to hold up the light of truth to the world, require that +a transparent soul, capable of transmitting that light to you, should be +allied to yours. She who is called your wife is a clouded lens; she can +receive the light only through John----, who is her true spiritual +husband, as Abby Fetters is <I>your</I> true spiritual wife!"</p> + +<p>I was here conscious of a sudden cessation of the influence which forced +me to speak, and stopped. The members of the circle opposite to me--the +host, his wife, neighbor, and old Mr. Fetters--were silent, but their +faces exhibited more satisfaction than astonishment. My eye fell upon +Mrs. Stilton. Her face was pale, her eyes widely opened, and her lips +dropped apart, with a stunned, bewildered expression. It was the blank +face of a woman walking in her sleep. These observations were +accomplished in an instant; for Miss Fetters, suddenly possessed with +the spirit of Black Hawk, sprang upon her feet. "Ugh! ugh!" she +exclaimed, in a deep, harsh voice, "where's the pale-face? Black Hawk, +he like him,--he love him much!"--and therewith threw her arms around +Stilton, fairly lifting him off his feet. "Ugh! fire-water for Black +Hawk!--big Injun drink!"--and she tossed off a tumbler of brandy. By +this time I had wholly recovered my consciousness, but remained silent, +stupefied by the extraordinary scene.</p> + +<p>Presently Miss Fetters became more quiet, and the possession left her. +"My friends," said Stilton, in his cold, unmoved voice, "I feel that the +spirit has spoken truly. We must obey our spiritual affinities, or our +great and glorious mission will be unfulfilled. Let us rather rejoice +that we have been selected as the instruments to do this work. Come to +me, Abby; and you, Rachel, remember that our harmony is not disturbed, +but only made more complete."</p> + +<p>"Abijah!" exclaimed Mrs. Stilton, with a pitiful cry, while the tears +burst hot and fast from her eyes; "dear husband, what does this mean? +Oh, don't tell me that I'm to be cast off! You promised to love me and +care for me, Abijah! I'm not bright, I know, but I'll try to understand +you; indeed I will! Oh, don't be so cruel!--don't"---And the poor +creature's voice completely gave way.</p> + +<p>She dropped on the floor at his feet, and lay there, sobbing piteously.</p> + +<p>"Rachel, Rachel," said he,--and his face was not quite so calm as his +voice,--"don't be rebellious. We are governed by a higher Power. This is +all for our own good, and for the good of the world. Besides, ours was +not a perfect affinity. You will be much happier with John, as he +harmonizes"----</p> + +<p>I could endure it no longer. Indignation, pity, the full energy of my +will, possessed me. He lost his power over me then, and forever.</p> + +<p>"What!" I exclaimed, "you, blasphemer, beast that you are, you dare to +dispose of your honest wife in this infamous way, that you may be free +to indulge your own vile appetites?--you, who have outraged the dead and +the living alike, by making me utter your forgeries? Take her back, and +let this disgraceful scene end!--take her back, or I will give you a +brand that shall last to the end of your days!"</p> + +<p>He turned deadly pale, and trembled. I knew that he made a desperate +effort to bring me under the control of his will, and laughed mockingly +as I saw his knit brow and the swollen veins in his temples. As for the +others, they seemed paralyzed by the suddenness and fierceness of my +attack. He wavered but for an instant, however, and his +self-possession returned.</p> + +<p>"Ha!" he exclaimed, "it is the Spirit of Evil that speaks in him! The +Devil himself has risen to destroy our glorious fabric! Help me, +friends! help me to bind him, and to silence his infernal voice, before +he drives the pure spirits from our midst!"</p> + +<p>With that, he advanced a step towards me, and raised a hand to seize my +arm, while the others followed behind. But I was too quick for him. Weak +as I was, in comparison, rage gave me strength, and a blow, delivered +with the rapidity of lightning, just under the chin, laid him senseless +on the floor. Mrs. Stilton screamed, and threw herself over him. The +rest of the company remained as if stupefied. The storm which had been +gathering all the evening at the same instant broke over the house in +simultaneous thunder and rain.</p> + +<p>I stepped suddenly to the door, opened it, and drew a long, deep breath +of relief, as I found myself alone in the darkness. "Now," said I, "I +have done tampering with God's best gift; I will be satisfied with the +natural sunshine which beams from His Word and from His Works; I have +learned wisdom at the expense of shame!" I exulted in my new freedom, in +my restored purity of soul; and the wind, that swept down the dark, +lonely street, seemed to exult with me. The rains beat upon me, but I +heeded them not; nay, I turned aside from the homeward path, in order to +pass by the house where Agnes lived. Her window was dark, and I knew she +was sleeping, lulled by the storm; but I stood a moment below, in the +rain, and said aloud, softly,--</p> + +<p>"Now, Agnes, I belong wholly to you! Pray to God for me, darling, that I +may never lose the true light I have found at last!"</p> + +<p>My healing, though complete in the end, was not instantaneous. The habit +of the trance, I found, had really impaired the action of my will. I +experienced a periodic tendency to return to it, which I have been able +to overcome only by the most vigorous efforts. I found it prudent, +indeed, to banish from my mind, as far as was possible, all subjects, +all memories, connected with Spiritualism. In this work I was aided by +Agnes, who now possessed my entire confidence, and who willingly took +upon herself the guidance of my mind at those seasons when my own +governing faculties flagged. Gradually my mental health returned, and I +am now beyond all danger of ever again being led into such fatal +dissipations. The writing of this narrative, in fact, has been a test of +my ability to overlook and describe my experience without being touched +by its past delusions. If some portions of it should not be wholly +intelligible to the reader, the defect lies in the very nature of +the subject.</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that I have given but a partial explanation of the +spiritual phenomena. Of the genuineness of the physical manifestations I +am fully convinced, and I can account for them only by the supposition +of some subtile agency whereby the human will operates upon inert +matter. Clairvoyance is a sufficient explanation of the utterances of +the Mediums,--at least of those which I have heard; but there is, as I +have said before, <i>something</i> in the background,--which I feel too +indistinctly to describe, yet which I know to be Evil. I do not wonder +at, though I lament, the prevalence of the belief in Spiritualism. In a +few individual cases it may have been productive of good, but its +general tendency is evil. There are probably but few Stiltons among its +apostles, few Miss Fetterses among its Mediums; but the condition which +accompanies the trance, as I have shown, inevitably removes the +wholesome check which holds our baser passions in subjection. The +Medium is at the mercy of any evil will, and the impressions received +from a corrupt mind are always liable to be accepted by innocent +believers as revelations from the spirits of the holy dead. I shall +shock many honest souls by this confession, but I hope and believe that +it may awaken and enlighten others. Its publication is necessary, as an +expiation for some of the evil which has been done through my own +instrumentality.</p> + +<p>I learned, two days afterwards, that Stilton (who was not seriously +damaged by my blow) had gone to New York, taking Miss Fetters with him. +Her ignorant, weak-minded father was entirely satisfied with the +proceeding. Mrs. Stilton, helpless and heart-broken, remained at the +house where our circle had met, with her only child, a boy of three +years of age, who, fortunately, inherited her weakness rather than his +father's power. Agnes, on learning this, insisted on having her removed +from associations which were at once unhappy and dangerous. We went +together to see her, and, after much persuasion, and many painful scenes +which I shall not recapitulate, succeeded in sending her to her father, +a farmer in Connecticut. She still remains there, hoping for the day +when her guilty husband shall return and be instantly forgiven.</p> + +<p>My task is ended; may it not have been performed in vain!</p> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>JOHN ANDRE AND HONORA SNEYD.</h2> +<br> + +<p>Many of our readers will remember the exquisite lines in which Béranger +paints the connection between our mortal lives and the stars of the sky. +With every human soul that finds its way to earth, a new gem is added to +the azure belt of heaven. Thenceforth the two exist in mutual +dependence, each influencing the other's fate; so that, when death comes +to seal the lips of the man, a flame is paled and a lamp extinguished in +the gulf above. In every loosened orb that shoots across the face of +night the experienced eye may trace the story and the fall of a +fellow-being. Youth, beauty, wealth, the humility of indigence and the +pride of power, alike find their term revealed in the bright, silent +course of the celestial spark; and still new signs succeed to provoke +the sympathy or dazzle the philosophy of the observer. +<br><br> + "Quelle est cette étoile qui file,<br> + Qui file, file, et disparait?"</p> + +<p>It is unfortunate that such a pretty manner of accounting for the nature +and origin of falling stars should be unsustained by sound astronomical +data, and utterly discountenanced by Herschel and Bond. There is +something in the theory very pleasant and very flattering to human +nature; and there are passages in the history of our race that might +make its promulgation not unacceptable. When, among the innumerable +"patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part +from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway +with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but +be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being +segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture, +hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their +memory with immortal fame. It is thus that the fulfilment of the vow +made in the heat of battle has given Jephthah's name a melancholy +permanence above all others of the captains of Israel. Mutius would long +ago have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave +as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but +for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And +Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty +years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was +failure and death that made him famous.</p> + +<p>Eighty years ago a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which, +in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes +far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by +calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of +undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan. +Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his +professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John André, +had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the +generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was +opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the +future. So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better +than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the +Promised Land. It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the +circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and +universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to +hold its seat in the bosom of friend and of foe. To this day, the most +distinguished American and English historians are at issue respecting +the justice of his doom; and to this day, the grave inquirer into the +rise and fall of empires pauses by the way to glean some scanty memorial +of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser +author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on +that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and +many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of +the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the +elucidation of the conduct of an individual.</p> + +<p>John André was born in England, probably at London,--possibly at +Southampton,--in the year 1751. His father was an honest, industrious +Switzer, who, following the example of his countrymen and his kindred, +had abandoned the rugged land of his birth, and come over to England to +see what could be made out of John Bull. The family-name appears to have +originally been St. André; and this was the style of the famous +dancing-master who gave to the courtiers of Charles II. their +graceful motions.</p> + +<p>"St. André's feet ne'er kept more equal time,"</p> + +<p>wrote Dryden, in his "MacFlecknoe"; and the same writer again brings him +forward in the third act of "Limberham." It must be remembered that in +those days the teacher of fencing and dancing occupied a very +respectable position; and St. André's career was sufficiently prosperous +to tempt a young kinsman, who felt the elements of success strong within +him, to cross the seas in his own turn, and find wealth and reputation +in those pleasant pastures which England above all other countries then +laid open to the skilful adventurer.</p> + +<p>Nicholas St. André, who came to London about the close of the +seventeenth century, and who was undoubtedly nearly related to the +future Major André, seems to have passed through a career hardly +paralleled by that of Gil Blas himself. From the humblest beginnings, +his ready wit, his multifarious accomplishments, and his indomitable +assurance speedily carried him to the topmost wave of social prosperity. +A brief instruction in surgery gave him such a plausible appearance of +proficiency in the art as to permit his public lectures to be favorably +received, and to lead to his employment in the royal household. George +I. made him Anatomist to the Court, and, as a token of especial grace, +on one occasion, went so far as to bestow upon the young Swiss his own +sword. His attainments in all the amusements of a gentleman probably had +more to do with these advancements, however, than any professional +skill. He was a capital linguist; at fencing, leaping, running, and +other manly exercises, he found few rivals; and his dabblings in +architecture and botany were at least as notable as his mastership of +chess and his skill as a musician. But when it came to a scientific test +of his surgical and anatomical pretensions, his failure was lamentable +indeed. The unquenchable thirst for notoriety--which he may have +mistaken for fame--was perpetually leading him into questionable +positions, and finally covered his name with ridicule and confusion.</p> + +<p>An impudent woman, known as Mary Tofts, declared to the world, that, +instead of a human child, she had given birth to a litter of rabbits. +How such a ridiculous tale ever found believers, it is impossible to +conceive; but such was the case. All England, with the very small +exception of those who united the possession of learning with common +sense, was imbued with the frenzy. The price of warrens was abated to a +mere song, and for a season a Londoner would as readily have eaten a +baked child as a roasted rabbit. The children of men were believed to +populate the burrows, and authorities of the highest reputation lent an +unhesitating support to the delusion. The learned Whiston published in +the circumstance a fulfilment of a prophecy of Esdras, and St. André +loudly urged the authenticity of the entire fable and of the theories +that were founded upon it. But the satiric pen of Swift, the burin of +Hogarth, and the graver investigations of Cheselden at last turned the +popular tide, and covered St. André in particular with such a load of +contemptuous obloquy as to drive him forever from the high circles he +had moved in. So great was his spleen, that, from that time forth, he +would never suffer a dish upon his table or a syllable in his +conversation that could in any way bring to mind the absurd occasion of +his disgrace.</p> + +<p>If all reports are to be believed, St. André's career had led him into +many singular adventures. He had saved Voltaire's life, by violently +detaining Lord Peterborough, when the latter stood prepared to punish +with peremptory death some peccadillo of the Frenchman's. Voltaire fled +from the scene, while his adversary struggled to be released. His +services to Pope, when the poet was overturned in Lord Bolingbroke's +coach, did not protect him from a damaging allusion in the Epilogue to +the Satires, where the source of the wealth that he got by his marriage +with Lady Betty Molyneux is more plainly than politely pointed out. +Leaving forever, therefore, the sphere in which he had encountered so +much favor and so much severity, he retired to Southampton to end his +days in the society of his kindred; and it is more than probable that an +indisposition to proclaim too loudly their identity of race with the +unlucky surgeon was the cause of their modification of name by the +immediate family from which John André sprung.</p> + +<p>The father of our hero was a thrifty London trader, whose business as a +Turkey merchant had been prosperous enough to persuade him that no other +career could possibly be so well adapted for his son. The lad was of +another opinion; but those were not the days when a parent's will might +be safely contravened. Sent to Geneva to complete the education that had +been commenced at London, he returned to a seat in the counting-room +with intellectual qualifications that seemed to justify his aspirations +for a very different scene of action. He was a fluent linguist, a ready +and graceful master of the pencil and brush, and very well versed in the +schools of military design. Add to these a proficiency in poetry and +music, a person of unusual symmetry and grace, a face of almost feminine +softness, yet not descending from the dignity of manhood, and we have an +idea of the youth who was already meditating the means of throwing off +the chains that bound him to the inkhorn and ledger, and embracing a +more brilliant and glorious career. With him, the love of fame was an +instinctive passion. The annals of his own fireside taught him how +easily the path to distinction might be trod by men of parts and +address; and he knew in his heart that opportunity was the one and the +only thing needful to insure the accomplishment of his desires. Of very +moderate fortunes and utterly destitute of influential connections, he +knew that his education better qualified him for the useful fulfilment +of military duties than perhaps any man of his years in the service of +the king. Once embarked in the profession of arms, he had nothing to +rely upon but his own address to secure patronage and +promotion,--nothing but his own merits to justify the countenance that +his ingenuity should win. Without undue vanity, it is tolerably safe to +say now that he was authorized by the existing state of things to +confidently predicate his own success on these estimates.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to underrate the professional standard of the English +officer a hundred years ago. That some were good cannot be denied; that +most were bad is very certain. As there was no school of military +instruction in the realm, so no proof of mental or even of physical +capacity was required to enable a person to receive and to hold a +commission. A friend at the Horse Guards, or the baptismal gift of a +godfather, might nominate a baby three days old to a pair of colors. +Court influence or the ready cash having thus enrolled a puny suckling +among the armed defenders of the state, he might in regular process of +seniority come out a full-fledged captain or major against the season +for his being soundly birched at Eton; and an ignorant school-boy would +thus be qualified to govern the lives and fortunes of five hundred +stalwart men, and to represent the honor and the interests of the empire +in that last emergency when all might be depending on his courage and +capacity. Even women were thus saddled upon the pay-lists; and the time +is within the memory of living men, when a gentle lady, whose knowledge +of arms may be presumed to have never extended beyond the internecine +disputes of the nursery, habitually received the salary of a captaincy +of dragoons. In ranks thus officered, it was easy to foresee the speedy +and sure triumph of competent ability, when once backed by patronage.</p> + +<p>So long, however, as his dependence upon his father endured, it was +useless for André to anticipate the day when he might don the king's +livery. The repugnance with which his first motion in the matter was +greeted, and the affectionate opposition of his mother and sisters, seem +to have at least silenced, if they did not extinguish his desires. And +when the death of his father, in 1769, left him free to select his own +pathway through the world, a new conjuncture of affairs again caused him +to smother his cherished aspirations.</p> + +<p>The domestic relations of the André family were ever peculiarly tender +and affectionate; and in the loss of its head the survivors confessed a +great and a corroding sorrow. To repair the shattered health and recruit +the exhausted spirits of his mother and sisters, the son resolved to +lead them at once away from the daily contemplation of the grave to more +cheerful scenes. The medicinal waters of Derbyshire were then in vogue, +and a tour towards the wells of Buxton and of Matlock was undertaken. +Among the acquaintances that ensued from this expedition was that of the +family of the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield; and while a warm and lasting +friendship rapidly grew up between André and Miss Anna Seward, his heart +was surrendered to the charms of her adopted sister, Miss Honora Sneyd.</p> + +<p>By every account, Honora Sneyd must have been a paragon of feminine +loveliness. Her father was a country-gentleman of Staffordshire, who had +been left, by the untimely death of their mother, to the charge of a +bevy of infants. The solicitude of friends and relatives had sought the +care of these, and thus Honora became virtually a daughter of Mrs. +Seward's house. The character of this establishment may be conjectured +from the history of Anna Seward. Remote from the crushing weight of +London authority, she grew up in a provincial atmosphere of literary and +social refinement, and fondly believed that the polite praises (for +censure was a thing unknown among them) that were bandied about in her +own coterie would be cordially echoed by the voices of posterity. In +this she has been utterly deceived; but at the same time it must be +confessed that there was much in the tone of the reigning circles at +Lichfield, in those days, to contrast most favorably with the manners of +the literary sovereigns of the metropolis, or the intellectual elevation +of the rulers of fashion. At Lichfield, it was polite to be learned, and +good-breeding and mutual admiration went hand in hand.</p> + +<p>In such an atmosphere had Miss Sneyd been educated; and the +enthusiastic, not to say romantic, disposition of Miss Seward must have +given additional effect to every impulse that taught her to acknowledge +and rejoice in the undisguised admiration of the young London merchant. +His sentiments were as pure and lofty as her own; his person was as +attractive as that of any hero of romance; and his passion was deep and +true. With the knowledge and involuntary approbation of all their +friends, the love-affair between the two young people went on without +interruption or opposition. It seemed perfectly natural and proper that +they should be brought together. It was not, therefore, until a formal +betrothal began to loom up, that the seniors on either side bethought +themselves of the consequences. Neither party was a beggar; but neither +was in possession of sufficient estate to render a speedy marriage +advisable. It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which +must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons +whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved +a prolonged and wide separation. To this arrangement it would appear +that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover. His feelings +were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press +his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance. His +mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own +control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was +forbidden to regard as an elected husband.</p> + +<p>It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him +the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure +the means of accomplishing matrimony, that André was now persuaded to +renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back +to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional +visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss +Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are +vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which +his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a +specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental +fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her +name is Anna.</p> + +<p>"<i>London, October</i> 19, 1769.</p> + +<p>"From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, +let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And +first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must +tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future +profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so +disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged +man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping +a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a +tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the +Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded +with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue +their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods; +Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his +gorgeous vessels 'launched on the bosom of the silver Thames' are +wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus +all the mercantile glories crowd on my fancy, emblazoned in the most +effulgent colouring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soaring +pinions, I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my +labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to +receive me; I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and +poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabrick is +pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes +around, and find John André by a small coal-fire in a gloomy +compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been +making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is +at present. But, oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for +wealth.--You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I +must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this +threatening disease.</p> + +<p>"It is seven o'clock.--You and Honora, with two or three more select +friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fireplace. What +would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and +a snug circle round it, formed by a few select friends, transports me. +You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the +hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The +purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is +kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as +Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray, +imagine me with you; admit me to your <i>conversationés</i>:--Think how I +wish for the blessing of joining them!--and be persuaded that I take +part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that, ere it be very long, +your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray, keep me a place; let +the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me:--But you have Dutch tiles, +which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass be +my representative.</p> + +<p>"But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, +if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps +increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty. Silvered +with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps; musing, +as I homeward plod my way.--Ah! need I name the subject of my +contemplations?</p> + +<p>"<i>Thursday</i>.</p> + +<p>"I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with +their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their +amities, and will write in a few days.</p> + +<p>"This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable; +a solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light +was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the serene beams of an +autumnal sun! Gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, +ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, +expand the heart, and 'chase all sorrows but despair.' In the midst of +such a scene, no lesser sorrow can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A +calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating +power. The very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties. There is +a species of mild chearfulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but +indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented +look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave +unattempted.</p> + +<p>"Business calls me away--I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it +contain? No matter--You like anything better than news. Indeed, you have +never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, +from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the tastes of +Julia and <i>Cher Jean</i>. What is it to you or me, +<br><br> + "If here in the city we have nothing but riot;<br> + If the Spitalfield weavers can't be kept quiet;<br> + If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty;<br> + Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aged of thirty?</p> + +<p>"But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I +should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would +plead my cause with Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has +the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my +random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs.----. +Here it is at your service. +<br><br> + "Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down,<br> + With a flaming red face and a broad yellow gown,<br> + And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown.</p> + +<p>"This little French cousin of our's, Delarise, was my sister Mary's +playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. +Doubtless they tell much of him to you in their letters.</p> + +<p>"How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh, let me not be forgot by the +friends most dear to you at Lichfield. Lichfield! Ah, of what magic +letters is that little word composed! How graceful it looks, when it is +written! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning, 'The Field of +Blood'! Oh, no such thing! It is the field of joy! 'The beautiful city, +that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, <i>I am, and there is +none beside me.'</i> Who says she is vain? Julia will not say so,--nor yet +Honora,--and least of all, their devoted</p> + +<p>"John André."</p> + +<p>It is not difficult to perceive in the tone of this letter that its +writer was not an accepted lover. His interests with the lady, despite +Miss Seward's watchful care, were already declining; and the lapse of a +few months more reduced him to the level of a valued and entertaining +friend, whose civilities were not to pass the conventional limits of +polite intercourse. To André this fate was very hard. He was hopelessly +enamored; and so long as fortune offered him the least hope of eventual +success, he persevered in the faith that Honora might yet be his own. +But every returning day must have shaken this faith. His visits were +discontinued and his correspondence dropped. Other suitors pressed their +claims, and often urged an argument which it was beyond his means to +supply. They came provided with what Parson Hugh calls good gifts: +"Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts." Foremost among +these dangerous rivals were two men of note in their way: Richard Lovell +Edgeworth, and the eccentric, but amiable Thomas Day.</p> + +<p>Mr. Day was a man whose personal charms were not great. Overgrown, +awkward, pitted with the small-pox, he offered no pleasing contrast to +the discarded André: but he had twelve hundred pounds a year. His +notions in regard to women were as peculiar as his estimate of his own +merit. He seems to have really believed that it would be impossible for +any beautiful girl to refuse her assent to the terms of the contract by +which she might acquire his hand. These were absurd to a degree; and it +is not cause for surprise that Miss Sneyd should have unhesitatingly +refused them. Poor Mr. Day was not prepared for such continued ill-luck +in his matrimonial projects. He had already been very unfortunate in his +plans for obtaining a perfect wife,--having vainly provided for the +education of two foundlings between whom he promised himself to select a +paragon of a helpmate. To drop burning sealing-wax upon their necks, and +to discharge a pistol close to their ears, were among his philosophical +rules for training them to habits of submission and self-control; and +the upshot was, that they were fain to attach themselves to men of less +wisdom, but better taste. Miss Sneyd's conduct was more than he could +well endure, after all his previous disappointments; and he went to bed +with a fever that did not leave him till his passion was cured. He could +not at this time have anticipated, however, that the friendly hand which +had aided the prosecution of his addresses was eventually destined to +receive and hold the fair prize which so many were contending for.</p> + +<p>Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the ambassador and counsellor of Mr. Day in +this affair, was at the very moment of the rejection himself enamored of +Miss Sneyd. But Edgeworth had a wife already,--a pining, complaining +woman, he tells us, who did not make his home cheerful,--and honor and +decency forbade him to open his mouth on the subject that occupied his +heart. He wisely sought refuge in flight, and in other scenes the +natural exuberance of his disposition afforded a relief from the pangs +of an unlawful and secret passion. Lord Byron, who met him forty years +afterwards, in five lines shows us the man: if he was thus seen in the +dry wood, we can imagine what he was in the green:--"I thought Edgeworth +a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, +brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty,--no, nor +forty-eight even." He was in France when the death of his father left +him to the possession of a good estate,--and that of his wife occurring +in happy concurrence, he lost little time in opening in his own behalf +the communications that had failed when he spoke for Mr. Day. His wooing +was prosperous; in July, 1773, he married Miss Sneyd.</p> + +<p>It is a mistake, sanctioned by the constant acceptance of historians, to +suppose that it was this occasion that prompted André to abandon a +commercial life. The improbability of winning Honora's hand, and the +freedom with which she received the addresses of other men, undoubtedly +went far to convince him of the folly of sticking to trade with but one +motive; and so soon as he attained his majority, he left the desk and +stool forever, and entered the army. This was a long time before the +Edgeworth marriage was undertaken, or even contemplated.</p> + +<p>Lieutenant André of the Royal Fusileers had a very different line of +duty to perform from Mr. André, merchant, of Warnford Court, Throgmorton +Street; and the bustle of military life, doubtless, in some degree +diverted his mind from the disagreeable contemplation of what was +presently to occur at Lichfield. Some months were spent on the Continent +and among the smaller German courts about the Rhine. After all was over, +however, and the nuptial knot fairly tied that destroyed all his +youthful hopes, he is related to have made a farewell expedition to the +place of his former happiness. There, at least, he was sure to find one +sympathizing heart. Miss Seward, who had to the very last minute +contended with her friend against Mr. Edgeworth and in support of his +less fortunate predecessor, now met him with open arms. No pains were +spared by her to alleviate, since she could not remove, the +disappointment that evidently possessed him. A legend is preserved in +connection with this visit that is curious, though manifestly of very +uncertain credibility. It is said that an engagement had been made by +Miss Seward to introduce her friend to two gentlemen of some note in the +neighborhood, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Newton. On the appointed morning, +while awaiting their expected guests, Cunningham related to his +companion a vision--or rather, a series of visions--that had greatly +disturbed his previous night's repose. He was alone in a wide forest, he +said, when he perceived a rider approaching him. The horseman's +countenance was plainly visible, and its lines were of a character too +interesting to be readily forgotten. Suddenly three men sprang forth +from an ambush among the thickets, and, seizing the stranger, hauled him +from his horse and bore him away. To this succeeded another scene. He +stood with a great multitude near by some foreign town. A bustle was +heard, and he beheld the horseman of his earlier dream again led along a +captive. A gibbet was erected, and the prisoner was at once hanged. In +narrating this tale, Cunningham averred that the features of its hero +were still fresh in his recollection; the door opened, and in the face +of André, who at that moment presented himself, he professed to +recognize that which had so troubled his slumbers.</p> + +<p>Such is the tale that is recorded of the supernatural revelation of +André's fate. If it rested on somewhat better evidence than any we are +able to find in its favor, it would be at least more interesting. But +whether or no the young officer continued to linger in the spirit about +the spires of Lichfield and the romantic shades of Derbyshire, it is +certain that his fleshly part was moving in a very different direction. +In 1774, he embarked to join his regiment, then posted in Canada, and +arrived at Philadelphia early in the autumn of the year.</p> + +<p>It is not within the design of this paper to pursue to any length the +details of André's American career. Regimental duties in a country +district rarely afford matter worthy of particular record; and it is not +until the troubles of our Revolutionary War break out, that we find +anything of mark in his story. He was with the troops that Carleton sent +down, after the fall of Ticonderoga, to garrison Chambly and St. John's, +and to hold the passage of the Sorel against Montgomery and his little +army. With the fall of these forts, he went into captivity. There is too +much reason to believe that the imprisonment of the English on this +occasion was not alleviated by many exhibitions of generosity on the +part of their captors. Montgomery, indeed, was as humane and honorable +as he was brave; but he was no just type of his followers. The articles +of capitulation were little regarded, and the prisoners were, it would +seem, rapidly despoiled of their private effects. "I have been taken by +the Americans," wrote André, "and robbed of everything save the picture +of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving that, I think +myself happy." Sent into the remote parts of Pennsylvania, his +companions and himself met with but scant measure of courtesy from the +mountaineers of that region; nor was he exchanged for many long and +weary months. Once more free, however, his address and capacity soon +came to his aid. His reports and sketches speedily commended him to the +especial favor of the commander-in-chief, Sir William Howe; and ere long +he was promoted to a captaincy and made aide-de-camp to Sir Charles +Grey. This was a dashing, hard-fighting general of division, whose +element was close quarters and whose favorite argument was the cold +steel. If, therefore, André played but an inactive part at the +Brandywine, he had ample opportunity on other occasions of tasting the +excitement and the horrors of war. The night-surprises of Wayne at +Paoli, and of Baylor on the Hudson,--the scenes of Germantown and +Monmouth,--the reduction of the forts at Verplanck's Ferry, and the +forays led against New Bedford and the Vineyard,--all these familiarized +him with the bloody fruits of civil strife. But they never blunted for +one moment the keenness of his humanity, or warped those sentiments of +refinement and liberality that always distinguished him. Within the +limited range of his narrow sphere, he was constantly found the friend +and reliever of the wounded or captive Americans, and the protector and +benefactor of the followers of his own banner. Accomplished to a degree +in all the graces that adorn the higher circles of society, he was free +from most of their vices; and those who knew him well in this country +have remarked on the universal approbation of both sexes that followed +his steps, and the untouched heart that escaped so many shafts. Nor, +while foremost in the brilliant pleasures that distinguished the British +camp and made Philadelphia a Capua to Howe, was he ever known to descend +to the vulgar sports of his fellows. In the balls, the theatricals, the +picturesque <I>Mischianza</I>, he bore a leading hand; but his +affections, meanwhile, appear to have remained where they were earliest +and last bestowed. In our altered days, when marriage and divorce seem +so often interchangeable words, and loyal fidelity but an Old-World +phrase, ill-fashioned and out of date, there is something very +attractive in this hopeless constancy of an exiled lover.</p> + +<p>Beyond the seas, meanwhile, the object of this unfortunate attachment +was lending a happy and a useful life in the fulfilment of the various +duties of a wife, a mother, and a friend. Her husband was a large landed +proprietor, and in public spirit was inferior to no country-gentleman of +the kingdom. Many of his notions were fanciful enough, it must be +allowed; but they were all directed to the improvement and amelioration +of his native land and its people. In these pursuits, as well as in +those of learning, Mrs. Edgeworth was the active and useful coadjutor of +her husband; and it was probably to the desire of this couple to do +something that would make the instruction of their children a less +painful task than had been their own, that we are indebted for the +adaptation of the simpler rudiments of science to a childish dress. In +1778 they wrote together the First Part of "Harry and Lucy," and printed +a handful of copies in that largo black type which every one associates +with the first school-days of his childhood. From these pages she taught +her own children to read. The plan was communicated to Mr. Day, who +entered into it eagerly; and an educational library seemed about to be +prepared for the benefit of a far-away household in the heart of +Ireland. But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's +life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; +and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to +forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his +little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book +that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful +judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth +included "Harry and Lucy" in her "Early Lessons." It is thus a point to +be noticed, that nothing but the <I>res angusta domi</I>, the lack of +wealth, on the part of young André, was the cause of that series of +little volumes being produced by Miss Edgeworth, which so long held the +first place among the literary treasures of the nurseries of England and +America. Lazy Lawrence, Simple Susan, and a score more of excellently +conceived characters, might never have been called from chaos to +influence thousands of tender minds, but for André's narrow purse.</p> + +<p>The ravages of the insidious disease with which she was afflicted soon +came to an end; and after a term of wedlock as brief as it was +prosperous, Mrs. Edgeworth's dying couch was spread.--"I have every +blessing," she wrote, "and I am happy. The conversation of my beloved +husband, when my breath will let me have it, is my greatest delight: he +procures me every comfort, and, as he always said he thought he should, +contrives for me everything that can ease and assist my weakness,-- +<br><br> + "'Like a kind angel, whispers peace,<br> + And smooths the bed of death.'"</p> + +<p>Rightly viewed, the closing scenes in the life of this estimable woman +are not less solemn, not less impressive, than those of that memorable +day, when, with all the awful ceremonials of offended justice and the +stern pageantries of war, her lover died in the full glare of noonday +before the eyes of assembled thousands. He had played for a mighty +stake, and he had lost. He had perilled his life for the destruction of +our American empire, and he was there to pay the penalty: and surely +never, in all the annals of our race, has a man more gallantly yielded +up his forfeited breath, or under circumstances more impressive. He +perished regretted alike by friend and foe; and perhaps not one of the +throng that witnessed his execution but would have rejoicingly hailed a +means of reconciling his pardon with the higher and inevitable duties +which they owed to the safety of the army and the existence of the +state. And in the aspect which the affair has since taken, who can say +that André's fate has been entirely unfortunate? He drank out the wine +of life while it was still sparkling and foaming and bright in his cup: +he tasted none of the bitterness of its lees till almost his last sun +had risen. When he was forever parted from the woman whom he loved, a +new, but not an earthly mistress succeeded to the vacant throne; and +thenceforth the love of glory possessed his heart exclusively. And how +rarely has a greater lustre attached to any name than to his! His bones +are laid with those of the wisest and mightiest of the land; the +gratitude of monarchs cumbers the earth with his sepulchral honors; and +his memory is consecrated in the most eloquent pages of the history not +only of his own country, but of that which sent him out of existence. +Looked upon thus, death might have been welcomed by him as a benefit +rather than dreaded as a calamity, and the words applied by Cicero to +the fate of Crassus be repeated with fresh significancy,--"<I>Mors +dortata quam vita erepta</I>."</p> + +<p>The same year that carries on its records the date of André's fall +witnessed the death of a second Honora Edgeworth, the only surviving +daughter of Honora Sneyd. She is represented as having inherited all the +beauty, all the talents of her mother. The productions of her pen and +pencil seem to justify this assertion, so far as the precocity of such a +mere child may warrant the ungarnered fruits of future years. But with +her parent's person she received the frailties of its constitution; and, +ere girlhood had fairly opened upon her way of life, she succumbed to +the same malady that had wrecked her mother.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<br> + +<h2>WE SHALL RISE AGAIN.</h2> +<p> + We know the spirit shall not taste of death:<br> + Earth bids her elements,<br> + "Turn, turn again to me!"<br> + But to the soul, unto the soul, she saith,<br> + "Flee, alien, flee!"<br> +<br> + And circumstance of matter what doth weigh?<br> + Oh! not the height and depth of this to know<br> + But reachings of that grosser element,<br> + Which, entered in and clinging to it so,<br> + With earthlier earthiness than dwells in clay,<br> + Can drag the spirit down, that, looking up,<br> + Sees, through surrounding shades of death and time,<br> + With solemn wonder, and with new-born hope,<br> + The dawning glories of its native clime;<br> + And inly swell such mighty floods of love,<br> + Unutterable longing and desire,<br> + For that celestial, blessed home above,<br> + The soul springs upward like the mounting fire,<br> + Up, through the lessening shadows on its way,<br> + While, in its raptured vision, grows more clear<br> + The calm, the high, illimitable day<br> + To which it draws more near and yet more near.<br> + Draws near? Alas! its brief, its waning strength<br> + Upward no more the fetters' weight can bear:<br> + It falters,--pauses,--sinks; and, sunk at length,<br> + Plucks at its chain in frenzy and despair.<br> +<br> + Not forever fallen! Not in eternal prison!<br> + No! hell with fire of pain<br> + Melteth apart its chain;<br> + Heaven doth once more constrain:<br> + It hath arisen!<br> +<br> + And never, never again, thus to fall low?<br> + Ah, no!<br> + Terror, Remorse, and Woe,<br> + Vainly they pierced it through with many sorrows;<br> + Hell shall regain it,--thousand times regain it;<br> + But can detain it<br> + Only awhile from ruthful Heaven's to-morrows.<br> +<br> + That sin is suffering,<br> + It knows,--it knows this thing;<br> + And yet it courts the sting<br> + That deeply pains it;<br> + It knows that in the cup<br> + The sweet is but a sup,<br> + That Sorrow fills it up,<br> + And who drinks drains it.<br> +<br> + It knows; who runs may read.<br> + But, when the fetters dazzle, heaven's far joy seems dim;<br> + And 'tis not life but so to be inwound.<br> + A little while, and then--behold it bleed<br> + With madness of its throes to be unbound!<br> +<br> + It knows. But when the sudden stress<br> + Of passion is resistlessness,<br> + It drags the flood that sweeps away,<br> + For anchorage, or hold, or stay,<br> + Or saving rock of stableness,<br> + And there is none,--<br> + No underlying fixedness to fasten on:<br> + Unsounded depths; unsteadfast seas;<br> + Wavering, yielding, bottomless depths:<br> + But these!<br> +<br> + Yea, sometimes seemeth gone<br> + The Everlasting Arm we lean upon!<br> +<br> + So blind, as well as maimed and halt and lame,<br> + What sometimes makes it see?<br> + Oppressed with guilt and gnawed upon of shame,<br> + What comes upon it so,<br> + Faster and faster stealing,<br> + Flooding it like an air or sea<br> + Of warm and golden feeling?<br> + What makes it melt,<br> + Dissolving from the earthiness that made it hard and heavy?<br> + What makes it melt and flow,<br> + And melt and melt and flow,--<br> + Till light, clear-shining through its heart of dew,<br> + Makes all things new?<br> +<br> + Loosed from the spirit of infirmity, listen its cry.<br> + "Was it I that longed for oblivion,<br> + O wonderful Love! was it I,<br> + That deep in its easeful water<br> + My wounded soul might lie?<br> + That over the wounds and anguish<br> + The easeful flood might roll?<br> + A river of loving-kindness<br> + Has healed and hidden the whole.<br> + Lo! in its pitiful bosom<br> + Vanish the sins of my youth,--<br> + Error and shame and backsliding<br> + Lost in celestial ruth.<br> +<br> + "O grace too great!<br> + O excellency of my new estate!<br> +<br> + "No more, for the friends that love me,<br> + I shall veil my face or grieve<br> + Because love outrunneth deserving;<br> + I shall be as they believe.<br> + And I shall be strong to help them,<br> + Filled of Thy fulness with stores<br> + Of comfort and hope and compassion.<br> + Oh, upon all my shores,<br> + With the waters with which Thou dost flood me,<br> + Bid me, my Father, o'erflow!<br> + Who can taste Thy divineness,<br> + Nor hunger and thirst to bestow?<br> + Send me, oh, send me!<br> + The wanderers let me bring!<br> + The thirsty let me show<br> + Where the rivers of gladness spring,<br> + And fountains of mercy flow!<br> + How in the hills shall they sit and sing,<br> + With valleys of peace below!"<br> +<br> + Oh that the keys of our hearts the angels would bear in their bosoms!<br> + For revelation fades and fades away,<br> + Dream-like becomes, and dim, and far-withdrawn;<br> + And evening comes to find the soul a prey,<br> + That was caught up to visions at the dawn;<br> + Sword of the spirit,--still it sheathes in rust,<br> + And lips of prophecy are sealed with dust.<br> +<br> + High lies the better country,<br> + The land of morning and perpetual spring;<br> + But graciously the warder<br> + Over its mountain-border<br> + Leans to us, beckoning,--bids us, "Come up hither!"<br> + And though we climb with step unfixed and slow,<br> + From visioning heights of hope we look off thither,<br> + And we must go.<br> +<br> + And we shall go! And we shall go!<br> + We shall not always weep and wander so,--<br> + Not always in vain,<br> + By merciful pain,<br> + Be upcast from the hell we seek again!<br> + How shall we,<br> + Whom the stars draw so, and the uplifting sea?<br> + Answer, thou Secret Heart! how shall it be,<br> + With all His infinite promising in thee?<br> +<br> + Beloved! beloved! not cloud and fire alone<br> + From bondage and the wilderness restore<br> + And guide the wandering spirit to its own;<br> + But all His elements, they go before:<br> + Upon its way the seasons bring,<br> + And hearten with foreshadowing<br> + The resurrection-wonder,<br> + What lands of death awake to sing<br> + And germs of hope swell under;<br> + And full and fine, and full and fine,<br> + The day distils life's golden wine;<br> + And night is Palace Beautiful, peace-chambered.<br> + All things are ours; and life fills up of them<br> + Such measure as we hold.<br> + For ours beyond the gate,<br> + The deep things, the untold,<br> + We only wait.</p> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br><br> +<h2>THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.</h2> +<br><br> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> +<br><br> + +<h2>THE WILD HUNTSMAN.</h2> + +<p>The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. Without +attributing any great importance to the warning he had given him, Mr. +Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was becoming a +pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as good as many +others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after the first +few days.</p> + +<p>The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the back-yard of the Institute +was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about in +Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not easily +stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, +but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. +It soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful +shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at +three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; +some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and +that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other +words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, +as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, +however innocent he may be of them.</p> + +<p>In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this +time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the +population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for +want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the +Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he +can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's +version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, +as far as he could see the white of it.</p> + +<p>Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing +more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster +too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant +work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did +not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in +his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,--a robber, +say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; +long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with +the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he +could do as a marksman.</p> + +<p>The nature of the mark that Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from +an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially +abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some +practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to +render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet +way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was +very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; +rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's ears, +if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick satisfied himself +that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance +of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there happened to be anything +behind it, the glass would not materially alter the force or direction +of the bullet.</p> + +<p>About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want of +practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and +regain its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For his +first trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and after +the hour when the Rockland people were like to be stirring abroad. He +was so far established now that he could do much as he pleased without +exciting remark.</p> + +<p>The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, +had been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be remembered, +he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long strip of hide +with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been accustomed to playing +with such a thong from his boyhood, and had become expert in its use in +capturing wild cattle in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately, +there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in the neighborhood, to +become the subjects of his skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a +horse in a pasture, must serve his turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks +to aim at, at any rate.</p> + +<p>Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the +lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the +silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving +a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale +explosion,--is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm +the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest +with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost +naked <i>retiarius</i> with his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin +in the other. Once get a net over a man's head, or a cord round his +neck, or, what is more frequently done nowadays, <i>bonnet</i> him by +knocking his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his +opponent. Our soldiers who served against the Mexicans found this out +too well. Many a poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from +the plains, and fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him +in the fatal noose.</p> + +<p>But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might have +been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky mother +who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately along the +road, laying the dust, as she went, with thready streams from her +swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the windmill!" said +Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the lasso round his head as +he rode. The creature swerved to one side of the way, as the wild horse +and his rider came rushing down upon her, and presently turned and ran, +as only cows and--it wouldn't be safe to say it--can run. Just before he +passed,--at twenty or thirty feet from her,--the lasso shot from his +hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in an instant its loop was round her +horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as he galloped up to her side and +dexterously disengaged the lasso. "Now for a horse on the run!"</p> + +<p>He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at the +roadside. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove the +horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young animal enough, +and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew more and +more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, until the two horses +stretched themselves out in their longest strides. If the first feat +looked like play, the one he was now to attempt had a good deal the +appearance of real work. He touched the mustang with the spur, and in a +few fierce leaps found himself nearly abreast of the frightened animal +he was chasing. Once more he whirled the lasso round and round over his +head, and then shot it forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from +the loops against which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, +and in another instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. +The prairie horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the +captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and +the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble +and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a +thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was +enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet +snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and rode slowly +along towards the mansion-house.</p> + +<p>The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as he +now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the grand +mountain-screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern blasts, +rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high +towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square chimneys, and +bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared +gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings,--the beds of +flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in its centre +bearing a sun-dial on which the rays of the moon were idly shining, +another with a white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over all these +objects, harmonized with all their infinite details into one fair whole +by the moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed himself, looked +with admiring eyes.</p> + +<p>But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from a +poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of the +inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. Every day +this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up to +that place,--that usher's girltrap. Every day,--regularly now,--it used +to be different. Did she go only to get out of his, her cousin's, reach? +Was she not rather becoming more and more involved in the toils of this +plotting Yankee?</p> + +<p>If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in advance, +the chances are that in less than one minute he would have found himself +with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted horseman. +Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse +quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded towards the +house. He got to his bed without disturbing the family, but could not +sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of his mind that a deep +intrigue was going on which would end by bringing Elsie and the +schoolmaster into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With that +ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy, he tortured every +circumstance of the last few weeks so as to make it square with this +belief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed to a consideration +of every possible method by which the issue he feared might be avoided.</p> + +<p>Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these inward +colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be done then? +First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which should put a +complete and final check upon his projects and contrivances. The +particular accident which might interrupt his career must, evidently, be +determined by circumstances; but it must be of a nature to explain +itself without the necessity of any particular person's becoming +involved in the matter. It would be unpleasant to go into particulars; +but everybody knows well enough that men sometimes get in the way of a +stray bullet, and that young persons occasionally do violence to +themselves in various modes,--by fire-arms, suspension, and other +means,--in consequence of disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than +from other motives. There was still another kind of accident which might +serve his purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the +most natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his +nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, Uncle Dudley +should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, where would +he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication which he could +conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not help noticing--that +his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much +pleased with, that young woman from the school. What did that mean? Was +it possible that he was going to take a fancy to her?</p> + +<p>It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might +defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his +grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: sometimes at that +of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the +meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that +of the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that +of his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to +peril the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection. It was +a frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no +one single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the +fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If +it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one +person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make +that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that +a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered +the case.</p> + +<p>His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes arranging +plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, sometimes +getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of considering +what object he should select as the one most clearly in his way. On the +whole, there could be no doubt where the most threatening of all his +embarrassments lay. It was in the probable growing relation between +Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should prove, as it seemed likely, +that there was springing up a serious attachment tending to a union +between them, he knew what he should do, if he was not quite so sure how +he should do it.</p> + +<p>There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, +at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet +observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: +whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under +what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with +him might be reckoned on, in case it should be desirable. He could also +very probably learn some facts about Elsie: whether the young man was in +the habit of attending her on her way home from school; whether she +stayed about the school-room after the other girls had gone; and any +incidental matters of interest which might present themselves.</p> + +<p>He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A mad +gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a fancy to +him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in her talk, +for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of some of his +earlier friends, the <i>señoritas</i>,--all these were distractions, to be +sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in +longings for more dangerous excitements. The thought of getting a +knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he would be in his power at +any moment, was a happy one.</p> + +<p>For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, +to watch her until she got to the school-house. One day he saw Mr. +Bernard join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only once +this happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart from the +groups of girls who strolled out of the school-house yard in company. +Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. Could she +have stayed to meet the schoolmaster?</p> + +<p>If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have liked +to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding between +her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. But this was +beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content himself with +such cautious observations as could be made at a distance. With the aid +of a pocket-glass he could make out persons without the risk of being +observed himself.</p> + +<p>Mr. Silas Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off duty +or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. Sometimes Mr. +Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go out for a ramble +in the day-time; but more frequently it would be in the evening, after +the hour of "retiring," as bed-time was elegantly termed by the young +ladies of the Apollinean Institute. He would then not unfrequently walk +out alone in the common roads, or climb up the sides of The Mountain, +which seemed to be one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it was +impossible to follow him with the eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, +gnawing suspicion that somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster +might meet Elsie, whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this +he was not able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present +plans, and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk one +evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. Presently +a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a wooded bank, some +thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick Venner could see the +interior of the chamber, and watch the master as he sat at his desk, the +light falling strongly upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript +before him. Dick contemplated him very long in this attitude. The sense +of watching his every motion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was +delicious. How little the master was thinking what eyes were on him!</p> + +<p>Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he chose, +he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in a more +solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an evening or +two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he sat at his +desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be very little +difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, silence is always +preferable to noise, and there is a great difference in the marks left +by different casualties. Very likely nothing would come of all this +espionage; but, at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man you +want to have in your power is to learn his habits.</p> + +<p>Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful +and moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. It +was the working of her jealousy against that young school-girl to whom +the master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the heiress of +the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to exasperate her +irritable nature against him, and in this way to render her more +accessible to his own advances? It was difficult to influence her at +all. She endured his company without seeming to enjoy it. She watched +him with that strange look of hers, sometimes as if she were on her +guard against him, sometimes as if she would like to strike at him as in +that fit of childish passion. She ordered him about with a haughty +indifference which reminded him of his own way with the dark-eyed women +whom he had known so well of old. All this added a secret pleasure to +the other motives he had for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He +knew she brooded silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that +she fed on it, as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her +veins,--and that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself +was not likely the second time to be the object, or in some deadly +vengeance wrought secretly, against which he would keep a sharp +look-out, so far as he was concerned, she had no outlet for her +dangerous, smouldering passions.</p> + +<p>Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, there +is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to listen to +her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental,--then, +if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few heartfuls of wild blood +in her, and you have done her a wrong,--double-bolt the door which she +may enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,--look twice before you taste +of any cup whose draught the shadow of her hand may have darkened!</p> + +<p>But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives in +the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is tired, +she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of coffee +from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment.</p> + +<p>So, if she can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her +wickedness will run off through her throat or the tips of her fingers. +How many tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades +and strenuous bravuras! How many murders are executed in double-quick +time upon the keys which stab the air with their dagger-strokes of +sound! What would our civilization be without the piano? Are not Erard +and Broadwood and Chickering the true humanizers of our time? Therefore +do I love to hear the all-pervading <i>tum tum</i> jarring the walls of +little parlors in houses with double door-plates on their portals, +looking out on streets and courts which to know is to be unknown, and +where to exist is not to live, according to any true definition of +living. Therefore complain I not of modern degeneracy, when, even from +the open window of the small unlovely farm-house, tenanted by the +hard-handed man of bovine flavors and the flat-patterned woman of +broken-down countenance, issue the same familiar sounds. For who knows +that Almira, but for these keys, which throb away her wild impulses in +harmless discords, would not have been floating, dead, in the brown +stream which runs through the meadows by her father's door,--or living, +with that other current which runs beneath the gas-lights over the slimy +pavement, choking with wretched weeds that were once in spotless flower?</p> + +<p>Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner life +in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as common +articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be in action. +Watch her well by day and by night, Old Sophy! watch her well! or the +long line of her honored name may close in shame, and the stately +mansion of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till its roof is +buried in its cellar!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br><br> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> +<br> + +<h2>ON HIS TRACKS.</h2> + +<p>"Abel!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?"</p> + +<p>Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will you" +did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of rounding +the corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the personal +independence of an American citizen.</p> + +<p>The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. His +face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the +Doctor's eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which looked +as if he had something to communicate.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest happened +daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' the gate on +that queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very +slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. +He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn +to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a +pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be +all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' +raoun' the Institoot for, after folks is abed."</p> + +<p>"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor.</p> + +<p>"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be +pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' +want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me +like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits +ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know what +hurts ye."</p> + +<p>"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any such +weapon about him?"</p> + +<p>"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks kin' +o' dangerous. May-be he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't say that +he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raoun' jest 'z ef he +wuz spyin' somebody; 'n' somehaow I caan't help mistrustin' them +Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caa'n't keep the run o' this chap all the +time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown't the mansion-haouse +knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody."</p> + +<p>The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his private +detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in +the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from +the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. +He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a +shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the +schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had +cautioned Mr. Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt an interest in the +young man,--a student of his own profession, an intelligent and +ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been thrown by accident +into the companionship or the neighborhood of two person, one of whom he +knew to be dangerous, and the other he believed instinctively might be +capable of crime.</p> + +<p>The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of +seeing Old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen. +He began talking with her as a physician; he wanted to know how her +rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw though all that with her +little beady black eyes. It was something quite different he had come +for, and Old Sophy answered very briefly for her aches and ails.</p> + +<p>"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the Lord's +doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sh'n't be long roun' this kitchen. +It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it's our Elsie,--it's the baby, as we +use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen year ago, 'n' +her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where is she? Let me see +her!'--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run then,--'n' got the coral +necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, 'n' then showed her to her +mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, 'n' looked, 'n' then put out +her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the necklace,--'n' fell right back on +her piller, as white as though she was laid out to bury?"</p> + +<p>The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He had +never chosen to let Old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious +reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual fears and +prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it.</p> + +<p>"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief pause.</p> + +<p>The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply.</p> + +<p>The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the +glasses through which he now saw her.</p> + +<p>Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision.</p> + +<p>"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from +the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three +times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!"</p> + +<p>"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in +his tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a +certain tendency to belief in the superstition to which the +question refers.</p> + +<p>"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, as +if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it was +somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' +people,--like the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor +chil', 'n' take care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared she'll +never live to see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick."</p> + +<p>Poor Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not +unnaturally, somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of the +Second-Advent preachers had been about, and circulated their predictions +among the kitchen-population of Rockland. This was the way in which it +happened that she mingled her fears in such a strange manner with their +doctrines.</p> + +<p>The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, but +it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in the +household different from common?"</p> + +<p>Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, when +she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her +infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of +observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather +looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor +was a mighty conjuror, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She +had relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the +Doctor was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them +through all their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She +had but one real object of affection in the world,--this child that she +had tended from infancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick +round her; how soon they would break upon her, and blight or destroy +her, no one could tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue of +terrors that might not come upon the household at any moment. Her own +wits had sharpened themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her +face had forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to +its features.</p> + +<p>"Doctor," Old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by night +and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked him. He +giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I know it make +him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he needn' feel as if I +didn' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as much as a member o' +the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody."</p> + +<p>Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to Mr. +Richard Venner might perhaps go a little farther than the Christian +limit she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather was in the +habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the last enemy he +had bagged, and that her grandmother's teeth were filed down to points, +so that they were as sharp as a shark's.</p> + +<p>"What is it that you have seen about Mr. Richard Venner that gives you +such a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"What I' seen 'bout Dick Venner?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell y' +what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that's what he wan's; 'n' +he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as I hate him! +He wan's to marry our Elsie, 'n' live here in the big house, 'n' have +nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch Massa Venner 'n' see how long +'t 'll take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die fas' 'nuff, help him some way +t' die fasser!--Come close up t' me, Doctor! I wan' t' tell you +somethin' I tol' th' minister t'other day. Th' minister, he come down +'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, +'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie,--but he didn' tell nobody what to +do to stop all what I been dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to +me, Doctor!"</p> + +<p>The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman.</p> + +<p>"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's long 's she lives! +Nobody mus'n' never live with Elsie but Ol' Sophy; 'n' Ol' Sophy won't +never die 's long 's Elsie's alive to be took care of. But I 's feared, +Doctor, I 's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. The' 's a +young gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of 'em tells +me,--'n' she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she talks about him +when she's asleep sometimes. She mus'n' never marry nobody, Doctor! If +she do, he die, certain!"</p> + +<p>"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the +Doctor said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from Dick."</p> + +<p>"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but Ol' Sophy. She no like any +other creatur' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' marry one +man cos she love him, she marry another man cos she hate him."</p> + +<p>"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it."</p> + +<p>"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said Old Sophy, with a flash +of strange intelligence in her eyes.</p> + +<p>The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could not +know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange +superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had +better follow Sophy's lead and find out what she meant.</p> + +<p>"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. "You +don't mean that she has any ugly thing about her, except--you +know--under the necklace?"</p> + +<p>The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her darling.</p> + +<p>"I didn' say she had nothin'--but jes' that--you know. My beauty have +anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever had a +shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't like no +other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh like other +women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as other women.--Do +you know that young gen'l'm'n up at the school, Doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young man, +handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell me, +Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to fall in +love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?"</p> + +<p>"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a little to +the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all."</p> + +<p>"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she +would have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, if +anybody can."</p> + +<p>"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live wi' +Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but Ol' Sophy, +I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, if Dick +Venner die? He wan's to marry our Elsie so's to live in the big house +'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the chists full +o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes! That's what Dick wan's. An' he hates +Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marries Elsie, she'll make him +die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her 'n' hang her, or he'll +get mad with her 'n' choke her.--Oh, I know his chokin' tricks!--he don' +leave his keys roun' for nothin'!"</p> + +<p>"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that."</p> + +<p>So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his +chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it +to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of +inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather +thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, +which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at +least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search; but Old Sophy considered +that a game of life and death was going on in the household, and that +she was bound to look out for her darling.</p> + +<p>The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of information. +Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use this +mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was certainly +very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom of his trunk. +The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something about the <i>lasso</i> and +the <i>lariat</i> and the <i>bolas</i>, and had an indistinct idea that they had +been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or private revenge; but they +were essentially a huntsman's implements, after all, and it was not very +strange that this young man had brought one of them with him. Not +strange, perhaps, but worth noting.</p> + +<p>"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, he +never let nobody else have her. Oh, Dick's a dark man, Doctor! I know +him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunnin'. I think +he mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,--come in +softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I hear the +cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Venner, when he comes up +in his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean mischief to +somebody. I no like his looks these las' days.--Is that a very pooty +gen'l'm'n up at the school-house, Doctor?"</p> + +<p>"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?"</p> + +<p>"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus'n' never marry nobody,--but, +oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little how it +would ha' been, if the Lord hadn' been so hard on Elsie."</p> + +<p>She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left her +a moment to her thoughts.</p> + +<p>"And how does Mr. Dudley Venner take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Massa Venner, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, as +Ol' Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, 'n' +set by her sometime when she 'sleep; I come to her in th' mornin' 'n' +help her put on her things."--Then, in a whisper,--"Doctor, Elsie lets +Ol' Sophy take off that necklace for her. What you think she do, 'f +anybody else tech it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her hands, Doctor!"--The old woman's +significant pantomime must be guessed at.</p> + +<p>"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Venner thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry Elsie."</p> + +<p>"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout +what goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you +know,--sort o' giv' up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say +'Yes, yes.' Dick always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. One +time I thought Massa Venner b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to Elsie; but +now he don' seem to take much notice;--he kin' o' stupid-like 'bout sech +things. It's trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Venner bright man +naterally,--'n' he's got a great heap o' books. I don' think Massa +Venner never been jes' heself sence Elsie's born. He done all he know +how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a great deal. You men-folks don' know +nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' 'f you knowed all the young gals +that ever lived, y' wouldn' know nothin' 'bout our Elsie."</p> + +<p>"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. Venner +has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has any notion +that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels safe to have +him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him."</p> + +<p>"Lor' bless you, Doctor, Massa Venner no more idee 'f any mischief 'bout +Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long wi' +us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' ol' +family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby,--y' +never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care for +nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. The +fus' year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the window +'n' look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the baby's neck +'n' say, '<i>It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it?</i>' 'n' then go down in the study +'n' walk 'n' walk, 'n' then kneel down 'n' pray. Doctor, there was two +places in the old carpet that was all threadbare, where his knees had +worn 'em. An sometimes,--you remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up +into The Mountain 'n' be gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he +could find up there.--Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them +days!--An' by-'n'-by he grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, +'n' 't las' he got's quiet 's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I +think he's got religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's +goin' on, 'n' I don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' +happens;--for the' 's somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day +doesn' come to stop it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my +poor Elsie, my baby that the Lord hasn' took care of like all his +other childer."</p> + +<p>The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal about +them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her own. Let +her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a look-out +elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know at once. +Send up one of the men-servants, and he would come down at a +moment's warning.</p> + +<p>There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the Doctor +was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He rode +straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had a brief +conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his personal +interests.</p> + +<p>That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place of +his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night Mr. +Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back among +the fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a dozen +of it.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br><br> +<h2>A PLEA FOR FREEDOM FROM SPEECH AND FIGURES +OF SPEECH-MAKERS.</h2> +<br> + +<p>I observe, Messieurs of the "Atlantic," that your articles are commonly +written in the imperial style; but I must beg allowance to use the first +person singular. I cannot, like old Weller, spell myself with a We. Ours +is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the +worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal +pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. +Other tongues have, or pretend, a greater modesty.</p> + +<h2>I.</h2> + +<p>What a noble letter it is! In it every reader sees himself as in a +glass. As for me, without my I-s, I should be as poorly off as the great +mole of Hadrian, which, being the biggest, must be also, by parity of +reason, the blindest in the world. When I was in college, I confess I +always liked those passages best in the choruses of the Greek drama +which were well sprinkled with <i>ai ai</i>, they were so grandly simple. The +force of great men is generally to be found in their intense +individuality,--in other words, it is all in their I. The merit of this +essay will be similar.</p> + +<p>What I was going to say is this.</p> + +<p>My mind has been much exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, +which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun +to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and +Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human +habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind. We had hitherto got on very +well in Chesumpscot, having caught a trick of silence, perhaps from the +fish which we cured, <i>more medicorum</i>, by laying them out. But this +summer some misguided young men among us got up a lecture-association. +Of course it led to a general quarrel; for every pastor in the town +wished to have the censorship of the list of lecturers. A certain number +of the original projectors, however, took the matter wholly into their +own hands, raised a subscription to pay expenses, and resolved to call +their lectures "The Universal Brotherhood Course,"--for no other reason, +that I can divine, but that they had set the whole village by the ears. +They invited that distinguished young apostle of Reform, Mr. Philip +Vandal, to deliver the opening lecture. He has just done so, and, from +what I have heard about his discourse, it would have been fitter as the +introductory to a nunnery of Kilkenny cats than to anything like +universal brotherhood. He opened our lyceum as if it had been an oyster, +without any regard for the feelings of those inside. He pitched into the +world in general, and all his neighbors past and present in particular. +Even the babe unborn did not escape some unsavory epithets in the way of +vaticination. I sat down, meaning to write you an essay on "The Right of +Private Judgment as distinguished from the Right of Public +Vituperation"; but I forbear. It may be that I do not understand the +nature of philanthropy.</p> + +<p>Why, here is Philip Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that +he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of +them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is +worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (<i>a +knurly</i>) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway +once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's shop. I like dealers in +out-of-the-way things,--traders in bigotry and virtue are too +common,--and so I went in. The gem of the collection was a terrier,--a +perfect beauty, uglier than philanthropy itself, and hairier, as a +Cockney would say, than the 'ole British hairystocracy. "A'n't he a +stunner?" said my disrespectable friend, the master of the shop. "Ah, +you should see him worry a rat! He does it like a puffic Christian!" +Since then, the world has been divided for me into Christians and +perfect Christians; and I find so many of the latter species in +proportion to the former, that I begin to pity the rats. They (the rats) +have at least one virtue,--they are not eloquent.</p> + +<p>It is, I think, a universally recognized truth of natural history, that +a young lady is sure to fall in love with a young man for whom she feels +at first an unconquerable aversion; and it must be on the same principle +that the first symptoms of love for our neighbor almost always manifest +themselves in a violent disgust at the world in general, on the part of +the apostles of that gospel. They give every token of hating their +neighbors consumedly; <I>argal</I>, they are going to be madly enamored +of them. Or, perhaps, this is the manner in which Universal Brotherhood +shows itself in people who wilfully subject themselves to infection as a +prophylactic. In the natural way we might find the disease inconvenient +and even expensive; but thus vaccinated with virus from the udders +(whatever they may be) that yield the (butter-)milk of human kindness, +the inconvenience is slight, and we are able still to go about our +ordinary business of detesting our brethren as usual. It only shows that +the milder type of the disease has penetrated the system, which will +thus be enabled to out-Jenneral its more dangerous congener. Before long +we shall have physicians of our ailing social system writing to the +"Weekly Brandreth's Pill" somewhat on this wise:--"I have a very marked +and hopeful case in Pequawgus Four Corners. Miss Hepzibah Tarbell, +daughter of that arch-enemy of his kind, Deacon Joash T., attended only +one of my lectures. In a day or two the symptoms of eruption were most +encouraging. She has already quarrelled with all her family,--accusing +her father of bigamy, her uncle Benoni of polytheism, her brother Zeno +C. of aneurism, and her sister Eudoxy Trithemia of the variation of the +magnetic needle. If ever hopes of seeing a perfect case of Primitive +Christian were well-founded, I think we may entertain them now."</p> + +<p>What I chiefly object to in the general denunciation sort of reformers +is that they make no allowance for character and temperament. They wish +to repeal universal laws, and to patch our natural skins for us, as if +they always wanted mending. That while they talk so much of the godlike +nature of man, they should so forget the human natures of men! The +Flathead Indian squeezes the child's skull between two boards till it +shapes itself into a kind of gambrel-roof against the rain,--the +readiest way, perhaps, of uniforming a tribe that wear no clothes. But +does he alter the inside of the head? Not a hair's-breadth. You remember +the striking old gnomic poem that tells how Aaron, in a moment of +fanatical zeal against that member by which mankind are so readily led +into mischief, proposes a rhinotomic sacrifice to Moses? What is the +answer of the experienced lawgiver? +<br><br> + "Says Moses to Aaron,<br> + ''Tis the fashion to wear 'em!'"<br> +<br> +Shall we advise the Tadpole to get his tail cut off, as a badge of the +reptile nature in him, and to achieve the higher sphere of the Croakers +at a single hop? Why, it is all he steers by; without it, he would be as +helpless as a compass under the flare of Northern Lights; and he no +doubt regards it as a mark of blood, the proof of his kinship with the +preadamite family of the Saurians. Shall we send missionaries to the +Bear to warn him against raw chestnuts, because they are sometimes so +discomforting to our human intestines, which are so like his own? One +sermon from the colic were worth the whole American Board.</p> + +<p>Moreover, as an author, I protest in the name of universal Grub Street +against a unanimity in goodness. Not to mention that a Quaker world, all +faded out to an autumnal drab, would be a little tedious,--what should +we do for the villain of our tragedy or novel? No rascals, no +literature. You have your choice. Were we weak enough to consent to a +sudden homogeneousness in virtue, many industrious persons would be +thrown out of employment. The wife and mother, for example, with as +indeterminate a number of children as the Martyr Rogers, who visits me +monthly,--what claim would she have upon me, were not her husband +forever taking to drink, or the penitentiary, or Spiritualism? The +pusillanimous lapse of her lord into morality would not only take the +very ground of her invention from under her feet, but would rob her and +him of an income that sustains them both in blissful independence of the +curse of Adam. But do not let us be disheartened. Nature is strong; she +is persistent; she completes her syllogism after we have long been +feeding the roots of her grasses, and has her own way in spite of us. +Some ancestral Cromwellian trooper leaps to life again in Nathaniel +Greene, and makes a general of him, to confute five generations of +Broadbrims. The Puritans were good in their way, and we enjoy them +highly as a preterite phenomenon: but they were <i>not</i> good at cakes and +ale, and that is one reason why they are a preterite phenomenon.</p> + +<p>I suppose we are all willing to let a public censor like P.V. run amuck +whenever he likes,--so it be not down our street. I confess to a good +deal of tolerance in this respect, and, when I live in Number 21, have +plenty of stoicism to spare for the griefs of the dwellers in No. 23. +Indeed, I agreed with our young Cato heartily in what he said about +Statues. We must have an Act for the Suppression, either of Great Men, +or else of Sculptors. I have not quite made up my mind which are the +greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of +both. They used to be <i>rare</i>, (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett,) +but nowadays they are overdone. I am half-inclined to think that the +sculptors club together to write folks up during their lives in the +newspapers, quieting their consciences with the hope of some day making +them look so mean in bronze or marble as to make all square again. Or do +we really have so many? Can't they help growing twelve feet high in this +new soil, any more than our maize? I suspect that Posterity will not +thank us for the hereditary disease of Carrara we are entailing on him, +and will try some heroic remedy, perhaps lithotripsy.</p> + +<p>Nor was I troubled by what Mr. Vandal said about the late Benjamin +Webster. I am not a Boston man, and have, therefore, the privilege of +thinking for myself. Nor do I object to his claiming for women the right +to make books and pictures and (shall I say it?) statues,--only this +last becomes a grave matter, if we are to have statues of all the great +women, too! To be sure, there will not be the trousers-difficulty,--at +least, not at present; what we may come to is none of my affair. I even +go beyond him in my opinions on what is called the Woman Question. In +the gift of speech, they have always had the advantage of us; and though +the jealousy of the other sex have deprived us of the orations of +Xantippe, yet even Demosthenes does not seem to have produced greater +effects, if we may take the word of Socrates for it,--as I, for one, +very gladly do.</p> + +<p>No,--what I complain of is not the lecturer's opinions, but the +eloquence with which he expressed them. He does not like statues better +than I do; but is it possible that he fails to see that the one nuisance +leads directly to the other, and that we set up three images of Talkers +for one to any kind of man who was useful in his generation? Let him +beware, or he will himself be petrified after death. Boston seems to be +specially unfortunate. She has more statues and more speakers than any +other city on this continent. I have with my own eyes seen a book called +"The Hundred Boston Orators." This would seem to give her a fairer title +to be called the <i>tire</i> than the <i>hub</i> of creation. What with the +speeches of her great men while they are alive, and those of her +surviving great men about those aforesaid after they are dead, and those +we look forward to from her <i>ditto ditto</i> yet to be upon her <i>ditto +ditto</i> now in being, and those of her paulopost <i>ditto ditto</i> upon her +<i>ditto ditto</i> yet to be, and those--But I am getting into the house +that Jack built. And yet I remember once visiting the Massachusetts +State-House and being struck with the Pythagorean fish hung on high in +the Representatives' Chamber, the emblem of a silence too sacred, as +would seem, to be observed except on Sundays. Eloquent Philip Vandal, I +appeal to you as a man and a brother, let us two form (not an +Antediluvian, for there are plenty, but) an Antidiluvian Society against +the flood of milk-and-water that threatens the land. Let us adopt as our +creed these two propositions:--</p> + +<p>I. <i>Tongues were given us to be held.</i></p> + +<p>II. <i>Dumbness sets the brute below the man: Silence elevates the man +above the brute.</i></p> + +<p>Every one of those hundred orators is to me a more fearful thought than +that of a hundred men gathering samphire. And when we take into account +how large a portion of them (if the present mania hold) are likely to be +commemorated in stone or some even more durable material, the conception +is positively stunning. Let us settle all scores by subscribing to a +colossal statue of the late Town-Crier in bell-metal, with the +inscription, "VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL," as a comprehensive tribute to +oratorical powers in general. <i>He</i>, at least, never betrayed his +clients. As it is, there is no end to it. We are to set up Horatius Vir +in effigy for inventing the Normal Schoolmaster, and by-and-by we shall +be called on to do the same ill-turn for Elihu Mulciber for getting +uselessly learned (as if any man had ideas enough for twenty languages!) +without any schoolmaster at all. We are the victims of a droll +antithesis. Daniel would not give in to Nebuchadnezzar's taste in +statuary, and we are called on to fall down and worship an image of +Daniel which the Assyrian monarch would have gone to grass again sooner +than have it in his back-parlor. I do not think lions are agreeable, +especially the shaved-poodle variety one is so apt to encounter;--I met +one once at an evening party. But I would be thrown into a den of them +rather than sleep in the same room with that statue. Posterity will +think we cut pretty figures indeed in the monumental line! Perhaps there +is a gleam of hope and a symptom of convalescence in the fact that the +Prince of Wales, during his late visit, got off without a single speech. +The cheerful hospitalities of Mount Auburn were offered to him, as to +all distinguished strangers, but nothing more melancholy. In his case I +doubt the expediency of the omission. Had we set a score or two of +orators on him and his suite, it would have given them a more +intimidating notion of the offensive powers of the country than West +Point and all the Navy-Yards put together.</p> + +<p>In the name of our common humanity, consider, too, what shifts our +friends in the sculpin line (as we should call them in Chesumpscot) are +put to for originality of design, and what the country has to pay for +it. The Clark Mills (that turns out equestrian statues as the Stark +Mills do calico-patterns) has pocketed fifty thousand dollars for making +a very dead bronze horse stand on his hind-legs. For twenty-five cents I +have seen a man at the circus do something more wonderful,--make a very +living bay horse dance a redowa round the amphitheatre on his (it occurs +to me that <i>hind-legs</i> is indelicate) posterior extremities to the +wayward music of an out-of-town (<i>Scotice</i>, out-o'-toon) band. Now, I +will make a handsome offer to the public. I propose for twenty-five +thousand dollars to suppress my design for an equestrian statue of a +distinguished general officer as he <i>would have</i> appeared at the Battle +of Buena Vista. This monument is intended as a weathercock to crown the +new dome of the Capitol at Washington. By this happy contrivance, the +horse will be freed from the degrading necessity of touching the earth +at all,--thus distancing Mr. Mills by two feet in the race for +originality. The pivot is to be placed so far behind the middle of the +horse, that the statue, like its original, will always indicate which +way the wind blows by going along with it. The inferior animal I have +resolved to model from a spirited saw-horse in my own collection. In +this way I shall combine two striking advantages. The advocates of the +Ideal in Art cannot fail to be pleased with a charger which embodies, as +it were, merely the abstract notion or quality, Horse, and the attention +of the spectator will not be distracted from the principal figure. The +material to be pure brass. I have also in progress an allegorical group +commemorative of Governor Wise. This, like-Wise, represents only a +potentiality. I have chosen, as worthy of commemoration, the moment when +and the method by which the Governor meant to seize the Treasury at +Washington. His Excellency is modelled in the act of making one of his +speeches. Before him a despairing reporter kills himself by falling on +his own steel pen; a broken telegraph-wire hints at the weight of the +thoughts to which it has found itself inadequate; while the Army and +Navy of the United States are conjointly typified in a horse-marine who +flies headlong with his hands pressed convulsively over his ears. I +think I shall be able to have this ready for exhibition by the time Mr. +Wise is nominated for the Presidency,--certainly before he is elected. +The material to be plaster, made of the shells of those oysters with +which Virginia shall have paid her public debt. It may be objected, that +plaster is not durable enough for verisimilitude, since bronze itself +could hardly be expected to outlast one of the Governor's speeches. But +it must be remembered that his mere effigy cannot, like its prototype, +have the pleasure of hearing itself talk; so that to the mind of the +spectator the oratorical despotism is tempered with some reasonable hope +of silence. This design, also, is intended only <i>in terrorem</i>, and will +be suppressed for an adequate consideration.</p> + +<p>I find one comfort, however, in the very hideousness of our statues. The +fear of what the sculptors will do for them after they are gone may +deter those who are careful of their memories from talking themselves +into greatness. It is plain that Mr. Caleb Cushing has begun to feel a +wholesome dread of this posthumous retribution. I cannot in any other +way account for that nightmare of the solitary horseman on the edge of +the horizon, in his Hartford Speech. His imagination is infected with +the terrible consciousness, that Mr. Mills, as the younger man, will, in +the course of Nature, survive him, and will be left loose to seek new +victims of his nefarious designs. Formerly the punishment of the wooden +horse was a degradation inflicted on private soldiers only; but Mr. +Mills (whose genius could make even Pegasus look wooden, in whatever +material) flies at higher game, and will be content with nothing short +of a general. Mr. Cushing advises extreme measures. He counsels us to +sell our real estate and stocks, and to leave a country where no man's +reputation with posterity is safe, being merely as clay in the hands of +the sculptor. To a mind undisturbed by the terror natural in one whose +military reputation insures his cutting and running, (I mean, of course, +in marble and bronze,) the question becomes an interesting one,--To +whom, in case of a general exodus, shall we sell? The statues will have +the land all to themselves,--until the Aztecs, perhaps, repeopling their +ancient heritage, shall pay divine honors to these images, whose +ugliness will revive the traditions of the classic period of Mexican +Art. For my own part, I never look at one of them now without thinking +of at least one human sacrifice.</p> + +<p>I doubt the feasibility of Mr. Cushing's proposal, and yet something +ought to be done. We must put up with what we have already, I suppose, +and let Mr. Webster stand threatening to blow us all up with his pistol +pointed at the elongated keg of gunpowder on which his left hand +rests,--no bad type of the great man's state of mind after the +nomination of General Taylor, or of what a country member would call a +penal statue. But do we reflect that Vermont is half marble, and that +Lake Superior can send us bronze enough for regiments of statues? I go +back to my first plan of a prohibitory enactment. I had even gone so far +as to make a rough draught of an Act for the Better Observance of the +Second Commandment; but it occurred to me that convictions under it +would be doubtful, from the difficulty of satisfying a jury that our +graven images did really present a likeness to any of the objects +enumerated in the divine ordinance. Perhaps a double-barrelled statute +might be contrived that would meet both the oratorical and the +monumental difficulty. Let a law be passed that all speeches delivered +more for the benefit of the orator than that of the audience, and all +eulogistic ones of whatever description, be pronounced in the chapel of +the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and all statues be set up within the grounds +of the Institution for the Blind. Let the penalty for infringement in +the one case be to read the last President's Message, and in the other +to look at the Webster statue one hour a day, for a term not so long as +to violate the spirit of the law forbidding cruel and unusual +punishments.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is too much to expect of our legislators that they should +pass so self-denying an ordinance. They might, perhaps, make all oratory +but their own penal, and then (who knows?) the reports of their debates +might be read by the few unhappy persons who were demoniacally possessed +by a passion for that kind of thing, as girls are sometimes said to be +by an appetite for slate-pencils. <i>Vita brevis, lingua longa</i>. I protest +that among law-givers I respect Numa, who declared, that, of all the +Camenae, Tacita was most worthy of reverence. The ancient Greeks also +(though they left too much oratory behind them) had some good notions, +especially if we consider that they had not, like modern Europe, the +advantage of communication with America. Now the Greeks had a Muse of +Beginning, and the wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how +hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more +excellent Muse of Leaving-off. The Spartans, I suspect, found her out +and kept her selfishly to themselves. She were indeed a goddess to be +worshipped, a true Sister of Charity among that loquacious sisterhood!</p> + +<p>Endlessness is the order of the day. I ask you to compare Plutarch's +lives of demigods and heroes with our modern biographies of deminoughts +and zeroes. Those will appear but tailors and ninth-parts of men in +comparison with these, every one of whom would seem to have had nine +lives, like a cat, to justify such prolixity. Yet the evils of print are +as dust in the balance to those of speech.</p> + +<p>We were doing very well in Chesumpscot, but the Lyceum has ruined all. +There are now two debating-clubs, seminaries of multiloquence. A few of +us old-fashioned fellows have got up an opposition club and called it +"The Jolly Oysters." No member is allowed to open his mouth except at +high-tide by the calendar. We have biennial festivals on the evening of +election-day, when the constituency avenges itself in some small measure +on its Representative elect by sending a baker's dozen of orators to +congratulate him.</p> + +<p>But I am falling into the very vice I condemn,--like Carlyle, who has +talked a quarter of a century in praise of holding your tongue. And yet +something should be done about it. Even when we get one orator safely +under-ground, there are ten to pronounce his eulogy, and twenty to do it +over again when the meeting is held about the inevitable statue. I go to +listen: we all go: we are under a spell. 'Tis true, I find a casual +refuge in sleep; for Drummond of Hawthornden was wrong when he called +Sleep the child of Silence. Speech begets her as often. But there is no +sure refuge save in Death; and when my life is closed untimely, let +there be written on my headstone, with impartial application to these +Black Brunswickers mounted on the high horse of oratory and to our +equestrian statues,--</p> + +<p><i>Os sublime</i> did it!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2> +<br> + +<p><i>Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita</i>. Vol. I, Containing, +I. <i>Opus Tertium</i>,--II. <i>Opus Minus</i>,--III. <i>Compendium Philosophiae</i>. +Edited by J.S. BREWER, M.A., Professor of English Literature, King's +College, London, and Reader at the Rolls. Published by the Authority of +the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction +of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and +Roberts. 1859. 8vo. pp. c., 573.</p> + +<p>Sir John Romilly has shown good judgment in including the unpublished +works of Roger Bacon in the series of "Chronicles and Memorials of Great +Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," now in course of +publication under his direction. They are in a true sense important +memorials of the period at which they were written, and, though but +incidentally illustrating the events of the time, they are of great +value in indicating the condition of thought and learning as well as the +modes of mental discipline and acquisition during the +thirteenth century.</p> + +<p>The memory of Roger Bacon has received but scant justice. Although long +since recognized as one of the chief lights of England during the Middle +Ages, the clinging mist of popular tradition has obscured his real +brightness and distorted its proportions, while even among scholars he +has been more known by reputation than by actual acquaintance with his +writings. His principal work, his "Opus Majus," was published for the +first time in London in 1733, in folio, and afterwards at Venice in +1750, in the same form. Down to the publication of the volume before us, +it was the only one of his writings of much importance which had been +printed complete, if indeed it is to be called complete,--the Seventh +Part having been omitted by the editor, Dr. Jebb, and never having since +been published.</p> + +<p>The facts known concerning Roger Bacon's life are few, and are so +intermingled with tradition that it is difficult wholly to separate them +from it. Born of a good family at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, near the +beginning of the thirteenth century, he was placed in early youth at +Oxford, whence, after completing his studies in grammar and logic, "he +proceeded to Paris," says Anthony Wood, "according to the fashion +prevalent among English scholars of those times, especially among the +members of the University of Oxford." Here, under the famous masters of +the day, he devoted himself to study for some years, and made such +progress that he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity. Returning to +Oxford, he seems soon to have entered into the Franciscan Order, for the +sake of securing a freedom from worldly cares, that he might the more +exclusively give himself to his favorite pursuits. At various times he +lectured at the University. He spent some later years out of England, +probably again in Paris. His life was embittered by the suspicions felt +in regard to his studies by the brethren of his order, and by their +opposition, which proceeded to such lengths that it is said he was cast +into prison, where, according to one report, he died wretchedly. However +this may have been, his death took place before the beginning of the +fourteenth century. The scientific and experimental studies which had +brought him into ill-favor with his own order, and had excited the +suspicion against him of dealing in magic and forbidden arts, seem to +have sown the seed of the popular traditions which at once took root +around his name. Friar Bacon soon became, and indeed has remained almost +to the present day, a half-mythical character. To the imagination of the +common people, he was a great necromancer; he had had dealings with the +Evil One, who had revealed many of the secrets of Nature to him; he had +made a head of brass that could speak and foretell future events; and to +him were attributed other not less wonderful inventions, which seem to +have formed a common stock for popular legends of this sort during the +Middle Ages, and to have been ascribed indiscriminately to one +philosopher or another in various countries and in various times.<a name="FNanchor9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> The +references in our early literature to Friar Bacon, as one who had had +familiarity with spirits and been a master in magic arts, are so +numerous as to show that the belief in these stories was wide-spread, +and that the real character of the learned Friar was quite given over to +oblivion. But time slowly brings about its revenges; and the man whom +his ignorant and stupid fellows thought fit to hamper and imprison, and +whom popular credulity looked upon with that half-horror and +half-admiration with which those were regarded who were supposed to have +put their souls in pawn for the sake of tasting the forbidden fruit, is +now recognized not only as one of the most profound and clearest +thinkers of his time, but as the very first among its experimental +philosophers, and as a prophet of truths which, then neglected and +despised, have since been adopted as axioms in the progress of science. +"The precursor of Galileo," says M. Hauréau, in his work on Scholastic +Philosophy, "he learned before him how rash it is to offend the +prejudices of the multitude, and to desire to give lessons to the +ignorant."</p> + +<p>The range of Roger Bacon's studies was encyclopedic, comprehending all +the branches of learning then open to scholars. Brucker, in speaking of +him in his History of Philosophy, has no words strong enough to express +his admiration for his abilities and learning. "Seculi sui indolem +multum superavit," "vir summus, tantaque occultioris philosophiae +cognitione et experientia nobilis, ut merito Doctoris Mirabilis titulum +reportaverit."<a name="FNanchor10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> The logical and metaphysical studies, in the +intricate subtilties of which most of the schoolmen of his time involved +themselves, presented less attraction to Bacon than the pursuits of +physical science and the investigation of Nature. His genius, displaying +the practical bent of his English mind, turning with weariness from the +endless verbal discussions of the Nominalists and Realists, and +recognizing the impossibility of solving the questions which divided the +schools of Europe into two hostile camps, led him to the study of +branches of knowledge that were held in little repute. He recognized the +place of mathematics as the basis of exact science, and proceeded to the +investigation of the facts and laws of optics, mechanics, chemistry, and +astronomy. But he did not limit himself to positive science; he was at +the same time a student of languages and of language, of grammar and of +music. He was versed not less in the arts of the <i>Trivium</i> than in the +sciences of the Quadrivium.<a name="FNanchor11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a></p> + +<p>But in rejecting the method of study then in vogue, and in opposing the +study of facts to that of questions which by their abstruseness fatigued +the intellect, which were of more worth in sharpening the wit than in +extending the limits of knowledge, and which led rather to vain +contentions than to settled conclusions,--in thus turning from the +investigation of abstract metaphysics to the study of Nature, Roger +Bacon went so far before his age as to condemn himself to solitude, to +misappreciation, and to posthumous neglect. Unlike men of far narrower +minds, but more conformed to the spirit of the times, he founded no +school, and left no disciples to carry out the system which he had +advanced, and which was one day to have its triumph. At the end of the +thirteenth century the scholastic method was far from having run its +career. The minds of men were occupied with problems which it alone +seemed to be able to resolve, and they would not abandon it at the will +of the first innovator. The questions in dispute were embittered by +personal feeling and party animosities. Franciscans and Dominicans were +divided by points of logic not less than by the rules of their +orders.<a name="FNanchor12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> Ignorance and passion alike gave ardor to discussion, and it +was vain to attempt to convince the heated partisans on one side or the +other, that the truths they sought were beyond the reach of human +faculties, and that their dialectics and metaphysics served to bewilder +more than to enlighten the intellect. The disciples of subtile +speculatists like Aquinas, or of fervent mystics like Bonaventura, were +not likely to recognize the worth and importance of the slow processes +of experimental philosophy.</p> + +<p>The qualities of natural things, the limits of intellectual powers, the +relations of man to the universe, the conditions of matter and spirit, +the laws of thought, were too imperfectly understood for any man to +attain to a comprehensive and correct view of the sources and methods of +study and discovery of the truth. Bacon shared in what may he called, +without a sneer, the childishnesses of his time, childishnesses often +combined with mature powers and profound thought. No age is fully +conscious of its own intellectual disproportions; and what now seem mere +puerilities in the works of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were perhaps +frequently the result of as laborious effort and as patient study as +what we still prize in them for its manly vigor and permanent worth. In +a later age, the Centuries of the "Sylva Sylvarum" afford a curious +comment on the Aphorisms of the "Novum Organum."</p> + +<p>The "Opus Majus" of Bacon was undertaken in answer to a demand of Pope +Clement IV. in 1266, and was intended to contain a review of the whole +range of science, as then understood, with the exception of logic. +Clement had apparently become personally acquainted with Bacon, at the +time when, as legate of the preceding Pope, he had been sent to England +on an ineffectual mission to compose the differences between Henry III. +and his barons, and he appears to have formed a just opinion of the +genius and learning of the philosopher.</p> + +<p>The task to which Bacon had been set by the Papal mandate was rapidly +accomplished, in spite of difficulties which might have overcome a less +resolute spirit; but the work extended to such great length in his +hands, that he seems to have felt a not unnatural fear that Clement, +burdened with the innumerable cares of the Pontificate, would not find +leisure for its perusal, much less for the study which some part of it +demanded. With this fear, fearful also that portions of his work might +be deficient in clearness, and dreading lest it might be lost on its way +to Rome, he proceeded to compose a second treatise, called the "Opus +Minus," to serve as an abstract and specimen of his greater work, and to +embrace some additions to its matter. Unfortunately, but a fragment of +this second work has been preserved, and this fragment is for the first +time published in the volume just issued under the direction of the +Master of the Rolls. But the "Opus Minus" was scarcely completed before +he undertook a third work, to serve as an introduction and preamble to +both the preceding. This has been handed down to us complete, and this, +too, is for the first time printed in the volume before us. We take the +account of it given by Professor Brewer, the editor, in his +introduction. +<br><br> + "Inferior to its predecessors in the importance<br> + of its scientific details and the illustration<br> + it supplies of Bacon's philosophy, it is<br> + more interesting than either, for the insight<br> + it affords of his labors, and of the numerous<br> + obstacles he had to contend with in the execution<br> + of his work. The first twenty chapters<br> + detail various anecdotes of Bacon's personal<br> + history, his opinions on the state of<br> + education, the impediments thrown in his<br> + way by the ignorance, the prejudices, the<br> + contempt, the carelessness, the indifference<br> + of his contemporaries. From the twentieth<br> + chapter to the close of the volume he pursues<br> + the thread of the Opus Majus, supplying what<br> + he had there omitted, correcting and explaining<br> + what had been less clearly or correctly<br> + expressed in that or in the Opus Minus. In<br> + Chapter LII. he apologizes for diverging from<br> + the strict line he had originally marked out,<br> + by inserting in the ten preceding chapters his<br> + opinions on three abstruse subjects, Vacuum,<br> + Motion, and Space, mainly in regard to their<br> + spiritual significance. 'As these questions,'<br> + he says,' are very perplexing and difficult, I<br> + thought I would record what I had to say<br> + about them in some one of my works. In the<br> + Opus Majus and Opus Minus I had not studied<br> + them sufficiently to prevail on myself to<br> + commit my thoughts about them to writing;<br> + and I was glad to omit them, owing to the<br> + length of those works, and because I was<br> + much hurried in their composition.' From the<br> + fifty-second chapter to the close of the volume<br> + he adheres to his subject without further digression,<br> + but with so much vigor of thought<br> + and freshness of observations, that, like the<br> + Opus Minus, the Opus Tertium may be fairly<br> + considered an independent work."--pp.<br> + xliv-xlv.<a name="FNanchor13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a></p> + +<p>The details which Bacon gives of his personal history are of special +interest as throwing light upon the habits of life of a scholar in the +thirteenth century. Their autobiographic charm is increased by their +novelty, for they give a view of ways of life of which but few +particulars have been handed down.</p> + +<p>Excusing himself for the delay which had occurred, after the reception +of the Pope's letter, before the transmission of the writings he had +desired, Bacon says that he was strictly prohibited by a rule of his +Order from communicating to others any writing made by one of its +members, under penalty of loss of the book, and a diet for many days of +bread and water. Moreover, a fair copy could not be made, supposing that +he succeeded in writing, except by scribes outside of the Order; and +they might transcribe either for themselves or others, and through their +dishonesty it very often happened that books were divulged at Paris.</p> + +<p>"Then other far greater causes of delay occurred, on account of which I +was often ready to despair; and a hundred times I thought to give up the +work I had undertaken; and, had it not been for reverence for the Vicar +of the only Saviour, and [regard to] the profit to the world to be +secured through him alone, I would not have proceeded, against these +hindrances, with this affair, for all those who are in the Church of +Christ, however much they might have prayed and urged me. The first +hindrance was from those who were set over me, to whom you had written +nothing in my favor, and who, since I could not reveal your secret +[commission] to them, being bound not to do so by your command of +secrecy, urged me with unutterable violence, and with other means, to +obey their will. But I resisted, on account of the bond of your precept, +which obliged me to your work, in spite of every mandate of my +superiors....</p> + +<p>"But I met also with another hindrance, which was enough to put a stop +to the whole matter, and this was the want of [means to meet] the +expense. For I was obliged to pay out in this business more than sixty +livres of Paris,<a name="FNanchor14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> the account and reckoning of which I will set forth +in their place hereafter. I do not wonder, indeed, that you did not +think of these expenses, because, sitting at the top of the world, you +have to think of so great and so many things that no one can estimate +the cares of your mind. But the messengers who carried your letters were +careless in not making mention to you of these expenses; and they were +unwilling to expend a single penny, even though I told them that I would +write to you an account of the expenses, and that to every one of them +should be returned what was his. I truly have no money, as you know, nor +can I have it, nor consequently can I borrow, since I have nothing +wherewith to repay. I sent then to my rich brother, in my country, who, +belonging to the party of the king, was exiled with my mother and my +brothers and the whole family, and oftentimes being taken by the enemy +redeemed himself with money, so that thus being ruined and impoverished, +he could not assist me, nor even to this day have I had an answer +from him.</p> + +<p>"Considering, then, the reverence due to you, and the nature of your +command, I solicited many and great people, the faces of some of whom +you know well, but not their minds; and I told them that a certain +affair of yours must he attended to by me in France, (but I did not +disclose to them what it was,) the performance of which required a large +sum of money. But how often I was deemed a cheat, how often repulsed, +how often put off with empty hope, how often confused in myself, I +cannot express. Even my friends did not believe me, because I could not +explain to them the affair; and hence I could not advance by this way. +In distress, therefore, beyond what can be imagined, I compelled +serving-men and poor to expend all that they had, to sell many things, +and to pawn others, often at usury; and I promised them that I would +write to you every part of the expenses, and would in good faith obtain +from you payment in full. And yet, on account of the poverty of these +persons, I many times gave up the work, and many times despaired and +neglected to proceed; and indeed, if I had known that you would not +attend to the settling of these accounts, I would not for the whole +world have gone on,--nay, rather, I would have gone to prison. Nor could +I send special messengers to you for the needed sum, because I had no +means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing +the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on +account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of +expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by +ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all +these things, so great a delay has occurred in this matter."<a name="FNanchor15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a></p> + +<p>There is a touching simplicity in this account of the trials by which he +was beset, and it rises to dignity in connection with a sentence which +immediately follows, in which he says, the thought of "the advantage of +the world excited me, and the revival of knowledge, which now for many +ages has lain dead, vehemently urged me forward." Motives such as these +were truly needed to enable him to make head against such difficulties.</p> + +<p>The work which he accomplished, remarkable as it is from its intrinsic +qualities, is also surprising from the rapidity with which it was +performed, in spite of the distractions and obstacles that attended it. +It would seem that in less than two years from the date of Clement's +letter, the three works composed in compliance with its demand were +despatched to the Pope. Bacon's diligence must have been as great as his +learning. In speaking, in another part of the "Opus Tertium," of the +insufficiency of the common modes of instruction, he gives incidentally +an account of his own devotion to study. "I have labored much," he says, +"on the sciences and languages; it is now forty years since I first +learned the alphabet, and I have always been studious; except two years +of these forty, I have been always engaged in study; and I have expended +much, [in learning,] as others generally do; but yet I am sure that +within a quarter of a year, or half a year, I could teach orally, to a +man eager and confident to learn, all that I know of the powers of the +sciences and languages; provided only that I had previously composed a +written compend. And yet it is known that no one else has worked so hard +or on so many sciences and tongues; for men used to wonder formerly that +I kept my life on account of my excessive labor, and ever since I have +been as studious as I was then, but I have not worked so hard, because, +through my practice in knowledge, it was not needful."<a name="FNanchor16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> Again he +says, that in the twenty years in which he had specially labored in the +study of wisdom, neglecting the notions of the crowd, he had spent more +than two thousand pounds [livres] in the acquisition of secret books, +and for various experiments, instruments, tables, and other things, as +well as in seeking the friendship of learned men, and in instructing +assistants in languages, figures, the use of instruments and tables, and +many other things. But yet, though he had examined everything that was +necessary for the construction of a preliminary work to serve as a guide +to the wisdom of philosophy, though he knew how it was to be done, with +what aids, and what were the hindrances to it, still he could not +proceed with it, owing to the want of means. The cost of employing +proper persons in the work, the rarity and costliness of books, the +expense of instruments and of experiments, the need of infinite +parchment and many scribes for rough copies, all put it beyond his power +to accomplish. This was his excuse for the imperfection of the treatise +which he had sent to the Pope, and this was a work worthy to be +sustained by Papal aid.<a name="FNanchor17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p> + +<p>The enumeration by Bacon of the trials and difficulties of a scholar's +life at a time when the means of communicating knowledge were difficult, +when books were rare and to be obtained only at great cost, when the +knowledge of the ancient languages was most imperfect, and many of the +most precious works of ancient philosophy were not to be obtained or +were to be found only in imperfect and erroneous translations, depicts a +condition of things in vivid contrast to the present facilities for the +communication and acquisition of learning, and enables us in some degree +to estimate the drawbacks under which scholars prosecuted their studies +before the invention of printing. That with such impediments they were +able to effect so much is wonderful; and their claim on the gratitude +and respect of their successors is heightened by the arduous nature of +the difficulties with which they were forced to contend. The value of +their work receives a high estimate, when we consider the scanty means +with which it was performed.</p> + +<p>Complaining of the want of books, Bacon says,--"The books on philosophy +by Aristotle and Avicenna, by Seneca and Tully and others, cannot be had +except at great cost, both because the chief of them are not translated +into Latin, and because of others not a copy is to be found in public +schools of learning or elsewhere. For instance, the most excellent books +of Tully De Republica are nowhere to be found, so far as I can hear, and +I have been eager in the search for them in various parts of the world +and with various agents. It is the same with many other of his books. +The books of Seneca also, the flowers of which I have copied out for +your Beatitude, I was never able to find till about the time of your +mandate, although I had been diligent in seeking for them for twenty +years and more."<a name="FNanchor18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> Again, speaking of the corruption of translations, +so that they are often unintelligible, as is especially the case with +the books of Aristotle, he says that "there are not four Latins [that +is, Western scholars] who know the grammar of the Hebrews, the Greeks, +and the Arabians; for I am well acquainted with them, and have made +diligent inquiry both here and beyond the sea, and have labored much in +these things. There are many, indeed, who can speak Greek and Arabic and +Hebrew, but scarcely any who know the principles of the grammar so as to +teach it, for I have tried very many."<a name="FNanchor19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a></p> + +<p>In his treatise entitled "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," which is +printed in this volume for the first time, he adds in relation to this +subject,--"Teachers are not wanting, because there are Jews everywhere, +and their tongue is the same in substance with the Arabic and the +Chaldean, though they differ in mode.... Nor would it be much, for the +sake of the great advantage of learning Greek, to go to Italy, where the +clergy and the people in many places are purely Greek; moreover, bishops +and archbishops and rich men and elders might send thither for books, +and for one or for more persons who know Greek, as Lord Robert, the +sainted Bishop of Lincoln,<a name="FNanchor20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> did indeed do,--and some of those [whom +he brought over] still survive in England."<a name="FNanchor21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> The ignorance of the +most noted clerks and lecturers of his day is over and over again the +subject of Bacon's indignant remonstrance. They were utterly unable to +correct the mistakes with which the translations of ancient works were +full. "The text is in great part horribly corrupt in the copy of the +Vulgate at Paris, ...and as many readers as there are, so many +correctors, or rather corruptors, ...for every reader changes the text +according to his fancy."<a name="FNanchor22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> Even those who professed to translate new +works of ancient learning were generally wholly unfit for the task. +Hermann the German knew nothing of science, and little of Arabic, from +which he professed to translate; but when he was in Spain, he kept +Saracens with him who did the main part of the translations that he +claimed. In like manner, Michael Scot asserted that he had made many +translations; but the truth was, that a certain Jew named Andrew worked +more than he upon them.<a name="FNanchor23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> William Fleming was, however, the most +ignorant and most presuming of all.<a name="FNanchor24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> "Certain I am that it were +better for the Latins that the wisdom of Aristotle had not been +translated, than to have it thus perverted and obscured, ...so that the +more men study it the less they know, as I have experienced with all who +have stuck to these books. Wherefore my Lord Robert of blessed memory +altogether neglected them, and proceeded by his own experiments, and +with other means, until he knew the things concerning which Aristotle +treats a hundred thousand times better than he could ever have learned +them from those perverse translations. And if I had power over these +translations of Aristotle, I would have every copy of them burned; for +to study them is only a loss of time and a cause of error and a +multiplication of ignorance beyond telling. And since the labors of +Aristotle are the foundation of all knowledge, no one can estimate the +injury done by means of these bad translations."<a name="FNanchor25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p> + +<p>Bacon had occasion for lamenting not only the character of the +translations in use, but also the fact that many of the most important +works of the ancients were not translated at all, and hence lay out of +the reach of all but the rare scholars, like himself and his friend +Grostête, who were able, through their acquaintance with the languages +in which they were written, to make use of them, provided manuscripts +could be found for reading. "We have few useful works on philosophy in +Latin. Aristotle composed a thousand volumes, as we read in his Life, +and of these we have but three of any notable size, namely,--on Logic, +Natural History, and Metaphysics; so that all the other scientific works +that he composed are wanting to the Latins, except some tractates and +small little books, and of these but very few. Of his Logic two of the +best books are deficient, which Hermann had in Arabic, but did not +venture to translate. One of them, indeed, he did translate, or caused +to be translated, but so ill that the translation is of no sort of value +and has never come into use. Aristotle wrote fifty excellent books about +Animals, as Pliny says in the eighth book of his Natural History, and I +have seen them in Greek, and of these the Latins have only nineteen +wretchedly imperfect little books. Of his Metaphysics the Latins read +only the ten books which they have, while there are many more; and of +these ten which they read, many chapters are wanting in the translation, +and almost infinite lines. Indeed, the Latins have nothing worthy; and +therefore it is necessary that they should know the languages, for the +sake of translating those things that are deficient and needful. For, +moreover, of the works on secret sciences, in which the secrets and +marvels of Nature are explored, they have little except fragments here +and there, which scarcely suffice to excite the very wisest to study and +experiment and to inquire by themselves after those things which are +lacking to the dignity of wisdom; while the crowd of students are not +moved to any worthy undertaking, and grow so languid and asinine over +these ill translations, that they lose utterly their time and study and +expense. They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not +care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly +multitude."<a name="FNanchor26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> + +<p>These passages may serve to show something of the nature of those +external hindrances to knowledge with which Bacon himself had had to +strive, which he overcame, and which he set himself with all his force +to break down, that they might no longer obstruct the path of study. +What scholar, what lover of learning, can now picture to himself such +efforts without emotion,--without an almost oppressive sense of the +contrast between the wealth of his own opportunities and the penury of +the earlier scholar? On the shelves within reach of his hand lie the +accumulated riches of time. Compare our libraries, with their crowded +volumes of ancient and modern learning, with the bare cell of the +solitary Friar, in which, in a single small cupboard, are laid away a +few imperfect manuscripts, precious as a king's ransom, which it had +been the labor of years to collect. This very volume of his works, a +noble monument of patient labor, of careful investigation, of deep +thought, costs us but a trivial sum; while its author, in his poverty, +was scarcely able, without begging, to pay for the parchment upon which +he wrote it, as, uncheered by the anticipation that centuries after his +death men would prize the works he painfully accomplished, he leaned +against his empty desk, half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset +him. All honor to him! honor to the schoolmen of the Middle Ages! to the +men who kept the traditions of wisdom alive, who trimmed the wick of the +lamp of learning when its flame was flickering, and who, when its light +grew dim and seemed to be dying out, supplied it with oil hardly +squeezed by their own hands, drop by drop, from the scanty olives which +they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days +learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who +should be worthy to be put into comparison with the philosopher of the +thirteenth century?</p> + +<p>The general scheme of Bacon's system of philosophy was at once simple +and comprehensive. The scope of his thought had a breadth uncommon in +his or in any time. In his view, the object of all philosophy and human +learning was to enable men to attain to the wisdom of God; and to this +end it was to be subservient absolutely, and relatively so far as +regarded the Church, the government of the state, the conversion of +infidels, and the repression of those who could not be converted. All +wisdom was included in the Sacred Scriptures, if properly understood and +explained. "I believe," said he, "that the perfection of philosophy is +to raise it to the state of a Christian law." Wisdom was the gift of +God, and as such it included the knowledge of all things in heaven and +earth, the knowledge of God himself, of the teachings of Christ, the +beauty of virtue, the honesty of laws, the eternal life of glory and of +punishment, the resurrection of the dead, and all things else.<a name="FNanchor27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a></p> + +<p>To this end all special sciences were ordained. All these, properly +speaking, were to be called speculative; and though they each might be +divided into two parts, the practical and the speculative, yet one +alone, the most noble and best of all, in respect to which there was no +comparison with the others, was in its own nature practical: this was +the science of morals, or moral philosophy. All the works of Art and +Nature are subservient to morals, and are of value only as they promote +it. They are as nothing without it; as the whole wisdom of philosophy is +as nothing without the wisdom of the Christian faith. This science of +morals has six principal divisions. The first of these is theological, +treating of the relations of man to God and to spiritual things; the +second is political, treating of public laws and the government of +states; the third is ethical, treating of virtue and vice; the fourth +treats of the revolutions of religious sects, and of the proofs of the +Christian faith.</p> + +<p>"This is the best part of all philosophy." Experimental science and the +knowledge of languages come into use here. The fifth division is +hortatory, or of morals as applied to duty, and embraces the art of +rhetoric and other subsidiary arts. The sixth and final division treats +of the relations of morals to the execution of justice.<a name="FNanchor28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> Under one or +other of these heads all special sciences and every branch of learning +are included.</p> + +<p>Such, then, being the object and end of all learning, it is to be +considered in what manner and by what methods study is to be pursued, to +secure the attainment of truth. And here occurs one of the most +remarkable features of Bacon's system. It is in his distinct statement +of the prime importance of experiment as the only test of certainty in +the sciences. "However strong arguments may be, they do not give +certainty, apart from positive experience of a conclusion." "It is the +prerogative of experiment to test the noble conclusions of all sciences +which are drawn from arguments." All science is ancillary to it.<a name="FNanchor29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> And +of all branches of learning, two are of chief importance: languages are +the first gate of wisdom; mathematics the second.<a name="FNanchor30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> By means of +foreign tongues we gain the wisdom which men have collected in past +times and other countries; and without them the sciences are not to be +pursued, for the requisite books are wanting in the Latin tongue. Even +theology must fail without a knowledge of the original texts of the +Sacred Writings and of their earliest expositors. Mathematics are of +scarcely less importance; "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know +any other physical science,--what is more, cannot discover his own +ignorance or find its proper remedies." "The sciences cannot be known by +logical and sophistical arguments, such as are commonly used, but only +by mathematical demonstrations."<a name="FNanchor31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> But this view of the essential +importance of these two studies did not prevent Bacon from rising to the +height from which he beheld the mutual importance and relations of all +knowledge. We do not know where to find a clearer statement of the +connection of the sciences than in the following words:--"All sciences +are connected, and support each other with mutual aid, as parts of the +same whole, of which each performs its work, not for itself alone, but +for the others as well: as the eye directs the whole body, and the foot +supports the whole; so that any part of knowledge taken from the rest is +like an eye torn out or a foot cut off."<a name="FNanchor32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a></p> + +<p>Such, then, in brief, appears to have been Bacon's general system of +philosophy. He has nowhere presented it in a compact form; and his style +of writing is often so corrupt, and his use of terms so inexact, that +any exposition of his views, exhibiting them in a methodical +arrangement, is liable to the charge of possessing a definiteness of +statement beyond that which his opinions had assumed in his own mind. +Still, the view that has now been given of his philosophy corresponds as +nearly as may be with the indications afforded by his works. The details +of his system present many points of peculiar interest. He was not +merely a theorist, with speculative views of a character far in advance +of those of the mass of contemporary schoolmen, but a practical +investigator as well, who by his experiments and discoveries pushed +forward the limits of knowledge, and a sound scholar who saw and +displayed to others the true means by which progress in learning was to +be secured. In this latter respect, no parts of his writings are more +remarkable than those in which he urges the importance of philological +and linguistic studies. His remarks on comparative grammar, on the +relations of languages, on the necessity of the study of original texts, +are distinguished by good sense, by extensive and (for the time) exact +scholarship, and by a breadth of view unparalleled, so far as we are +aware, by any other writer of his age. The treatise on the Greek +Grammar--which occupies a large portion of the incomplete "Compendium +Studii Philosophiae," and which is broken off in the middle by the +mutilation of the manuscript--contains, in addition to many curious +remarks illustrative of the learning of the period, much matter of +permanent interest to the student of language. The passages which we +have quoted in regard to the defects of the translations of Greek +authors show to how great a degree the study of Greek and other ancient +tongues had been neglected. Most of the scholars of the day contented +themselves with collecting the Greek words which they found interpreted +in the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Origen, Martianus Capella, +Boëthius, and a few other later Latin authors; and were satisfied to use +these interpretations without investigation of their exactness, or +without understanding their meaning. Hugo of Saint Victor, (Dante's "Ugo +di Sanvittore è qui con elli,") one of the most illustrious of Bacon's +predecessors, translates, for instance, <i>mechanica</i> by <i>adulterina</i>, as +if it came from the Latin <i>moecha</i>, and derives <i>economica</i> from +<i>oequus</i>, showing that he, like most other Western scholars, was +ignorant even of the Greek letters.<a name="FNanchor33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a> Michael Scot, in respect to +whose translations Bacon speaks with merited contempt, exhibits the +grossest ignorance, in his version from the Arabic of Aristotle's +History of Animals, for example, a passage in which Aristotle speaks of +taming the wildest animals, and says, "Beneficio enim mitescunt, veluti +crocodilorum genus afficitur erga sacerdotem a quo enratur ut alantur," +("They become mild with kind treatment, as crocodiles toward the priest +who provides them with food,") is thus unintelligibly rendered by him: +"Genus autem karoluoz et hirdon habet pacem lehhium et domesticatur cum +illo, quoniam cogitat de suo cibo." <a name="FNanchor34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> Such a medley makes it certain +that he knew neither Greek nor Arabic, and was willing to compound a +third language, as obscure to his readers as the original was to him. +Bacon points out many instances of this kind; and it is against such +errors--errors so destructive to all learning--that he inveighs with the +full force of invective, and protests with irresistible arguments. His +acquirements in Greek and in Hebrew prove that he had devoted long labor +to the study of these languages, and that he understood them far better +than many scholars who made more pretence of learning. Nowhere are the +defects of the scholarship of the Middle Ages more pointedly and ably +exhibited than in what he has said of them. But, although his +knowledge in this field was of uncommon quality and amount, it does not +seem to have surpassed his acquisitions in science. "I have attempted," +he says in a striking passage, "with great diligence, to attain +certainty as to what is needful to be known concerning the processes of +alchemy and natural philosophy and medicine.... And what I have written +of the roots [of these sciences] is, in my judgment, worth far more than +all that the other natural philosophers now alive suppose themselves to +know; for in vain, without these roots, do they seek for branches, +flowers, and fruit. And here I am boastful in words, but not in my soul; +for I say this because I grieve for the infinite error that now exists, +and that I may urge you [the Pope] to a consideration of the truth."<a name="FNanchor35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> +Again he says, in regard to his treatise "De Perspectiva," or On +Optics,--"Why should I conceal the truth? I assert that there is no one +among the Latin scholars who could accomplish, in the space of a year, +this work; no, nor even in ten years."<a name="FNanchor36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> In mathematics, in chemistry, +in optics, in mechanics, he was, if not superior, at least equal, to the +best of his contemporaries. His confidence in his own powers was the +just result of self-knowledge and self-respect. Natural genius, and the +accumulations of forty years of laborious study pursued with a method +superior to that which guided the studies of others, had set him at the +head of the learned men of his time; and he was great enough to know and +to claim his place. He had the self-devotion of enthusiasm, and its +ready, but dignified boldness, based upon the secure foundation +of truth.</p> + +<p>In spite of the very imperfect style in which he wrote, and the usually +clumsy and often careless construction of his sentences, his works +contain now and then noble thoughts expressed with simplicity and force. +"Natura est instrumentum Divinae operationis," might be taken as the +motto for his whole system of natural science. In speaking of the value +of words, he says,--"Sed considerare debemus quod verba habent maximam +potestatem, et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta sunt +per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo +maxime delectatur." In the "Opus Tertium," at the point where he begins +to give an abstract of his "Opus Majus," he uses words which remind one +of the famous "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit." He +says,--"Cogitavi quod intellectus humanus habet magnam debilitationem ex +se.... Et ideo volui excludere errorum corde hominis impossible est +ipsum videre veritatem." This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's +"errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post +alios, si mens sibi permittatur." Such citations of passages remarkable +for thought or for expression might be indefinitely extended, but we +have space for only one more, in which the Friar attacks the vices of +the Roman court with an energy that brings to mind the invectives of the +greatest of his contemporaries. "Curia Romana, quae solebat et debet +regi sapientia Dei, nunc depravatur.... Laceratur enim illa sedes sacra +fraudibus et dolis injustorum. Pent justitia; pax omnis violatur; +infinita scandala suscitantur. Mores enim sequuntur ibidem +perversissimi; regnat superbia, ardet avaritia, invidia corrodit +singulos, luxuria diffamat totam illam curiam, gula in omnibus +dominatur." It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger +Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be +driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed +tightly within.</p> + +<p>There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to +discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with +him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the +most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of +tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation +to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to +discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The +popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in +two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and +on the Nullity of Magic,"<a name="FNanchor37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> in one of which he describes some of its +qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its composition +under an enigma.<a name="FNanchor38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> He had made experiments with Greek fire and the +magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power; +and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that +magnified and diminished. It was no wonder that a man who knew and +employed such wonderful things, who was known, too, to have sought for +artificial gold, should gain the reputation of a wizard, and that his +books should be looked upon with suspicion. As he himself says,--"Many +books are esteemed magic, which are not so, but contain the dignity of +knowledge." And he adds,--"For, as it is unworthy and unlawful for a +wise man to deal with magic, so it is superfluous and unnecessary."<a name="FNanchor39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a></p> + +<p>There is a passage in this treatise "On the Nullity of Magic" of +remarkable character, as exhibiting the achievements, or, if not the +actual achievements, the things esteemed possible by the inventors of +the thirteenth century. There is in it a seeming mixture of fancy and of +fact, of childish credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of +mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the +progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after +Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by +what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and +inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's +truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken his dreams for facts. As it +stands, it is one of the most curious existing illustrations of the +state of physical science in the Middle Ages. It runs as follows:--"I +will now, in the first place, speak of some of the wonderful works of +Art and Nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and methods of +them, in which there is nothing magical, so that it may be seen how +inferior and worthless all magic power is, in comparison with these +works. And first, according to the fashion and rule of Art alone. Thus, +machines can be made for navigation without men to row them; so that +ships of the largest size, whether on rivers or the sea, can be carried +forward, under the guidance of a single man, at greater speed than if +they were full of men [rowers]. In like manner, a car can be made which +will move, without the aid of any animal, with incalculable impetus; +such as we suppose the scythed chariots to have been which were +anciently used in battle. Also, machines for flying can be made, so that +a man may sit in the middle of the machine, turning an engine, by which +wings artificially disposed are made to beat the air after the manner of +a bird in flight. Also, an instrument, small in size, for raising and +depressing almost infinite weights, than which nothing on occasion is +more useful: for, with an instrument of three fingers in height, and of +the same width, and of smaller bulk, a man might deliver himself and his +companions from all danger of prison, and could rise or descend. Also, +an instrument might be easily made by which one man could draw to +himself a thousand men by force and against their will, and in like +manner draw other things. Instruments can be made for walking in the sea +or in rivers, even at the bottom, without bodily risk: for Alexander the +Great made use of this to see the secrets of the sea, as the Ethical +Astronomer relates. These things were made in ancient times, and are +made in our times, as is certain; except, perhaps, the machine for +flying, which I have not seen, nor have I known any one who had seen +it, but I know a wise man who thought to accomplish this device. And +almost an infinite number of such things can be made; as bridges across +rivers without piers or any supports, and machines and unheard-of +engines." Bacon goes on to speak of other wonders of Nature and Art, to +prove, that, to produce marvellous effects, it is not necessary to +aspire to the knowledge of magic, and ends this division of his subject +with words becoming a philosopher:--"Yet wise men are now ignorant of +many things which the common crowd of students [<i>vulgus studentium</i>] +will know in future times."<a name="FNanchor40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a></p> + +<p>It is much to be regretted that Roger Bacon does not appear to have +executed the second and more important part of his design, namely, "to +assign the causes and methods" of these wonderful works of Art and +Nature. Possibly he was unable to do so to his own satisfaction; +possibly he may upon further reflection have refrained from doing so, +deeming them mysteries not to be communicated to the vulgar;--"for he +who divulges mysteries diminishes the majesty of things; wherefore +Aristotle says that he should be the breaker of the heavenly seal, were +he to divulge the secret things of wisdom."<a name="FNanchor41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> However this may have +been, we may safely doubt whether the inventions which he reports were +in fact the result of sound scientific knowledge, whether they had +indeed any real existence, or whether they were only the half-realized +and imperfect creations of the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming +of things to come.</p> + +<p>The matters of interest in the volume before us are by no means +exhausted, but we can proceed no farther in the examination of them, and +must refer those readers who desire to know more of its contents to the +volume itself. We can assure them that they will find it full of vivid +illustrations of the character of Bacon's time,--of the thoughts of men +at an epoch of which less is commonly known than of periods more +distant, but less connected by intellectual sympathy and moral relations +with our own. But the chief interest of Bacon's works lies in their +exhibition to us of himself, a man foremost in his own time in all +knowledge, endowed by Nature with a genius of peculiar force and +clearness of intuition, with a resolute energy that yielded to no +obstacles, with a combination so remarkable of the speculative and the +practical intellect as to place him in the ranks of the chief +philosophers to whom the progress of the world in learning and in +thought is due. They show him exposed to the trials which the men who +are in advance of their contemporaries are in every age called to meet, +and bearing these trials with a noble confidence in the final prevalence +of the truth,--using all his powers for the advantage of the world, and +regarding all science and learning of value only as they led to +acquaintance with the wisdom of God and the establishment of Christian +virtue. He himself gives us a picture of a scholar of his times, which +we may receive as a not unworthy portrait of himself. "He does not care +for discourses and disputes of words, but he pursues the works of +wisdom, and in them he finds rest. And what others dim-sighted strive to +see, like bats in twilight, he beholds in its full splendor, because he +is the master of experiments; and thus he knows natural things, and the +truths of medicine and alchemy, and the things of heaven as well as +those below. Nay, he is ashamed, if any common man, or old wife, or +soldier, or rustic in the country knows anything of which he is +ignorant. Wherefore he has searched out all the effects of the fusing of +metals, and whatever is effected with gold and silver and other metals +and all minerals; and whatever pertains to warfare and arms and the +chase he knows; and he has examined all that pertains to agriculture, +and the measuring of lands, and the labors of husbandmen; and he has +even considered the practices and the fortune-telling of old women, and +their songs, and all sorts of magic arts, and also the tricks and +devices of jugglers; so that nothing which ought to be known may lie hid +from him, and that he may as far as possible know how to reject all that +is false and magical. And he, as he is above price, so does he not value +himself at his worth. For, if he wished to dwell with kings and princes, +easily could he find those who would honor and enrich him; or, if he +would display at Paris what he knows through the works of wisdom, the +whole world would follow him. But, because in either of these ways he +would be impeded in the great pursuits of experimental philosophy, in +which he chiefly delights, he neglects all honor and wealth, though he +might, when he wished, enrich himself by his knowledge."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p><i>Popular Music of the Olden Time</i>. A Collection of Ancient Songs, +Ballads, and Dance-Tunes, Illustrative of the National Music of England. +With Short Introductions to the Different Reigns, and Notices of the +Airs from Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Also, a +Short Account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappel, F.S.A. The whole of the +Airs harmonized by G. A. McFarren. 2 vols. pp. 384, 439. London: Cramer, +Beale, & Chappell. New York: Webb & Allen.</p> + +<p>In tracing the history of the English nation, no line of investigation +is more interesting, or shows more clearly the progress of civilization, +than the study of its early poetry and music. Sung alike in the royal +palaces and in the cottages and highways of the nation, the ballads and +songs reflect most accurately the manners and customs, and not a little +of the history of the people; while, as indicating the progress of +intellectual culture, the successive changes in language, and the steady +advance of the science of music, and of its handmaid, poetry, they +possess a value peculiarly their own.</p> + +<p>The industry and learning of Percy, Warton, and Ritson have rendered a +thorough acquaintance with early English poetry comparatively easy; +while in the work whose comprehensive title heads this article the +research of Chappell presents to us all that is valuable of the "Popular +Music of the Olden Time," enriched by interesting incidents and +historical facts which render the volumes equally interesting to the +general reader and to the student in music. Chappell published his +collection of "National English Airs" about twenty years ago. Since that +time, he tells us in his preface, the increase of material has been so +great, that it has been advisable to rewrite the entire work, and to +change the title, so that the present edition has all the freshness of a +new publication, and contains more than one hundred and fifty +additional airs.</p> + +<p>The opening chapters are devoted to a concise historical account of +English minstrelsy, from the earliest Saxon times to its gradual +extinction in the reigns of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth; and while +presenting in a condensed form all that is valuable in Percy and others, +the author has interwoven in the narrative much curious and interesting +matter derived from his own careful studies. Much of romantic interest +clusters around the history of the minstrels of England. They are +generally supposed to have been the successors of the ancient bards, who +from the earliest times were held in the highest veneration by nearly +all the people of Europe, whether of Celtic or Gothic origin. According +to Percy, "Their skill was considered as something divine; their persons +were deemed sacred; their attendance was solicited by kings; and they +were everywhere loaded with honors and rewards." Our Anglo-Saxon +ancestors, on their migration into Britain, retained their veneration +for poetry and song, and minstrels continued in high repute, until their +hold upon the people gradually yielded to the steady advance of +civilization, the influence of the printing-press, and the consequent +diffusion of knowledge. It is to be borne in mind that the name, +minstrel, was applied equally to those who sang, and accompanied their +voices with the harp, or some other instrument, and to those who were +skilled in instrumental music only. The harp was the favorite and indeed +the national instrument of the Britons, and its use has been traced as +far back as the first invasion of the country by the Saxons. By the laws +of Wales, no one could pretend to the character of a freeman or +gentleman, who did not possess or could not play upon a harp. Its use +was forbidden to slaves; and a harp could not be seized for debt, as the +simple fact of a person's being without one would reduce him to an +equality with a slave. Other instruments, however, were in use by the +early Anglo-Saxons, such as the Psaltery, the Fiddle, and the Pipe. The +minstrels, clad in a costume of their own, and singing to their quaint +tunes the exploits of past heroes or the simple love-songs of the times, +were the favorites of royalty, and often, and perhaps usually, some of +the better class held stations at court; and under the reigns of Henry +I. and II., Richard I., and John, minstrelsy flourished greatly, and +the services of the minstrels were often rated higher than those of the +clergy. These musicians seem to have had easy access to all places and +persons, and often received valuable grants from the king, until, in the +reign of Edward II., (1315,) such privileges were claimed by them, that +a royal edict became necessary to prevent impositions and abuses.</p> + +<p>In the fourteenth century music was an almost universal accomplishment, +and we learn from Chaucer, in whose poetry much can be learned of the +music of his time, that country-squires could sing and play the lute, +and even "songes make and well indite." From the same source it appears +that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady +was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion +to her proficiency in this art. In those days the bass-viol +(<i>viol-de-gamba</i>) was a popular instrument, and was played upon by +ladies,--a practice which in these modern times would be considered a +violation of female propriety, and even then some thought it "an +unmannerly instrument for a woman." In Elizabeth's time vocal music was +held in the highest estimation, and to sing well was a necessary +accomplishment for ladies and gentlemen. A writer of 1602 says to the +ladies, "It shall be your first and finest praise to sing the note of +every new fashion at first sight." That some of the fair sex may have +carried their musical practice too far, like many who have lived since +then, is perhaps indicated in some verses of that date which run in the +following strain:-- +<br><br> + "This is all that women do:<br> + Sit and answer them that woo;<br> + Deck themselves in new attire,<br> + To entangle fresh desire;<br> + After dinner sing and play,<br> + Or, dancing, pass the time away."</p> + +<p>To many readers one of the most interesting features of Chappell's work +will be the presentation of the original airs to which were sung the +ballads familiar to us from childhood, learned from our English and +Scotch ancestors, or later in life from Percy's "Reliques" and other +sources; and the musician will detect, in even the earliest +compositions, a character and substance, a beauty of cadence and +rhythmic ideality, which render in comparison much of our modern +song-music tamer, if possible, than it now seems. Here are found the +original airs of "Agincourt," "All in the Downs," "Barbara Allen," "The +Barley-Mow," "Cease, rude Boreas," "Derry Down," "Frog he would a-wooing +go," "One Friday morn when we set sail," "Chanson Roland," "Chevy +Chace," and scores of others which have rung in our ears from +nursery-days.</p> + +<p>The ballad-mongers took a wide range in their writings, and almost every +subject seems to have called for their rhymes. There is a curious little +song, dating back to 1601, entitled "O mother, a Hoop," in which the +value of hoop-skirts is set forth by a fair damsel in terms that would +delight a modern belle. It commences thus:-- +<br><br> + "What a fine thing have I seen to-day!<br> + O mother, a Hoop!<br> + I must have one; you cannot say Nay;<br> + O mother, a Hoop!"</p> + +<p>Another stanza shows the practical usefulness of the hoop:-- +<br><br> + "Pray, hear me, dear mother, what I have been taught:<br> + Nine men and nine women o'erset in a boat;<br> + The men were all drowned, but the women did float,<br> + And by help of their hoops they all safely got out."</p> + +<p>The fashion for hoops was revived in 1711, in which year was published +in England "A Panegyrick upon the Late, but most Admirable Invention of +the Hoop-Pettycoat." A few years later, (1726,) in New England, a +three-penny pamphlet was issued with the title, "Hoop Petticoats +Arraigned and Condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God," by which +it would seem that our worthy ancestors did not approve of the fashion. +In 1728 we find <i>hoop-skirts</i> and <i>negro girls</i> and other "chattels" +advertised for sale in the same shop!</p> + +<p>The celebrated song, "Tobacco is an Indian weed," is traced to George +Withers, of the time of James I. Perhaps no song has been more +frequently "reset"; but the original version, as is generally the case, +is the best.</p> + +<p>One of the most satisfactory features of Chappell's work is the +thoroughness with which he traces the origin of tunes, and his acute +discrimination and candid judgment. As an instance of this may be +mentioned his article on "God save the Queen"; and wherever we turn, we +find the same evidence of honest investigation. So far as is possible, +he has arranged his airs and his topics chronologically, and presented a +complete picture of the condition of poetry and music during the reigns +of the successive monarchs of England. The musician will find these +volumes invaluable in the pursuit of his studies, the general reader +will be interested in the well-drawn descriptions of men, manners, and +customs, and the antiquary will pore over the pages with a keen delight.</p> + +<p>The work is illustrated with several specimens of the early style of +writing music, the first being an illuminated engraving and fac-simile +of the song, "Sumer is icumen in,"--the earliest secular composition, in +parts, known to exist in any country, its origin being traced back to +1250. It should have been mentioned before this that the very difficult +task of reducing the old songs to modern characters and requirements, +and harmonizing them, has been most admirably done by McFarren, who has +thus made intelligible and available what would otherwise be valuable +only as curiosities.</p> + +<p>1. <i>Folk-Songs</i>. Selected and edited by John Williamson Palmer, M.D. +Illustrated with Original Designs. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861. +Small folio. pp. xxiii., 466.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Loves and Heroines of the Poets</i>. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. +New York: Derby & Jackson. 1861. Quarto, pp. xviii., 480.</p> + +<p>3. <i>A Forest Hymn</i>. By William Cullen Bryant. With Illustrations of John +A. Hows. New York: W. A. Townsend & Co. 1861. Small quarto, pp. 32.</p> + +<p>We have no great liking for illustrated books. Poems, to be sure, often +lend themselves readily to the pencil; but, in proportion as they stand +in need of pictures, they fall short of being poetry. We have never yet +seen any attempts to help Shakspeare in this way that were not as +crutches to an Indian runner. To illustrate poetry truly great in itself +is like illuminating to show off a torchlight-procession. We doubt if +even Michel Angelo's copy of Dante was so great a loss as has sometimes +been thought. We have seen missals and other manuscripts that were truly +<i>illuminated</i>,-- +<br><br> + "laughing leaves<br> + That Franco of Bologna's pencil limned ";<br> +<br> +but the line of those artists ended with Frà Angelico, whose works are +only larger illuminations in fresco and on panel. In those days some +precious volume became the Laura of a poor monk, who lavished on it all +the poetry of his nature, all the unsatisfied longing of a lifetime. +Shut out from the world, his single poem or book of saintly legends was +the window through which he looked back on real life, and he stained its +panes with every brightest hue of fancy and tender half-tint of reverie. +There was, indeed, a chance of success, when the artist worked for the +love of it, gave his whole manhood to a single volume, and mixed his +life with his pigments. But to please yourself is a different thing from +pleasing Tom, Dick, and Harry, which is the problem to be worked out by +whoever makes illustrations to be multiplied and sold by thousands. In +Dr. Palmer's "Folk-Songs," if we understand his preface rightly, the +artists have done their work for love, and it is accordingly much better +done than usual. The engravings make a part of the page, and the +designs, with few exceptions, are happy. Numerous fac-similes of +handwriting are added for the lovers of autographs; and in point of +printing, it is beyond a question the handsomest and most tasteful +volume ever produced in America. The Riverside Press may fairly take +rank now with the classic names in the history of the art. But it is for +the judgment shown in the choice of the poems that the book deserves its +chief commendation. Our readers do not need to be told who Dr. Palmer +is, or that one who knows how to write so well himself is likely to know +what good writing is in others. We have never seen so good and choice a +<i>florilegium</i>. The width of its range and its catholicity may be +estimated by its including William Blake and Dibdin, Bishop King and Dr. +Maginn. It would be hard to find the person who would not meet here a +favorite poem. We can speak from our own knowledge of the length of +labor and the loving care that have been devoted to it, and the result +is a gift-book unique in its way and suited to all seasons and all +tastes. Nor has the binding (an art in which America is far behind-hand) +been forgotten. The same taste makes itself felt here, and Matthews of +New York has seconded it with his admirable workmanship.</p> + +<p>In Mr. Stoddard's volume we have a poet selecting such poems as +illustrate the loves of the poets. It is a happy thought happily +realized. With the exception of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso, the choice +is made from English poets, and comes down to our own time. It is a book +for lovers, and he must be exacting who cannot find his mistress +somewhere between the covers. The selection from the poets of the +Elizabethan and Jacobian periods is particularly full; and this is as it +should be; for at no time was our language more equally removed from +conventionalism and commonplace, or so fitted to refine strength of +passion with recondite thought and airy courtliness of phrase. The book +is one likely to teach as well as to please; for, though everybody knows +how to fall in love, few know how to love. It is a mirror of womanly +loveliness and manly devotion. Mr. Stoddard has done his work with the +instinct of a poet, and we cordially commend his truly precious volume +both to those +<br><br> + "who love a coral lip<br> + And a rosy cheek admire,"<br> +<br> +and to those who +<br><br> + "Interassured of the mind,<br> + Are careless, eyes, lips, hands, to miss";<br> +<br> +for both likings will find satisfaction here. The season of gifts comes +round oftener for lovers than for less favored mortals, and by means of +this book they may press some two hundred poets into their service to +thread for the "inexpressive she" all the beads of Love's rosary. The +volume is a quarto sumptuous in printing and binding. Of the plates we +cannot speak so warmly.</p> + +<p>The third book on our list deserves very great praise. Bryant's noble +"Forest Hymn" winds like a river through edging and overhanging +greenery. Frequently the designs are rather ornaments to the page than +illustrations of the poem, and in this we think the artist is to be +commended. There is no Birket Foster-ism in the groups of trees, but +honest drawing from Nature, and American Nature. The volume, we think, +marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, +and may challenge comparison with that of any other country. Many of the +drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the +same time.</p> + +<p><i>The Works of Lord Bacon</i>, etc., etc. Vols. XI. and XII. Boston: Brown & +Taggard. 1860.</p> + +<p>We have already spoken of the peculiar merits which make the edition of +Messrs. Heath and Spedding by far the best that exists of Lord Bacon's +Works. It only remains to say, that the American reprint has not only +the advantage of some additional notes contributed by Mr. Spedding, but +that it is more convenient in form, and a much more beautiful specimen +of printing than the English. A better edition could not be desired. The +two volumes thus far published are chiefly filled with the "Life of +Henry VII." and the "Essays"; and readers who are more familiar with +these (as most are) than with the philosophical works will see at once +how much the editors have done in the way of illustration and +correction.</p> + +<br> + +<p>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS +<br> +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</p> + +<p>Poems. By Sarah Gould. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 32mo. Blue and gold. +pp. 180. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Miss Gilbert's Career. An American Story. By J.G. Holland. New York. +Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. 476. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Curiosities of Natural History. Second Series. By Francis T. Buckland, +M.A. New York. Rudd & Carleton, 12mo. pp. 441. $1.25.</p> + +<p>A Course of Six Lectures on the Various Forces of Matter, and their +Relations to each other. By Michael Faraday, D.C.L., F.R.S. Edited by +William Crookes, F.C.S. New York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. 198. +60 cts.</p> + +<p>A History and Analysis of the Constitution of the United States; with a +Full Account of the Confederations which preceded it, etc., etc. By +Nathaniel C. Towle. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. 12mo. pp. 444. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The History of Putnam and Marshall Counties, Illinois. By Henry A. Ford +Lacon. Published by the Author. 24mo. pp. 162. 25 cts.</p> + +<p>My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life. By Pisistratus Caxton. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 589, 581. $2.00.</p> + +<p>Woods and Waters; or, The Saranacs and Racket; with Map of the Route, +and Nine Illustrations on Wood. By Alfred B. Street. New York. M. +Doolady. 12mo. pp. 345. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The Lost Hunter. A Tale of Early Times. By John T. Adams. New York. M. +Doolady. 12mo. pp. 462. $1.25.</p> + +<p>History of Latin Christianity; including that of the Popes to the +Pontificate of Nicolas V. By Henry Hart Milman, D.D. Vol. I. 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Illustrated. New York. W.A. +Townsend & Co. 8vo. pp. 32. $3.00.</p> + +<p>The Great Preparation; or, Redemption draweth nigh. By Rev. John +Cumming, D.D. First Series. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. +258. $1.00.</p> + +<p>The Moral History of Women. From the French of Ernest Legouvé. +Translated by J.W. Palmer, M.D. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. +343. $1.00.</p> + +<p>May Coverley, the Young Dressmaker. Boston. J.E. Tilton & Co. 18mo. pp. +258. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Paul Blake; or, The Story of a Boy's Perils in the Islands of Corsica +and Monte Christo. By Alfred Elwes. New York. Thomson Brothers. 18mo. +pp. 383. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Little by Little; or, The Cruise of the Fly-away. A Story for Young +Folks. By Oliver Optic. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, Lee, & Co. 18mo. pp. +280. 63 cts.</p> + +<p>Logic in Theology, and other Essays. By Isaac Taylor. With a Sketch of +the Life of the Author, and a Catalogue of his Writings, New York. +William Gowans. 12mo. pp. 297. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The Illustrated Annual Register of Rural Affairs, for 1861. Albany. +Luther Tucker & Son. 12mo. paper, pp. 124. 25 cts.</p> + +<p>Harrington. A Story of True Love. By the Author of "What Cheer," etc. +Boston. Thayer & Eldridge. 12mo. pp. 556. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Analysis of the Cartoons of Raphael. New York. Charles B. Norton. 16mo. +pp. 141. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Home Ballads and Poems. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. pp. 207. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the Fine Arts. By Mrs. +Jameson. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. Blue and Gold. pp. 483. 75 cts.</p> + +<br> + +<p>FOOTNOTES:</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a><br> Some time after, the Bey of Tunis ordered Eaton to send his +ship, the Gloria, with despatches to the United States. Eaton sent her +to Leghorn, and sold her at a loss. "The flag of the United States," he +wrote, "has never been seen floating in the service of a Barbary pirate +under my agency."</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a><br> The Administration was saturated with this petty parsimony, +as may be seen in an extract from a letter written by Madison to Eaton, +announcing the approach of Dale and his ships:--"The present moment is +peculiarly favorable for the experiment, not only as it is a provision +against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with +all the rest of the world, <i>and as the force employed would, if at home, +be at nearly the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners</i>." +Linkum Fidelius has given the Jeffersonian plan of making war in +two lines:-- +<br><br> + "We'll blow the villains all sky-high,<br> + But do it with e-co-no-my."<br> + +<p><a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a><br> About this time came Meli-Meli, Ambassador from Tunis, in +search of an indemnity and the frigate.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a><br>Massachusetts gave him ten thousand acres, to be selected +by him or by his heirs, in any of the unappropriated land of the +Commonwealth in the District of Maine. Act Passed March 3d, 1806</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a><br> He remained in Sicily until 1809, when he was offered the +Beyship of Derne by his brother. He accepted it; two years later, fresh +troubles drove him again into exile. He died in great poverty at Cairo. +Jusuf reigned until 1832, and abdicated in favor of a son. A grandson of +Jusuf took up arms against the new Pacha. The intervention of the Sultan +was asked; a corps of Turkish troops entered Tripoli, drove out both +Pachas, and reannexed the Regency to the Porte.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor6">[6]</a><br> The scene of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated retreat from the +British. A place of frequent resort for Federal editors in those days.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor7">[7]</a><br> In attempting to describe my own sensations, I labor under +the disadvantage of speaking mostly to those who have never experienced +anything of the kind. Hence, what would he perfectly clear to myself, +and to those who have passed through a similar experience, may be +unintelligible to the former class. The Spiritualists excuse the +crudities which their Plato, St. Paul, and Shakspeare utter, by +ascribing them to the imperfection of human language; and I may claim +the same allowance in setting forth mental conditions of which the mind +itself can grasp no complete idea, seeing that its most important +faculties are paralyzed during the existence of those conditions.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor8">[8]</a><br> The recent experiments in Hypnotism, in France, show that a +very similar psychological condition accompanies the trance produced by +gazing fixedly upon a bright object held near the eyes. I have no doubt, +in fact, that it belongs to every abnormal state of the mind.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor9">[9]</a><br> See <i>The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon containing the +Wonderful Things that he did in his Life, also the Manner of his Death; +with the Lives and Deaths of the Conjurors Bungye and Vandermast</i>. +Reprinted in Thom's <i>Early English Romances</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor10">[10]</a><br> <i>Historia Crit. Phil</i>. Period. II. Pars II. Liber II. Cap. +iii. Section 23.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor11">[11]</a><br> A barbarous distich gives the relations of these two +famous divisions of knowledge in the Middle Ages:-- +<br><br> + "<i>Gramm</i> loquitur, <i>Dia</i> verba docet, <i>Rhet</i> verba colorat,<br> + <i>Mus</i> canit, <i>Ar</i> numerat, <i>Geo</i> ponderat, <i>Ast</i><br> + colit astra."<br> + +<p><a name="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor12">[12]</a><br> See Hauréau, <i>De la Philosophie Scolastique</i>, II. 284-5.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor13">[13]</a><br> Mr. Brewer has in most respects performed his work as +editor in a satisfactory manner. The many difficulties attending the +deciphering of the text of ill-written manuscripts and the correction of +the mistakes of ignorant scribes have been in great part overcome by his +patience and skill. Some passages of the text, however, require further +revision. The Introduction is valuable for its account of existing +manuscripts, but its analysis of Bacon's opinions is unsatisfactory. Nor +are the translations given in it always so accurate as they should be. +The analyses of the chapters in side-notes to the text are sometimes +imperfect, and do not sufficiently represent the current of Bacon's +thought; and the volume stands in great need of a thorough Index. This +omission is hardly to be excused, and ought at once to be supplied in a +separate publication.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor14">[14]</a><br> This sum was a large one. It appears that the necessaries +of life were cheap and luxuries dear at Paris during the thirteenth +century. Thus, we are told, in the year 1226, a house sold for forty-six +livres; another with a garden, near St. Eustache, sold for two hundred +livres. This sum was thought large, being estimated as equal to 16,400 +francs at present. Sixty livres were then about five thousand francs, or +a thousand dollars. Lodgings at this period varied from 5 to 17 livres +the year. An ox was worth 1 livre 10 sols; a sheep, 6 sols 3 deniers. +Bacon must at some period of his life have possessed money, for we find +him speaking of having expended two thousand livres in the pursuit of +learning. If the comparative value assumed be correct, this sum +represented between $30,000 and $40,000 of our currency.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor15">[15]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. iii. pp. 15-17.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor16">[16]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. xx. p. 65.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor17">[17]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Capp. xvi., xvii. Roger Bacon's urgency to +the Pope to promote the works for the advancement of knowledge which +were too great for private efforts bears a striking resemblance to the +words addressed for the same end by his great successor, Lord Bacon, to +James I. "Et ideo patet," says the Bacon of the thirteenth century, +"quod scripta, principalia de sapientia philosophiae non possunt fieri +ab uno homine, nec a pluribus, nisi manus praelatorum et principum +juvent sapientes cum magna virtute." "Horum quos enumeravimus omnium +defectuum remedia," says the Bacon of the seventeenth century, " +...opera sunt vere basilica; erga quae privati alicujus conatus et +industria fere sic se habent ut Mercurius in bivio, qui digito potest in +viam intendere, pedem inferre non potest."--<i>De Aug. Scient</i>. Lib. II. +<i>Ad Regem Suum</i>. +<br><br> +A still more remarkable parallelism is to be found in the following +passages. "Nam facile est dicere, fiant scripture completae de +scientiis, sed nunquam fuerunt apud Latinos aliquae condignae, nec +fient, nisi aliud consilium habeatur. Et nullus sufficeret ad hoc, nisi +dominus papa, vel imperator, aut aliquis rex magnificus, sicut est +dominus rex Franciae. Aristoteles quidem, auctoritate et auxiliis regum, +et maxime Alexandri, fecit in Graeco quae voluit, et multis millibus +hominum usus est in experientia scientiarum, et expensis copiosis, sicut +historiae narrant." (<i>Opus Tertium</i>, Cap. viii.) Compare with this the +following passage from the part of the <i>De Augmentis</i> already +cited:--"Et exploratoribus ac speculatoribus Naturae satisfaciendum de +expensis suis; alias de quamplurimis scitu dignissimis nunquam fiemus +certiores. Si enim Alexander magnam vim pecuniae suppeditavit +Aristoteli, qua conduceret venatores, aucupes, piscatores et alios, quo +instructior accederet ad conscribendam historiam animalium; certe majus +quiddam debetur iis, qui non in saltibus naturae pererrant, sed in +labyrinthis artium viam sibi aperiunt." +<br><br> +Other similar parallelisms of expression on this topic are to be found +in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in +the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have +been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these +two great philosophers borrowed his famous doctrine of "Idols" from the +classification of the four chief hindrances to knowledge by his +predecessor. But the supposition wants foundation, and there is no +reason to suppose that Lord Bacon was acquainted with the works of the +Friar. The Rev. Charles Forster, in his <i>Mahometanism Unveiled</i>, a work +of some learning, but more extravagance, after speaking of Roger Bacon +as "strictly and properly an experimentalist of the Saracenic school," +goes indeed so far as to assert that he "was the undoubted, though +unowned, original when his great namesake drew the materials of his +famous experimental system." (Vol. II. pp. 312-317.) But the +resemblances in their systems, although striking in some particulars, +are on the whole not too great to be regarded simply as the results of +corresponding genius, and of a common sense of the insufficiency of the +prevalent methods of scholastic philosophy for the discovery of truth +and the advancement of knowledge. "The same sanguine and sometimes rash +confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for +experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning +pervade both works," the <i>Opus Majus</i> and the <i>Novum Organum</i>.--Hallam, +<i>Europe during the Middle Ages</i>, III. 431. See also Hallam, <i>Literature +of Europe</i>, I. 113; and Mr. Ellis's Preface to the <i>Novum Organum</i>, p. +90, in the first volume of the admirable edition of the <i>Works of Lord +Bacon</i> now in course of publication.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor18">[18]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. xv. pp. 55, 56.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor19">[19]</a><br> <i>Id</i>. Cap. x. p. 33.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor20">[20]</a><br> The famous Grostête,--who died in 1253. "Vir in Latino et +Graeco peritissimus," says Matthew Paris.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor21">[21]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. vi.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor22">[22]</a><br> <i>Opus Minus</i>, p. 330.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor23">[23]</a><br> This was Michael Scot the Wizard, who would seem to have +deserved the place that Dante assigned to him in the <i>Inferno</i>, if not +from his practice of forbidden arts, at least from his corruption of +ancient learning in his so-called translations. Strange that he, of all +the Schoolmen, should have been honored by being commemorated by the +greatest poet of Italy and the greatest of his own land! In the Notes to +the <i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>, his kinsman quotes the following lines +concerning him from Satchell's poem on <i>The Right Honorable Name +of Scott</i>:-- +<br><br> + "His writing pen did seem to me to be<br> + Of hardened metal like steel or acumie;<br> + The volume of [his book] did seem so large to me<br> + As the Book of Martyrs and Turks Historie."<br> + +<p><a name="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor24">[24]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. viii. p. 472.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor25">[25]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. viii. p. 469.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor26">[26]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. viii. p. 473.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor27">[27]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>, Cap. xxiv. pp. 80-82.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor28">[28]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Capp. xiv., xv., pp. 48-53.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor29">[29]</a><br> <i>Id</i>. Cap. xiii. pp. 43-44.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor30">[30]</a><br> <i>Id</i>. Cap. xxviii. p. 102.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor31">[31]</a><br> <i>Opus Majus</i>. pp. 57, 64.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor32">[32]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. iv. p. 18.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor33">[33]</a><br> See Hauréau: <i>Nouvel Examen de l'Édition des Oeuvres de +Hugues de Saint-Victor.</i> Paris, 1869. p. 52.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor34">[34]</a><br> Jourdain: <i>Recherches sur les Traductions Latines +d'Aristote</i>. Paris, 1819. p. 373.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor35">[35]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. xii. p. 42.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor36">[36]</a><br> <i>Id. Cap. ii. p. 14</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor37">[37]</a><br> Reprinted in the Appendix to the volume edited by +Professor Brewer. A translation of this treatise was printed at London +as early as 1597; and a second version, "faithfully translated out of +Dr. Dee's own copy by T. M.," appeared in 1659.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor38">[38]</a><br> "Sed tamen sal petræ LURU VOPO VIR CAN UTRIET sulphuris; +et sic facies tonitruum et coruscationem, si scias artificium. Videas +tamen utrum loquar ænigmate aut secundum veritatem." (p. 551.) One is +tempted to read the last two words of the dark phrase as phonographic +English, or, translating the <i>vir</i>, to find the meaning to be, "O man! +you can try it."</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor39">[39]</a><br> This expression is similar in substance to the closing +sentences of Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse at Montpellier on the Powder +of Sympathy, in 1657. "Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and +faint-heartedness, or rather, a gross weakness of the Understanding, to +pretend any effects of charm or magick herein, or to confine all the +actions of Nature to the grossness of our Senses, when we have not +sufficiently consider'd nor examined the true causes and principles +whereon 'tis fitting we should ground our judgment: we need not have +recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties. +<br><br> +"'Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.'"</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor40">[40]</a><br> <i>Nullity of Magic</i>, pp. 532-542.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor41">[41]</a><br> <i>Comp. Stud. Phil.</i> p. 416.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<pre> + + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11465 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8de09fd --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11465 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11465) diff --git a/old/11465-8.txt b/old/11465-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c671117 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11465-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9009 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, +1860, by Various + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 5, 2004 [eBook #11465] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, NO. +38, DECEMBER, 1860*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Sheila Vogtmann, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS + +VOL. VI.--DECEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVIII + + + + + + + +THE UNITED STATES AND THE BARBARY STATES. + +Speak of the relations between the United States and the Barbary +Regencies at the beginning of the century, and most of our countrymen +will understand the War with Tripoli. Ask them about that Yankee crusade +against the Infidel, and you will find their knowledge of it limited to +Preble's attack. On this bright spot in the story the American mind is +fixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twenty +years. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes the +shape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to pay +tribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle in +the maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patriotic +delusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha was +simply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason; +but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to. + +The burning of the Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are much +too fine a subject for rhetorical pyrotechnics to have escaped lecturers +and orators of the Fourth-of-July school. We have all heard, time and +again, how Preble, Decatur, Trippe, and Somers cannonaded, sabred, and +blew up these pirates. We have seen, in perorations glowing with pink +fire, the Genius of America, in full naval uniform, sword in hand, +standing upon a quarter-deck, his foot upon the neck of a turbaned Turk, +while over all waves the flag of Freedom. + +The Moorish sketch is probably different. In it, Brother Jonathan must +appear with his liberty-cap in one hand and a bag of dollars in the +other, bowing humbly before a well-whiskered Mussulman, whose shawl is +stuck full of poniards and pistols. The smooth-faced unbeliever begs +that his little ships may be permitted to sail up and down this coast +unmolested, and promises to give these and other dollars, if his +Highness, the Pacha, will only command his men to keep the peace on the +high-seas. This picture is not so generally exhibited here; but it is +quite as correct as the other, and as true to the period. + +The year after Preble's recall, another New-England man, William Eaton, +led an army of nine Americans from Egypt to Derne, the easternmost +province of Tripoli,--a march of five hundred miles over the Desert. He +took the capital town by storm, and would have conquered the whole +Regency, if he had been supplied with men and money from our fleet. +"Certainly," says Pascal Paoli Peek, a non-commissioned officer of +marines, one of the nine, "certainly it was one of the most +extraordinary expeditions ever set on foot." Whoever reads the story +will be of the same opinion as this marine with the wonderful name. +Never was the war carried into Africa with a force so small and with +completer success. Yet Eaton has not had the luck of fame. He was nearly +forgotten, in spite of a well-written Life by President Felton, in +Sparks's Collection, until a short time since; when he was placed before +the public in a somewhat melodramatic attitude, by an article in a New +York pictorial monthly. It is not easy to explain this neglect. We know +that our Temple of Fame is a small building as yet, and that it has a +great many inhabitants,--so many, indeed, that worthy heroes may easily +be overlooked by visitors who do not consult the catalogue. But a man +who has added a brilliant page to the _Gesta Dei per Novanglos_ deserves +a conspicuous niche. A brief sketch of his doings in Africa will give a +good view of the position of the United States in Barbary, in the first +years of the Republic. + +Sixty years ago, civilized Europe not only tolerated the robbery, the +murder, and the carrying into captivity of her own people, but actually +recognized this triple atrocity as a privilege inherent to certain +persons of Turkish descent and Mahometan religion inhabiting the +northern coast of Africa. England or France might have put them down by +a word long before; but, as the corsairs chiefly ravaged the defenceless +coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, the two great powers had no +particular interest in crushing them. And there was always some jealous +calculation of advantage, some pitiful project of turning them to future +account, which prevented decisive action on the part of either nation. +Then the wars which followed the French Revolution kept Europe busy at +home and gave the Barbary sailors the opportunity of following their +calling for a few years longer with impunity. The English, with large +fleets and naval stations in the Mediterranean, had nothing to fear from +them, and were, probably, not much displeased with the contributions +levied upon the commerce of other nations. Barbary piracy was a +protective tax in favor of British bottoms. French merchantmen kept at +home. Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland tried to outbid one another +for the favor of the Dey, Bey, and Pacha, and were robbed and enslaved +whenever it suited the interests of their Highnesses. The Portuguese +kept out of the Mediterranean, and protected their coast by guarding the +Straits of Gibraltar. + +Not long before the French Revolution, a new flag in their waters had +attracted the greedy eyes of the Barbarians. When they learned that it +belonged to a nation thousands of miles away, once a colony of England, +but now no longer under her protection, they blessed Allah and the +Prophet for sending these fish to their nets; and many Americans were +made to taste the delights of the Patriarchal Institution in the +dockyards of Algiers. As soon as the Federal Government was fairly +established, Washington recommended to Congress to build a fleet for the +protection of citizens in the Mediterranean. But the young nation needed +at first all its strength to keep itself upright at home; and the +opposition party professed a theory, that it would be safer and cheaper +for the United States to give up ships altogether, and to get other +people to carry for them. Consequently the plan of negotiating was +resorted to. Agents were sent to Algiers to ransom the captives and to +obtain a treaty by presents and the payment of a fixed tribute. Such a +treaty was made in the summer of 1796. In March of the succeeding year, +the Dey showed so much ill-temper at the backwardness of our payments, +that Joel Barlow, the American Commissioner, thought it necessary to +soothe his Highness by the promise of a frigate to be built and equipped +in the United States. Thus, with Christian meekness, we furnished the +Mussulman with a rod for our own backs. These arrangements cost the +United States about a million of dollars, all expenses included. + +Having pacified Algiers, Mr. Barlow turned his attention to Tunis. +Instead of visiting the Bey in person, he appointed a European merchant, +named Famin, residing in Tunis, agent to negotiate a treaty for the +United States. Of Famin Mr. Barlow knew nothing, but considered his +French birth and the recommendation of the French Consul for Algiers +sufficient proofs of his qualifications. Besides attending to his own +trade, Monsieur Famin was in the habit of doing a little business for +the Bey, and took care to make the treaty conform to the wishes of his +powerful partner. The United States were to pay for the friendship and +forbearance of Tunis one hundred and seven thousand dollars in money, +jewels, and naval stores. Tunisian cargoes were to be admitted into +American ports on payment of three per cent; the same duty to be levied +at Tunis on American shipments. If the Bey saluted an American +man-of-war, he was to receive a barrel of powder for every gun fired. +And he reserved the right of taking any American ship that might be in +his harbor into his service to carry despatches or a cargo to any port +in the Mediterranean. + +When the treaty reached the United States, the Senate refused to ratify +it. President Adams appointed Eaton, formerly a captain in the army, +Consul for Tunis, with directions to present objections to the articles +on the tariff, salutes, and impressment of vessels. Mr. Cathcart, Consul +for Tripoli, was joined with him in the commission. They sailed in the +United States brig Sophia, in December, 1798, and convoyed the ship Hero +laden with naval stores, an armed brig, and two armed schooners. These +vessels they delivered to the Dey of Algiers "for arrearages of +stipulation and present dues." The offerings of his Transatlantic +tributaries were pleasing to the Dey. He admitted the Consuls to an +audience. After their shoes had been taken en off at the door of the +presence-chamber, they were allowed to advance and kiss his hand. This +ceremony over, the Sophia sailed for Tunis. + +Here the envoys found a more difficult task before them. The Bey had +heard of the ships and cargoes left at Algiers, and asked at once, Where +were all the good things promised to him by Famin? The Consuls presented +President Adam's letter of polite excuses, addressed to the Prince of +Tunis, "the well-guarded city, the abode of felicity." The Bey read it, +and repeated his question,--"Why has the Prince of America not sent the +hundred and seven thousand dollars?" The Consuls endeavored to explain +the dependence of their Bey on his Grand Council, the Senate, which +august body objected to certain stipulations in Famin's treaty. If his +Highness of Tunis would consent to strike out or modify these articles, +the Senate would ratify the treaty, and the President would send the +money as soon as possible. But the Bey was not to be talked over; he +refused to be led away from the main question,--"Where are the money, +the regalia, the naval stores?" He could take but one view of the case: +he had been trifled with; the Prince of America was not in earnest. + +Monsieur Famin, who found himself turned out of office by the +Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises +were insincere, and any expectations built upon them likely to +prove delusive. + +After some weeks spent in stormy negotiations, this modification of the +articles was agreed upon. The duty might be three or three hundred per +cent., if the Consuls wished it, but it should be reciprocal. The Bey +refused to give up the powder: fifteen barrels of powder, he said, might +get him a prize worth a hundred thousand dollars; but salutes were not +to be fired, unless demanded by the Consul on the part of the United +States. The Bey also persisted in his intention of pressing American +vessels into his service; but he waived this claim in the case of +national ships, and promised not to take merchantmen, if he could +possibly do without them. + +Convinced that no better terms could be obtained, Cathcart sailed for +Tripoli, to encounter fresh troubles, leaving Eaton alone to bear the +greediness and insolence of Tunis. The Bey and his staff were legitimate +descendants of the two daughters of the horse-leech; their daily cry +was, "Give! give!" The Bey told Eaton to get him a frigate like the one +built for the Algerines. + +"You will find I am as much to be feared as they. Your good faith I do +not doubt," he added, with a sneer, "but your presents have been +insignificant." + +"But your Highness, only a short time since, received fifty thousand +dollars from the United States." + +"Yes, but fifty thousand dollars are nothing, and you have since altered +the treaty; a new present is necessary; this is the custom." + +"Certainly," chorused the staff; "and it is also customary to make +presents to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary every time the +articles are changed, and also upon the arrival of a new Consul." + +To carry out this doctrine, the Admiral sent for a gold-headed cane, a +gold watch, and twelve pieces of cloth. The Prime Minister wanted a +double-barreled gun and a gold chain. The Aga of the Port said he would +be satisfied with some thing in the jewelry-line, simple, but rich. +Officials of low rank came in person to ask for coffee and sugar. Even +his Highness condescended to levy small contributions. Hearing that +Eaton had a Grecian mirror in his house, he requested that it might be +sent to decorate the cabin of his yacht. + +As month after month passed, and no tribute-ship arrived, the Bey's +threats grew louder and more frequent. At last he gave orders to fit out +his cruisers. Eaton sent letters of warning to the Consuls at Leghorn +and Gibraltar, and prepared to strike his flag. At the last moment the +Hero sailed into port, laden with naval stores such as never before had +been seen in Tunis. The Bey was softened. "It is well," he said; "this +looks a Lotte more like truth; but the guns, the powder, and the jewels +are not on board." + +A letter from Secretary Pickering instructed Eaton to try to divert the +Bey's mind from the jewels; but if that were impossible, to order them +in England, where they could be bought more cheaply; and to excuse the +delay by saying "that the President felt a confidence, that, on further +reflection upon all circumstances in relation to the United States, the +Bey would relinquish this claim, and therefore did not give orders to +provide the present." As the jewels had been repeatedly promised by the +United States, this weak attempt to avoid giving them was quite +consistent with the shabby national position we had taken In the +Mediterranean. It met with the success it deserved. The Bey was much too +shrewd a fellow, especially in the matter of presents, to be imposed +upon by any such Yankee pretences. The jewels were ordered in London, +and, as compensation for this new delay, the demand for a frigate was +renewed. After nearly two years of anxiety, Eaton could write home that +the prospects of peace were good. + +His despatches had not passed the Straits when the Pacha of Tripoli sent +for Consul Cathcart, and swore by "Allah and the head of his son," that, +unless the President would give him two hundred and fifty thousand +dollars for a new treaty, and an annual subsidy of twenty thousand, he +would declare war against the United States. + +These two years of petty humiliations had exasperated Eaton's bold and +fiery temper. He found some relief in horse-whipping Monsieur Famin, who +had been unceasing in his quiet annoyances, and in writing to the +Government at home despatches of a most undiplomatic warmth and +earnestness. From the first, he had advised the use of force. "If you +would have a free commerce in those seas, you must defend it. It is +useless to buy a peace. The more you give, the more the Turks will ask +for. Tribute is considered an evidence of your weakness; and contempt +stimulates cupidity. _Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange_. What are +you afraid of? The naval strength of the Regencies amounts to nothing. +If, instead of sending a sloop with presents to Tunis, you will consign +to me a transport with a thousand trusty marines, well officered, under +convoy of a forty-four-gun frigate, I pledge myself to surprise Porto +Farina and destroy the Bey's arsenal. As to Tripoli, two frigates and +four gun-boats would bring the Pacha to terms. But if you yield to his +new demands, you must make provision to pay Tunis double the amount, and +Algiers in proportion. Then, consider how shameful is your position, if +you submit. 'Tributary to the pitiful sand-bank of Tripoli?' says the +world; and the answer is affirmative, without a blush. Habit reconciles +mankind to everything, even humiliation, and custom veils disgrace. But +what would the world say, if Rhode Island should arm two old +merchantmen, put an Irish renegade into one and a Methodist preacher in +another, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Seignior? The +idea is ridiculous; but it is exactly as consistent as that Tripoli +should say to the American nation,--'Give me tribute, or tremble under +the chastisement of my navy!'" + +This was sharp language for a Consul to hold to a Secretary of State; +but it was as meekly borne as the other indignities which came +from Barbary. + +An occurrence in Algiers completes the picture of "Americans in the +Mediterranean" in the year 1800. In October, the United States ship +Washington, Captain Bainbridge, lay in that port, about to sail for +home. The Dey sent for Consul O'Brien, and laid this alternative before +him: either the Washington should take the Algerine Ambassador to +Constantinople, or he, the Dey, would no longer hold to his friendship +with the United States. O'Brien expostulated warmly, but in vain. He +thought it his duty to submit. The Ambassador, his suite, amounting to +two hundred persons, their luggage and stores, horses, sheep, and horned +cattle, and their presents to the Sultan, of lions, tigers, and +antelopes, were sent on board. The Algerine flag was hoisted at the +main, saluted with seven guns, and the United States ship Washington +weighed anchor for Constantinople. + +Eaton's rage boiled over when he heard of this freak of the Dey. He +wrote to O'Brien,--"I frankly own, I would have lost the peace, and been +myself impaled, rather than have yielded this concession. Will nothing +rouse my country?"[1] + +When the news reached America, Mr. Jefferson was President. He was not +roused. He regretted the affair; but hoped that time, and a more correct +estimate of interest, would produce justice in the Dey's mind; and he +seemed to believe that the majesty of pure reason, more potent than the +music of Orpheus, + + "Dictas ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque + leones," + +would soften piratical Turks. Mr. Madison's despatch to O'Brien on the +subject is written in this spirit. "The sending to Constantinople the +national ship-of-war, the George Washington, by force, under the +Algerine flag, and for such a purpose, has deeply affected the +sensibility, not only of the President, but of the people of the United +States. Whatever temporary effects it may have had favorable to our +interest, the indignity is of so serious a nature, _that it is not +impossible that it may be deemed necessary, on a fit occasion, to revive +the question._ Viewing it in this light, the President wishes that +nothing may be said or done by you that may unnecessarily preclude the +competent authority from animadverting on that transaction in any way +that a vindication of the national honor may be thought to prescribe." + +Times have changed since then, and our national spirit with them. The +Secretary's Quaker-like protest offers a ludicrous contrast to the +wolf-to-lamb swagger of our modern diplomacy. What faithful Democrat of +1801 would have believed that the day would come of the Kostza affair, +of the African right-of-search quarrel, the Greytown bombardment, and +the seizure of Miramon's steamers? + +It is clear that our President and people were in no danger of being led +into acts of undue violence by "deeply affected sensibility" or the +"vindication of the national honor," when a violent blow aimed by the +Pacha of Tripoli at their Mediterranean trade roused them to a show of +self-defence. Early in May he declared war against the United States, +although Consul Cathcart offered him ten thousand dollars to leave the +American flag-staff up for a short time longer. Even then, if Mr. +Jefferson could have consulted no one but himself, not a ship would have +sailed from these shores. But the merchants were too powerful for him; +they insisted upon protection in the Mediterranean. A squadron of three +frigates and a sloop under Commodore Dale was fitted out and despatched +to Gibraltar; and the nations of the earth were duly notified by our +diplomatic agents of our intentions, that they might not be alarmed by +this armada. + +In June of this year a fire broke out in the palace at Tunis, and fifty +thousand stand of arms were destroyed. The Bey sent for Eaton; he had +apportioned his loss among his friends, and it fell to the United States +to furnish ten thousand stand without delay. + +"It is only the other day," said Eaton, "that you asked for eighty +twenty-four pounders. At this rate, when are our payments to have +an end?" + +"Never," was the answer. "The claims we make are such as we receive from +all friendly nations, every two or three years; and you, like other +Christians, will be obliged to conform to it." + +Eaton refused to state the claim to his Government. The Bey said, Very +well, he would write himself; and threatened to turn Eaton out of +the Regency. + +At this juncture Commodore Dale arrived at Gibraltar. The Bey paid us +the compliment of believing that he had not been sent so far for +nothing, and allowed Eaton a few months' respite. + +Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale's hands were +tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of +dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be +accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by +active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure[2] +made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on +this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young +sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep +the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, +captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed +and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on +board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found +it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate +distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according +to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having +gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season +with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all. + +There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public +or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might. +Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis +perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had +measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no +reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his +tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but +did not mollify him. + +"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you +sent to the Dey of Algiers." + +Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we +would fight rather than yield to such extortion. + +The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe. "We find it all puff; we +see how you carry on the war with Tripoli." + +"But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just +received these valuable jewels?" + +"Not at all. We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a +year. You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you +settled the treaty. We have waited all this time, but you have made us +no consideration for this forbearance. Nor have we as yet received any +evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, +notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an +expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us. His Excellency, my +master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take +with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of +friendship." + +Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the +President, if he wanted a frigate. For his part, he would never transmit +so outrageous a demand. "Then," retorted the Bey, "I will send you home, +and the letter with you." + +The letter was composed by the dragoman and forwarded to the United +States, but Eaton was allowed to remain. + +Disgusted with the shameful position of our affairs in the +Mediterranean, Eaton requested Mr. Madison to recall him, unless more +active operations against the enemy should be resolved upon. "I can no +longer talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a +grimace of contempt and ridicule ... The operations of our squadron this +season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as +well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates +with ------ in command ... If further concessions are to be made here, I +desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our +presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his +avarice to new demands." + +The display of latent force by the United States fleet, from which our +Government had expected so much, increased the insolence of the Bey of +Tunis to such a point that Eaton was obliged to withdraw from his post, +and a new war seemed inevitable. The Americans had declared Tripoli +blockaded; but, as their ships were seldom on the coast, little +attention was paid to them. It happened, however, that a Tunisian +vessel, bound for Tripoli, was captured when attempting to enter the +harbor, and declared a prize. Shortly after, Commodore Morris anchored +off Tunis and landed to visit the Consul. The Bey, who held the correct +doctrine on the subject of paper blockades, pronounced the seizure +illegal and demanded restitution. During his stay on shore, the +Commodore had several interviews with the Bey's commercial agent in +relation to this prize question. The behavior of that official was so +offensive that the Commodore determined to go on board his ship without +making the usual farewell visit at Court. As he was stepping into his +boat from the mole, he was arrested by the commercial agent for a debt +of twenty-two thousand dollars, borrowed by Eaton to assist Hamet +Caramanli in his expedition against Tripoli. Eaton remonstrated +indignantly. He alone was responsible for the debt; he had given +abundant security, and was willing to pay handsomely for further +forbearance. In vain; the agent would take nothing but the money. Eaton +hurried to the palace to ask the Bey if this arrest was by his order. +The Bey declined to answer or to interfere. There was no help for it; +the Commodore was caught. To obtain permission to embark, he was obliged +to get the money from the French Consul-General, and to promise +restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at +liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to +protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the +flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him +again to quit his court,--this time peremptorily,--adding, that the +United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial +to Barbary interests." + +Eaton arrived in Boston on the 5th of May, 1803. The same season Preble +sailed into the Mediterranean, with the Constitution, "a bunch of pine +boards," as she was then called in derision, poorly fitted out, and +half-manned; and with three other vessels in no better condition. But +here, at last, was a captain whom no cautious or hesitating instructions +could prevent from doing the work set before him to the best of his +ability. Sword in hand, he maintained the principle of "Death before +tribute," so often and so unmeaningly toasted at home; and it was not +his fault, if he did not establish it. At all events, he restored the +credit of our flag in the Mediterranean. + +When the news reached home of the burning of the Philadelphia, of the +attack of the fireships, and of the bombardment of Tripoli, the blood of +the nation was up. Arch-democratic scruples as to the expediency, +economy, or constitutionality of public armed ships were thenceforth +utterly disregarded. Since then, it has never been a question whether +the United States should have a navy or not. To Preble fairly belongs +the credit of establishing it upon a permanent footing, and of heading +the roll of daring and skilful officers the memory of whose gallantry +pervades the service and renders it more effective than its ships +and its guns. + +The Administration yielded to the popular feeling, and attempted to +claim for themselves the credit of these feats of arms, which they had +neither expected nor desired. A new fleet was fitted out, comprising our +whole navy except five ships. Here again the cloven foot became visible. +Preble, who had proved himself a captain of whom any nation might be +proud, was superseded by Commodore Barron, on a question of seniority +etiquette, which might have been easily settled, had the Government so +wished it. + +Eaton had spent a year at home, urging upon the authorities, whenever +the settlement of his accounts took him to Washington, more effective +measures against Tripoli,--and particularly an alliance with Hamet +Caramanli, the Ex-Pacha, who had been driven from his throne by his +brother Jusuf, a much more able man. In spite of his bitter flings at +their do-nothing policy, the Administration sent him out in the fleet, +commissioned as General Agent for the Barbary Regencies, with the +understanding that he was to join Hamet and assist him in an attack upon +Derne. His instructions were vague and verbal; he had not even a letter +to our proposed ally. Eaton was aware of his precarious position; but +the hazardous adventure suited his enterprising spirit, and he +determined to proceed in it. "If successful, for the public,--if +unsuccessful, for myself," he wrote to a friend, quoting from his +classical reminiscences; "but any personal risk," he added, with a +rhetorical flourish, "is better than the humiliation of treating with a +wretched pirate for the ransom of men who are the rightful heirs +of freedom." + +He sailed in the John Adams, in June, 1804. The President, Congress, +Essex, and Constellation were in company. On the 5th of September the +fleet anchored at Malta. In a few weeks the plan of the expedition was +settled, and the necessary arrangements made, with the consent and under +the supervision of Barron. Eaton then went on board the United States +brig Argus, Captain Isaac Hull, detached specially on this service by +the Commodore, and sailed for Alexandria, to hunt up Hamet and to +replace him upon a throne. + +On the 8th of December, Eaton and his little party, Lieutenant Blake, +Midshipmen Mann and Danielson, of the navy, and Lieutenant O'Bannon of +the marines, arrived in Cairo. Here they learned that Hamet had taken +service with the rebel Mamlouk Beys and was in command of an Arab force +in Upper Egypt. A letter from Preble to Sir Alexander Ball insured the +Americans the hearty good wishes of the English. They were lodged in the +English house, and passed for United States naval officers on a +pleasure-trip. In this character they were presented to the Viceroy by +Dr. Mendrici, his physician, who had known Eaton intimately in Tunis, +and was much interested in this enterprise. The recommendation of the +Doctor obtained a private audience for Eaton. He laid his plans frankly +before his Highness, who listened favorably, assured him of his +approval, and ordered couriers to be sent to Hamet, bearing a letter of +amnesty and permission to depart from Egypt. + +The messengers returned with an answer. The Ex-Pacha was unwilling to +trust himself within the grasp of the Viceroy; he preferred a meeting at +a place near Lake Fayoum, (Maeris,) on the borders of the Desert, about +one hundred and ninety miles from the coast. Regardless of the danger of +travelling in this region of robbery and civil war, Eaton set off at +once, accompanied by Blake, Mann, and a small escort. After a ride of +seventy miles, they fell in with a detachment of Turkish cavalry, who +arrested them for English spies. This accident they owed to the zeal of +the French Consul, M. Drouette, who, having heard that they were on good +terms with the English, thought it the duty of a French official to +throw obstacles in their way. Luckily the Turkish commandant proved to +be a reasonable man. He listened to their story and sent off a courier +to bring Hamet to them. The Pacha soon arrived. He expressed an entire +willingness to be reinstated upon his throne by the Americans, and to do +what he could for himself with his followers and friendly Arab tribes in +the province of Derne. In case of success, he offered brilliant +advantages to the United States. A convention was drawn up in this +sense, signed by him as legitimate Pacha of Tripoli, and by Eaton, as +agent for the United States. + +The original plan was to proceed to Derne in the Argus; but the Turkish +Governor of Alexandria refused to permit so large a force to embark at +that port; and Hamet himself showed a strong disinclination to venture +within the walls of the enemy. The only course left was to march over +the Desert. Eaton adopted it with his usual vigor. The Pacha and his men +were directed to encamp at the English cut, between Aboukir Bay and Lake +Mareotis. Provisions were bought, men enlisted, camels hired, and a few +Arabs collected together by large promises and small gifts. The party, +complete, consisted of the Americans already mentioned, Farquhar, an +Englishman, Pascal Paoli Peck, whose name we take pleasure in writing +again, with six men of his corps, twenty-five artillery-men of all +nations, principally Levanters, and thirty-eight Greeks. The followers +of the Pacha, hired Arabs, camel-drivers, servants, and vagabonds, made +up their number to about four hundred. + +On the 8th of March, 1805, Eaton advanced into the Desert westward, +towards the famous land of Cyrene, like Aryandes the Persian, and Amrou, +general of the Caliph Omar. The little army marched along slowly, "on +sands and shores and desert wildernesses," past ruins of huge +buildings,--relics of three civilizations that had died out,--mostly +mere stones to Eaton, whose mind was too preoccupied by his wild +enterprise to speculate much on what others had done there before him. +Want of water, scarcity of provisions, the lazy dilatoriness of the +Arabs, who had never heard of the American axiom, "Time is money," gave +him enough to think of. But worse than these were the daily outbreaks of +the ill-feeling which always exists between Mussulman and Christian. The +Arabs would not believe that Christians could be true friends to +Mussulmans. They were not satisfied with Eaton's explanations of the +similarity between the doctrines of Islam and of American, but tried +again and again to make him repeat the soul-saving formula, "_Allah +Allah Mohammed ben Allah_", and thus at once prove his sincerity and +escape hell. The Pacha himself, an irresolute, weak man, could not quite +understand why these infidels should have come from beyond the seas to +place him upon a throne. A suspicion lurked in his heart that their real +object was to deliver him to his brother as the price of a peace, and +any occurrence out of the daily routine of the march brought this +unpleasant fancy uppermost in his thoughts. On one point the Mahometan +mind of every class dwelt alway,--"How could Allah permit these dogs, +who followed the religion of the Devil, to possess such admirable +riches?" The Arabs tried hard to obtain a share of them. They yelped +about the Americans for money, food, arms, and powder. Even the brass +buttons of the infidels excited their cupidity. + +Eaton's patience, remarkable in a man of his irascible temper, many +promises, and a few threats, kept the Crescent and the Cross moving on +together in comparative peace until the 8th of April. On that day and +outbreak of ill-temper occurred so violent that the two parties nearly +came to blows. Turks were drawn up on one side, headed by +Hamet,--Americans on the other, with the Greeks and Levanters. Swords +were brandished and muskets pointed, and much abuse discharged. Nothing +but the good sense of one of the Pacha's officers and Eaton's cool +determination prevented the expedition from destroying itself on +the spot. + +Peace was at last restored, and kept until the 15th, when the army +reached the Gulf of Bomba. In this bay, known to the ancients as the +Gulf of Plataea, it is said that the Greeks landed who founded the +colony of Cyrene. Eaton had written to Captain Hull to meet him here +with the Argus, and, relying upon her stores, had made this the place of +fulfilment of many promises. Unfortunately, no Argus was to be seen. Sea +and shore were as silent and deserted as when Battus the Dorian first +saw the port from his penteconters, six hundred years or more before +Christ. A violent tumult arose. The Arabs reproached the Americans +bitterly for the imposture, and declared their intention of deserting +the cause immediately. Luckily, before these wild allies had departed, a +sail appeared upon the horizon; they were persuaded to wait a short time +longer. It was the Argus. Hull had seen the smoke of their fires and +stood in. He anchored before dark; provisions were sent on shore; and +plenty in the camp restored quiet and discipline. + +On the 23d they resumed their march, and on the 25th, at two in the +afternoon, encamped upon a hill overlooking the town of Derne. Deserters +came in with the information that two-thirds of the inhabitants were in +favor of Hamet; but that Hassan Bey, the Governor, with eight hundred +fighting-men, was determined to defend the place; Jusuf had sent fifteen +hundred men to his assistance, who were within three days' march. +Hamet's Arabs seized upon this opportunity to be alarmed. It became +necessary to promise the chiefs two thousand dollars before they would +consent to take courage again. + +Eaton reconnoitred the town. He ascertained that a ten-inch howitzer on +the terrace of the Governor's house was all he had to fear in the way of +artillery. There were eight nine-pounders mounted on a bastion looking +seaward, but useless against a land-attack. Breastworks had been thrown +up, and the walls of houses loopholed for musketry. + +The next day, Eaton summoned Hassan to surrender the place to his +legitimate sovereign, and offered to secure him his present position in +case of immediate submission.. The flag was sent back with the answer, +"My head or yours!" and the Bey followed up this Oriental message by +offering six thousand dollars for Eaton's head, and double the sum, if +he were brought in alive. + +At six o'clock on the morning of the 27th, the Argus, Nautilus, and +Hornet stood in, and, anchoring within a hundred yards of the battery, +silenced it in three-quarters of an hour. At the same time the town was +attacked on one side by Hamet, and on the other by the Americans. A hot +fire of musketry was kept up by the garrison. The Greek artillery-men +shot away the rammer of their only field-piece, after a few discharges, +rendering the gun useless. Finding that a number of his small party were +falling, Eaton ordered a charge, and led it. Dashing through a volley of +bullets, the Christians took the battery in flank, carried it, planted +the American flag, and turned the guns upon the town. Hamet soon cut his +way to the Bey's palace, and drove him to sanctuary to escape being +taken prisoner. After a lively engagement of two hours and a half, the +allies had complete possession of the town. Fourteen of the Christians +had been killed or wounded, three of them American marines. Eaton +himself received a musket-ball in his wrist. + +The Ex-Pacha had scarcely established himself in his new conquest before +Jusuf's army appeared upon the hills near the town. Hassan Bey succeeded +in escaping from sanctuary, and took the command. After several +fruitless attempts to buy over the rebel Arabs, the Bey, on the 13th of +May, made a sudden attack upon the quarter of the town held by Hamet's +forces, and drove all before him as far as the Governor's house; but a +few volleys from the nine-pounders sent him and his troops back at full +speed. Hamet's cavalry pursued, and cut down a great many of them. This +severe lesson made the Bey cautious. Henceforward he kept his men in the +hills, and contented himself with occasional skirmishing-parties. + +After this affair numerous Arabs of rank came over, and things looked +well for the cause of the legitimate Pacha. Eaton already fancied +himself marching into Tripoli under the American flag, and releasing +with his own hands the crew of the Philadelphia. He wrote to Barron of +his success, and asked for supplies of provisions, money, and men. A few +more dollars, a detachment of marines, and the fight was won. His answer +was a letter from the Commodore, informing him, "that the reigning Pacha +of Tripoli has lately made overtures of peace, which the Consul-General, +Colonel Lear, has determined to meet, viewing the present moment +propitious to such a step." With the letter came another from Lear, +ordering Eaton to evacuate Derne. Eaton sent back an indignant +remonstrance, and continued to hold the town. But on the 11th of June +the Constellation came in, bringing the news of the conclusion of peace, +and of the release of the captives, upon payment of sixty thousand +dollars. Colonel Lear wrote, that, by an article of the treaty, Hamet's +wife and children would be restored to him, on condition of his leaving +the Regency. No other provision was made for him. + +When the Ex-Pacha (Ex for the third time) heard that thenceforth he +must depend upon his own resources, he requested that he might be taken +off in the Constellation, as his life would not be safe when his +adherents discovered that his American friends had betrayed him, Eaton +took every precaution to keep the embarkation a secret, and succeeded in +getting all his men safely on board the frigate. He then, the last of +the party, stepped into a small boat, and had just time to save his +distance, when the shore was crowded with the shrieking Arabs. Finding +the Christians out of their reach, they fell upon their tents and +horses, and swept away everything of value. + +It was a rapid change of scene. Six hours before, the little American +party held Derne triumphantly against all comers from Jusuf's dominions, +and Hamet had prospects of a kingdom. Now he was a beggar, on his way to +Malta, to subsist there for a time on a small allowance from the United +States. Even his wife and children were not to be restored to him; for, +in a secret stipulation with the Pacha, Lear had waived for four years +the execution of that article of the treaty. The poor fellow had been +taken up as a convenience, and was dropped when no longer wanted. But he +was only an African Turk, and, although not black, was probably dark +enough in complexion to weaken his claims upon the good feeling and the +good faith of the United States. + +Eaton arrived at home in November of the same year,[3] disgusted with +the officers, civil and naval, who had cut short his successful +campaign, and had disregarded, as of no importance, the engagements he +had contracted with his Turkish ally. His report to the Secretary of the +Navy expressed in the most direct language his opinion of the treaty and +his contempt for the reasons assigned by Lear and Barron for their +sudden action. The enthusiastic welcome he received from his countrymen +encouraged his dissatisfaction. The American people decreed him a +triumph after their fashion,--public dinners, addresses of +congratulation, the title of Hero of Derne. He had shown just the +qualities mankind admire,--boldness, tenacity, and dashing courage. Few +could be found who did not regret that Preble had not been there to help +him onward to Tripoli and to a peace without payments. And as Eaton was +not the man to carry on a war, even of words, without throwing his whole +soul into the conflict, he proclaimed to all hearers that the Government +was guilty of duplicity and meanness, and that Lear was a compound of +envy, treachery, and ignorance. + +But this violence of language recoiled upon himself,-- + + "And so much injured more his side, + The stronger arguments he applied." + +The Administration steadily upheld Lear; and good Democrats, who saw +every measure refracted through the dense medium of party-spirit, of +course defended their leaders, and took fire at Eaton's overbearing +manner and insulting intolerance of their opinions. Thus, although the +general sentiment of the country was strongly in his favor, at +Washington he made many enemies. A resolution was introduced into the +House of Representatives to present him with a medal, or with a sword; +it was violently opposed by John Randolph and others, postponed from +time to time, and never passed. Eaton received neither promotion, nor +pecuniary compensation, nor an empty vote of thanks. He had even great +delay and difficulty in obtaining the settlement of his accounts[4] and +the repayment of the money advanced by him. + +Disappointment, debt, and hard drinking soon brought Eaton's life to a +close. He died in obscurity in 1811. Among his papers was found a list +of officers who composed a Court Martial held in Ohio by General St. +Clair in 1793. As time passed, he had noted in the margin of the paper +the fate of each man. All were either "Dead" or "Damned by brandy." His +friends might have completed the melancholy roll by writing under his +name the same epitaph. + +However wrong Eaton may have been in manners and in morals, he seems to +have been right in complaining of the treatment he received from the +Administration. The organs of the Government asserted that Eaton had +exceeded his instructions, and had undertaken projects the end of which +could not be foreseen,--that the Administration had never authorized +any specific engagement with Hamet, an inefficient person, and not at +all the man he was supposed to be,--and that the alliance with him was +much too expensive and dangerous to justify its further prosecution. +Unfortunately for this view of the case, the dealings of the United +States with Hamet dated back to the beginning of the war with Tripoli. A +diversion in his favor was no new project, but had been considered for +more than three years. Eaton and Cathcart had recommended it in 1801, +and Government approved of the plan. In 1802, when Jusuf Pacha offered +Hamet the Beyship of Benghazi and Derne, to break up these negotiations, +the United States Consuls promised him Jusuf's throne, if he would +refuse the offer, and threatened, if he accepted it, to treat him as an +enemy, and to send a frigate to prevent him from landing at Derne. +Later, when the Bey of Tunis showed some inclination to surrender Hamet +to his brother, the Consuls furnished him with the means of escape to +Malta. In 1803, he crossed over to Derne in an English brig, hoping to +receive assistance from the American fleet; but Commodore Morris left +him to his own resources; he was unable to hold his ground, and fled to +Egypt. All this was so well known at home, that members of the +Opposition in Congress jokingly accused the Administration of +undertaking to decide constitutional questions for the people +of Tripoli. + +Before the news of this flight into Egypt reached the United States, +Eaton had been instructed by the President to take command of an +expedition on the coast of Barbary in connection with Hamet. It had been +determined to furnish a few pieces of field-artillery, a thousand stand +of arms, and forty thousand dollars as a loan to the Pretender. But when +the President heard of Hamet's reverses, he withheld the supplies, and +sent Eaton out as "General Agent for the several Barbary States," +without special instructions. The Secretary of the Navy wrote at the +same time to Commodore Barron:--"With respect to the Ex-Bashaw of +Tripoli, we have no objection to your availing yourself of his +cooperation with you against Tripoli, if you shall, upon a full view of +the subject, after your arrival upon the station, consider his +cooperation expedient. The subject is committed entirely to your +discretion. In such an event, you will, it is believed, find Mr. Eaton +extremely useful to you." + +After Commodore Barron had reached his station, he did consider the +"coöperation" expedient; and ordered Hull in the Argus to Alexandria +with Eaton in search of Hamet, "the legitimate sovereign of the +reigning Bashaw of Tripoli." If Eaton succeeded in finding the Pacha, +Hull was to carry him and his suite to Derne, "or such other place as +may be determined the most proper for coöperating with the naval force +under my command against the common enemy ... You may assure the Bashaw +of the support of my squadron at Benghazi or Derne, and that I will take +the most effectual measures with the forces under my command for +cooperating with him against the usurper his brother, and for +reëstablishing him in the Regency of Tripoli. Arrangements to this +effect with him are confided to the discretion with which Mr. Eaton is +vested by the Government." + +It would seem from these extracts that Eaton derived full authority from +Barron to act in this matter, independently of his commission as +"General Agent." We do not perceive that he exceeded a reasonable +discretion in the "arrangements" made with Hamet. After so many +disappointments, the refugee could not be expected to leave a +comfortable situation and to risk his head without some definite +agreement as to the future; and the convention made with him by Eaton +did not go beyond what Hamet had a right to demand, or the instructions +of the Commodore,--even in Article II., which was afterward particularly +objected to by the Government. It ran thus:-- + +"The Government of the United States shall use their utmost exertions, +so far as comports with their own honor and interest, their subsisting +treaties, and the acknowledged law of nations, to reëstablish the said +Hamet Bashaw in the possession of his sovereignty of Tripoli against the +pretensions of Joseph Bashaw," etc. + +We should add, that Hamet, to satisfy himself of the truth of Eaton's +representations, sent one of his followers to Barron, who confirmed the +treaty; and that the Commodore, when he received Eaton's despatch, +announcing his departure from Aboukir, wrote back a warm approval of his +energy, and notified him that the Argus and the Nautilus would be sent +immediately to Bomba with the necessary stores and seven thousand +dollars in money. Barron added,--"You may depend upon the most active +and vigorous support from the squadron, as soon as the season and our +arrangements will permit us to appear in force before the +enemy's walls." + +So much for Eaton's authority to pledge the faith of the United States. +As to the question of expense: the whole cost of the expedition, up to +the evacuation of Derne, was thirty-nine thousand dollars. Eaton +asserted, and we see no reason to doubt his accuracy, that thirty +thousand more would have carried the American flag triumphantly into +Tripoli. Lear paid sixty thousand for peace. + +Hamet was set on shore at Syracuse with thirty followers. Two hundred +dollars a month were allowed him for the support of himself and of them, +until particular directions should be received from the United States +concerning him. He wrote more than once to the President for relief, +resting his claims upon Eaton's convention and the letter of the +Secretary of State read to him by Consul Cathcart in 1802. In this +letter, the Secretary declared, that, in case of the failure of the +combined attack upon Derne, it would be proper for our Government "to +restore him to the situation from, which he was drawn, or to make some +other convenient arrangement that may be more eligible to him." Hamet +asked that at least the President would restore to him his wife and +family, according to the treaty, and send them all back to Egypt. "I +cannot suppose," he wrote, "that the engagements of an American agent +would be disputed by his Government, ... or that a gentleman has pledged +towards me the honor of his country on purpose to deceive me." + +Eaton presented these petitions to the President and to the public, and +insisted so warmly upon the harsh treatment his ally had received from +the United States, that two thousand four hundred dollars were sent to +him in 1806, and again, in 1807, Davis, Consul for Tripoli, was directed +to insist upon the release of the wife and children. They were delivered +up by Jusuf in 1807, and taken to Syracuse in an American sloop-of-war. +Here ended the relations of the United States with Hamet Caramanli.[5] + +Throughout this whole African chapter, the darling economy of the +Administration was a penny-wise policy which resulted in the usual +failure. Already in 1802, Mr. Gallatin reported that two millions and a +half, in round numbers, had been paid in tribute and presents. The +expense of fitting out the four squadrons is estimated by Mr. Sabine at +three millions and a half. The tribute extorted after 1802 and the cost +of keeping the ships in the Mediterranean amount at the lowest estimate +to two millions more. Most of this large sum might have been saved by +giving an adequate force and full powers to Commodore Dale, who had +served under Paul Jones, and knew how to manage such matters. + +Unluckily for their fame, the Administration was equally parsimonious in +national spirit and pluck, and did their utmost to protect themselves +against the extravagance of such reckless fellows as Preble, Decatur, +and Eaton. In the spring of 1803, while Preble was fitting out his +squadron, Mr. Simpson, Consul at Tangier, was instructed to buy the +good-will of the Emperor of Morocco. He disobeyed his instructions, and +the Emperor withdrew his demands when he saw the American ships. About +the same time, the Secretary of State wrote to Consul Cathcart in +relation to Tripoli:-- + +"It is thought best that you should not be tied down to a refusal of +presents, whether to be included in the peace, or to be made from time +to time during its continuance,--especially as in the latter case the +title to the presents will be a motive to its continuance,--to admit +that the Bashaw shall receive in the first instance, including the +consular present, the sum of $20,000, and at the rate afterwards of +$8,000 or $10,000 a year ... The presents, whatever the amount or +purpose of them, (except the consular present, which, as usual, may +consist of jewelry, cloth, etc.,) must be made in money and not in +stores, to be biennial rather than annual; _and the arrangement of the +presents is to form no part of the public treaty, if a private promise +and understanding can be substituted._" + +After notifying Cathcart of his appointment to Tunis, the Secretary +directs him to evade the thirty-six-gun frigate, and to offer the Bey +ten thousand dollars a year for peace, to be arranged in the same +underhand way. + +Tripoli refused the money; it was not enough. The Bey of Tunis rejected +both the offer and the Consul. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson that he +considered some of Cathcart's expressions insulting, and that he +insisted upon the thirty-six-gun frigate. Mr. Jefferson answered on the +27th of January, 1804, after he knew of the insult to Morris and of the +expulsion of Eaton. Beginning with watery generalities about "mutual +friendships and the interests arising out of them," he regretted that +there should be any misconception of his motives on the part of the Bey. +"Such being our regard for you, it is with peculiar concern I learn from +your letter that Mr. Cathcart, whom I had chosen from a confidence in +his integrity, experience, and good dispositions, has so conducted +himself as to incur your displeasure. In doing this, be assured he has +gone against the letter and spirit of his instructions, which were, that +his deportment should be such as to make known my esteem and respect for +your character both personal and public, and to cultivate your +friendship by all the attentions and services he could render.... In +selecting another character to take the place of Mr. Cathcart, I shall +take care to fix on one who, I hope, will better fulfil the duties of +respect and esteem for you, and who, in so doing only, will be the +faithful representative and organ of our earnest desire that the peace +and friendship so happily subsisting between the two countries may be +firm and permanent." + +Most people will agree with Eaton, that "the spirit which dictated this +answer betrays more the inspiration of Carter's Mountain[6] than of +Bunker Hill." + +Lear, who was appointed Consul-General in 1803, was authorized by his +instructions to pay twenty thousand dollars down and ten thousand a year +for peace, and a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars a man +for ransom. + +When Barron's squadron anchored at Malta, Consul O'Brien came on board +to say that he had offered, by authority, eight thousand dollars a year +to Tunis, instead of the frigate, and one hundred and ten thousand to +Tripoli for peace and the ransom of the crew of the Philadelphia, and +that both propositions had been rejected. + +Finally, after fitting out this fourth squadron, at an expense of one +million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and with Eaton in +possession of Derne, the Administration paid sixty thousand dollars for +peace and ransom, when Preble, ten months previously, could have +obtained both for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thus they +spent two millions to save ninety thousand, and left the principle of +tribute precisely where it was before. + +What makes this business still more remarkable is, that the +Administration knew from the reports of our consuls and from the +experience of our captains that the force of the pirates was +insignificant, and that they were wretched sailors and poor shots. +Sterret took a Tripolitan cruiser of fourteen guns after an engagement +of thirty minutes; he killed or wounded fifty of her crew, and did not +lose a man, nor suffer any material damage in his hull or rigging. There +was no one killed on the American side when Decatur burned the +Philadelphia. The Constitution was under the fire of the Tripolitan +batteries for two hours without losing a man, and was equally fortunate +when she ran in a second time and lay within musket-shot of the mole, +exposed to the fire of the enemy for three-quarters of an hour. These +Tripolitan batteries mounted one hundred and fifteen guns. Three years +later, Captain Ichabod Sheffield, of the schooner Mary Ann, furnished in +person an example of the superiority of the Yankee over the Turk. Consul +Lear had just given forty-eight thousand dollars to the Dey of Algiers, +in full payment of tribute "up to date." Nevertheless, the Mary Ann, of +and from New York to Leghorn, was seized in the Straits of Gibraltar by +an Algerine corsair. A prize-crew of nine Turks was sent on board; the +captain, two men, and a boy left in her to do the work; she was ordered +to Algiers; and the pirate sailed away. Having no instructions from +Washington, Sheffield and his men determined to strike a blow for +liberty, and fixed upon their plan. Algiers was in sight, when Sheffield +hurled the "grains" overboard, and cried that he had struck a fish. Four +Turks, who were on deck, ran to the side to look over. Instantly the +Americans threw three of them into the sea. The others, hearing the +noise, hurried upon deck. In a hand-to-hand fight which followed two +more were killed with handspikes, and the remaining four were +overpowered and sent adrift in a small boat. Sheffield made his way, +rejoicing, to Naples. When the Dey heard how his subjects had been +handled, he threatened to put Lear in irons and to declare war. It cost +the United States sixteen thousand dollars to appease his wrath. + +The cruise of the Americans against Tripoli differed little, except in +the inferiority of their force, from numerous attacks made by European +nations upon the Regencies. Venice, England, France, had repeatedly +chastised the pirates in times past. In 1799, the Portuguese, with one +seventy-four-gun ship, took two Tripolitan cruisers, and forced the +Pacha to pay them eleven thousand dollars. In 1801, not long before our +expedition, the French Admiral Gaunthomme over-hauled two Tunisian +corsairs in chase of some Neapolitan vessels. He threw all their guns +overboard, and bade them beware how they provoked the wrath of the First +Consul by plundering his allies. But all of them left, as we did, the +principle of piracy or payments as they found it. At last this evil was +treated in a manner more creditable to civilization. In 1812, the +Algerines captured an American vessel, and made slaves of the crew. +After the peace with England, in 1815, Decatur, in the Guerrière, sailed +into the Mediterranean, and captured off Cape de Gat, in twenty-five +minutes, an Algerine frigate of forty-six guns and four hundred men. On +board the Guerrière, four were wounded, and no one killed. Two days +later, off Cape Palos, he took a brig of twenty-two guns and one hundred +and eighty men. He then sailed into the harbor of Algiers with his +prizes, and offered peace, which was accepted. The Dey released the +American prisoners, relinquished all claims to tribute in future, and +promised never again to enslave an American. Decatur, on our part, +surrendered his prizes, and agreed to consular presents,--a mitigated +form of tribute, similar in principle, but, at least, with another name. +From Algiers he went to Tunis, and demanded satisfaction of that Regency +for having permitted a British man-of-war to retake in their port two +prizes to Americans in the late war with England. The Bey submitted, and +paid forty-six thousand dollars. He next appeared before Tripoli, where +he compelled the Pacha to pay twenty-six thousand dollars, and to +surrender ten captives, as an indemnity for some breaches of +international law. In fifty-four days he brought all Barbary to +submission. It is true, that, the next spring, the Dey of Algiers +declared this treaty null, and fell back upon the time-honored system of +annual tribute. But it was too late. Before it became necessary for +Decatur to pay him another visit, Lord Exmouth avenged the massacre of +the Neapolitan fishermen at Bona by completely destroying the fleet and +forts of Algiers, in a bombardment of seven hours. Christian prisoners +of every nation were liberated in all the Regencies, and the +slave-system, as applied to white men, finally abolished. + +Preble, Eaton, and Decatur are our three distinguished African officers. +As Barron's squadron did not fire a shot into Tripoli, indeed never +showed itself before that port, to Eaton alone belongs the credit of +bringing the Pacha to terms which the American Commissioner was willing +to accept. The attack upon Derne was the feat of arms of the fourth +year, and finished the war. + +Ours is not a new reading of the earlier relations of the United States +with the Barbary powers. The story can be found in the Collection of +State Papers, and more easily in the excellent little books of Messrs. +Sabine and Felton. But a "popular version" despises documents. Under +the pressure of melodrama, history will drift into Napoleon's "fable +agreed upon"; and if it be true, as Emerson says, that "no anchor, no +cable, no fence, avail to keep a fact a fact," it is not at all likely +that a paper in a monthly magazine will do it. + + + * * * * * + + + +SUNSHINE. + + +I have always worked in the carpet-factories. My father and mother +worked there before me and my sisters, as long as they lived. My sisters +died first;--the one, I think, out of deep sorrow; the other from +too much joy. + +My older sister worked hard, knew nothing else but work, never thought +of anything else, nor found any joy in work, scarcely in the earnings +that came from it. Perhaps she pined for want of more air, shut up in +the rooms all day, not caring to find it in walking or in the fields, or +even in books. Household-work awaited her daily after the factory-work, +and a dark, strange religion oppressed and did not sustain her, Sundays. +So we scarcely wondered when she died. It seemed, indeed, as if she had +died long ago,--as if the life had silently passed away from her, +leaving behind a working body that was glad at last to find a rest it +had never known before. + +My other sister was far different. Very much younger, not even a shadow +of the death that had gone before weighed heavily upon her. Everybody +loved her, and her warm, flashing spirit that came out in her sunny +smile. She died in a season of joy, in the first flush of summer. She +died, as the June flowers died, after their happy summer-day of life. + +At last I was left alone, to plod the same way, every night and +morning,--out with the sunrise from the skirts of the town, over the +bridge across the stream that fell into our great river which has worked +for us so long, to the tall, grim factory-building where my work awaited +me, and home again at night. I lived on in the house we all of us had +lived in. At first it was alone in the wood. But the town crept out to +meet it, and soon but little woodland was left around it. "Gloomy +Robert" they called me, as I walked back and forth upon the same track, +seldom lifting my head to greet friend or stranger. Though I walked over +well-known ground, my thoughts were wandering in strange romances. My +evening-readings furnished the land I lived in,--seldom this Western +home, but the East, from Homer's time to the days of Haroun Alraschid. I +was so faithful at my work that my responsibilities were each year +increased; and though my brain lived in dreams, I had sufficient use of +it for my little needs each day. I never forgot to answer the wants of +the greedy machines while I was within sound of them; but away from them +I forgot all external sight and sound. I can remember in my boyhood once +I was waked from my reveries. I was walking beneath a high stone-wall, +with my eyes and head bent down as usual, when I was roused by a shower +of rose-buds that fell over my shoulders and folded arms. I heard +laughter, and looked up to see a childish face with sunny, golden curls +tumbling over it; and a surprised voice cried out, "Gloomy Robert is +looking up!" The picture of the face hung in my memory long after, with +the sound of the happy voice, as though it came out of another world. +But it remained only a picture, and I never asked myself whether that +sunny face ever made any home happy, nor did I ever listen for that +voice again from behind the high stone-wall. + +Many years of my life passed away. There were changes in the factories. +The machines grew more like human beings, and we men could act more like +machines. There were fewer of us needed; but I still held my place, and +my steadiness gave me a position. + +One day, in the end of May, I was walking early in the morning towards +the factories, as usual, when suddenly there fell across my path a +glowing beam of sunshine that lighted up the grass before me. I stopped +to see how the green blades danced in its light, how the sunshine fell +down the sloping, bank across the stream below. Whirring insects seemed +to be suddenly born in its beam. The stream flowed more gayly, the +flowers on its brim were richer in color. A voice startled me. It was +only that of one of my fellow-workmen, as he shouted, "Look at Gloomy +Robert!--there's a sunbeam in his way, and he stumbles over it!" It was +really so. I had stumbled over a beam of sunlight. I had never observed +the sunshine before. Now, what life it gave, as it gleamed under the +trees! I kept on my way, but the thought of it followed me all up the +weary stairs into the high room where the great machines were standing +silently. Suddenly, after my work began, through a high narrow window +poured a strip of sunshine. It fell across the colored threads which +were weaving diligently their work. This day the work was of an +unusually artistic nature. We have our own artists in the mills, artists +who must work under severe limitations. Within a certain space their +fancy revels, and then its lines are suddenly cut short. Nature scatters +her flowers as she pleases over the field, does not measure her groups +to see that they stand symmetrically, nor count her several daisies that +they may be sure to repeat themselves in regular order. But our artist +must fit his stems to certain angles so that their lines may be +continuous, constantly repeating themselves, the same group recurring, +yet in a hidden monotony. + +My pattern of to-day had always pleased me, for we had woven many yards +of it before,--the machines and I. There were rich green leaves and +flowers, gay flowers that shone in light and hid themselves in shade, +and I had always admired their grace and coloring. To-day they had +seemed to me cold and dusky. All my ideas that I had gained from +conventional carpet-flowers, which, woven almost beneath my hand, had +seemed to rival Nature's, all these ideas had been suddenly swept away. +My eyes had opened upon real flowers waving in real sunshine; and my +head grew heavy at the sound of the clanking machine weaving out yards +of unsunned flowers. If only that sunshine, I thought, would light up +these green leaves, put a glow on these brilliant flowers, instead of +this poor coloring which tries to look like sunshine, we might rival +Nature. But the moment I was so thinking, the rays of sunlight I have +spoken of fell on the gay threads. They seemed, before my eyes, to seize +upon the poor yellow fibres which were trying to imitate their own glow, +and, winding themselves round them, I saw the shuttle gather these rays +of sunlight into the meshes of its work. I was to stand there till noon. +So, long before I left, the gleam of sunshine had left the narrow window +and was hidden from the rest of the long room by the gray stone-walls of +another building which rose up outside. But as long as they lingered +over the machine that I was watching, I saw, as though human fingers +were placing them there, rays of sunlight woven in among the green +leaves and brilliant flowers. + +After that gleam had gone, my work grew dark and dreary, and, for the +first time, my walls seemed to me like prison-walls. I longed for the +end of my day's work, and rejoiced that the sun had not yet set when I +was free again. I was free to go out across the meadows, up the hills, +to catch the last rays of sunset. Then coming home, I stooped to pick +the flowers which grew by the wayside in the waning light. + +All that June which followed, I passed my leisure hours and leisure days +in the open air, in the woods. I chased the sunshine from the fields in +under the deep trees, where it only flickered through the leaves. I +hunted for flowers, too, beginning with the gay ones which shone with +color. I wondered how it was they could drink in so much of the sun's +glow. Then I fell to studying all the science of color and all the +theories which are woven about it. I plunged into books of chemistry, +to try to find out how it was that certain flowers should choose certain +colors out from the full beam of light. After the long days, I sat late +into the night, studying all that books could tell me. I collected +prisms, and tried, in scattering the rays, to learn the properties of +each several pencil of light. I grew very wise and learned, but never +came nearer the secret I was searching for,--why it was that the Violet, +lying so near the Dandelion, should choose and find such a different +dress to wear. It was not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at +first. My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups. The +Saint-John's-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower. I trained +the vines which had been drooping round our old house,--the gray +time-worn house; the "natural-colored house," the neighbors called it. I +thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be +scarlet, as I trained up the brilliant scarlet trumpet-flower which my +sister had planted long ago. + +So the summer passed away. My companions and neighbors did not wonder +much, that, after studying so many books, I should begin to study +flowers and botany. And November came. My occupation was not yet taken +away, for Golden-Rod and the Asters gleamed along the dusty roadside, +and still underneath the Maples there lay a sunny glow from the yellow +leaves not yet withered beneath them. + +One day I received a summons from our overseer, Mr. Clarkson, to visit +him in the evening. I went, a little disturbed, lest he might have some +complaint to make of the engrossing nature of my present occupations. +This I was almost led to believe, from the way in which he began to +speak to me. His perorations, to be sure, were apt to be far wide of his +subject; and this time, as usual, I could allow him two or three +minutes' talk before it became necessary for me to give him my +attention. + +At last it came out. I was wanted to go up to Boston about a marvellous +piece of carpet which had appeared from our mills. It had lain in the +warehouse some time, had at last been taken to Boston, and a large +portion of it had been sold, the pattern being a favorite one. But +suddenly there had been a change. In opening one of the rolls and +spreading it broadly in the show-room of Messrs. Gobelin's warehouse, it +had appeared the most wonderful carpet that ever was known. A real +sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and +dance among them as on a broad meadow. It shed a radiance which paled +the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high +windows. It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had +been obliged to ask a high price of admission for the many that flocked +to see it. They had eagerly examined the other rolls of carpeting, in +the hope of finding a repetition of the wonder, and were inclined at one +time to believe that this magical effect was owing to a new method of +lighting their apartments. But it was only in this beautiful pattern and +through a certain portion of it that this wonderful appearance was +shown. Some weeks ago they had sent to our agent to ask if he knew the +origin of this wonderful tapestry. He had consulted with the designer of +the pattern, who had first claimed the discovery of the combination of +colors by which such an effect was produced, but he could not account +for its not appearing throughout the whole work. My master had then +examined some of the workmen, and learned, in the midst of his +inquiries, what had been my late occupations and studies. + +"If," he continued, "I had been inclined to apply any of my discoveries +to the work which I superintended, he was willing, and his partners were +willing, to forgive any interference of that sort, of mine, in affairs +which were strictly their own, as long as the discoveries seemed of so +astonishing a nature." + +I am not able to give all our conversation. I could only say to my +employer, that this was no act of mine, though I felt very sure that +the sunshine which astonished them in Messrs. Gobelin's carpet-store was +the very sunbeam that shone through the window of the factory on the +27th of May, that summer. When he asked me what chemical preparation +could insure a repetition of the same wonderful effect, I could only +say, that, if sunlight were let in upon all the machines, through all +the windows of the establishment, a similar effect might be produced. He +stared at me. Our large and substantial mill was overshadowed by the +high stone-walls of the rival company. It had taken a large amount of +capital to raise our own walls; it would take a still larger to induce +our neighbors to remove theirs. So we parted,--my employer evidently +thinking that I was keeping something behind, waiting to make my profit +on a discovery so interesting to him. He called me back to tell me, +that, after working so long under his employ, he hoped I should never be +induced by higher wages or other proffers to leave for any rival +establishment. + +I was not left long in quiet. I received a summons to Boston. Mr. +Stuart, the millionnaire, had bought the wonderful carpet at an immense +price. He had visited our agent himself, had invited the designer to +dinner, and now would not be satisfied until I had made him a visit +in Boston. + +I went to his house. I passed up through broad stairways, and over +carpets such as I had never trod nor woven. I should have liked to +linger and satisfy my eyes with looking at the walls decorated with +paintings, and at the statuary, which seemed to beckon to me like moving +figures. But I passed on to the room where Mr. Stuart and his friends +awaited me. Here the first thing that struck me was the glowing carpet +across which I must tread. It was lying in an oval saloon, which had +been built, they told me, for the carpet itself. The light was admitted +only from the ceiling, which was so decorated that no clear sunlight +could penetrate it; but down below the sunbeams lay flickering in the +meadow of leaves, and shed a warm glow over the whole room. + +But my eyes directly took in many things besides the flowery ground +beneath me. At one end of the room stood a colossal bust of Juno, +smiling grandly and imperturbably, as if she were looking out from the +great far-away past. I think this would have held my looks and my +attention completely, but that Mr. Stuart must introduce me to his +friends. So I turned my glance away; but it was drawn directly towards a +picture which hung before me,--a face that drove away all recollection +of the colossal goddess. The golden hair was parted over a broad brow; +from the gentle, dreamy eyes there came a soft, penetrating glance, and +a vagueness as of fancy rested over the whole face. I scarcely heard a +word that was spoken to me as I looked upon this new charm, and I could +hardly find answers for the questions that surrounded me. + +But I was again roused from my dreamy wonderment by a real form that +floated in and sent away all visions of imagination. "My daughter," said +Mr. Stuart, and I looked up into the same dreamy eyes which had been +winning me in the picture. But these looked far beyond me, over me, +perhaps, or through me,--I could scarcely say which,--and the mouth +below them bent into a welcoming smile. While she greeted the other +guests, I had an opportunity to watch the stately grace of Mr. Stuart's +daughter, who played the part of hostess as one long accustomed to it. + +"A queen!" I had exclaimed to myself, as she entered the room, "and my +Juno!" + +The gentlemen to whom I had been introduced had been summoned earlier, +as in a learned committee, discussing the properties of the new +discovery. After the entrance of the ladies, I was requested to lead +Miss Stuart to dinner, and sat by her side through the clanging of +dishes and a similar clangor of the table-talk of tongues. + +"Speaking of light," said the Professor, turning to me, "why cannot you +bring, by your unknown chemical ways, some real sunlight into our rooms, +in preference to this metallic gas-light?" + +I turned to the windows, before which the servant had just drawn the +heavy, curtains still closer, to shut out the gleams of a glowing sunset +which had ventured to penetrate between its folds. + +"I see your answer," said Miss Stuart. "You wonder, as I do, why a +little piece of artificial sunlight should astonish us so much more than +the cheap sunlight of every day which the children play in on +the Common." + +"I think your method, Mr. Desmond," said the Chemist, "must be some +power you have found of concentrating all the rays of a pencil of light, +disposing in some way of their heating power. I should like to know if +this is a fluid agent or some solid substance." + +"I should like to see," interrupted another gentleman, "the anvil where +Mr. Desmond forges his beams. Could not we get up a party, Miss Stuart, +an evening-party, to see a little bit of sunlight struck out,--on a +moonshiny night, too?" + +"In my lectures on chemistry," began Mr. Jasper. He was interrupted by +Mr. Stuart. + +"You will have to write your lectures over again. Mr. Desmond has +introduced such new ideas upon chemistry that he will give you a chance +for a new course." + +"You forget," said the Chemist, "that the laws of science are the same +and immutable. My lectures, having once been written, are written. I +only see that Mr. Desmond has developed theories which I have myself +laid down. As our friend the Artist will tell us, sunlight is sunlight, +wherever you find it, whether you catch it on a carpet or on a +lady's face." + +"But I am quite ashamed," said Miss Stuart, "that we ladies so seldom +have the sunlight on our faces. I think we might agree to Mr. Green's +proposal to go out somewhere and see where the sunbeams really are made. +We shut them out with our curtains, and turn night into a +make-believe day." + +"But the sun is so trying!" put in Miss Lester. "Just think how much +more becoming candle-light is! There is not one of my dresses which +would stand a broad sunbeam." + +"I see," said Mr. Stuart, "that, when Mr. Desmond has perfected his +studies, we shall be able to roof over the whole of Boston with our +woven sunlight by day and gas-light by night, quite independent of fogs +and uncertain east-winds." + +So much of the dinner-conversation dwelt upon what was supposed to be +interesting to me, and a part of my profession. It was laggingly done; +for presently the talk fell into an easier flow,--a wonder about Mrs. +This, and speculation concerning Mr. That. Mr. Blank had gone to Europe +with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four +elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind. I +was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who +was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day. +In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her +personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her manner +of life, all were pulled to pieces, and discussed, dissected, and +classified, in the same way as I would handle one of the Composite. + +Miss Stuart spoke but little. She fluttered gayly over the livelier +conversation, but seemed glad to fall back into a sort of wearied +repose, where she appeared to be living in a higher atmosphere than the +rest of us. This air of repose the others seemed to be trying to reach, +when they got no farther than dulness; and some of the gentlemen, I +thought, made too great efforts in their attempts to appear bored. +Especially one of them exerted himself greatly to gape so often in the +face of a lady with whom he was striving to keep up an appearance of +conversation, that the exertion itself must have wearied him. + +After the ladies had left, the Chemist seated himself by me, that he +might, as he openly said, get out of me the secret of my sunshine. The +more I disowned the sunshine, the more he felt sure that I possessed +some secret clue to it. I need not say, that, in all my talk with these +gentlemen, I had constantly tried to show that I could claim no +influence in setting the sun's rays among the green carpeted leaves. + +I was urged to stay many days in Boston, was treated kindly, and invited +here and there. I grew to feel almost at home at Mr. Stuart's. He was +pleased to wonder at the education which I had given myself, as he +called it. I sat many long mornings in Miss Stuart's drawing-room, and +she had the power of making me talk of many things which had always been +hidden even from myself. It was hardly a sympathy with me which seemed +to unlock my inner thoughts; it was as though she had already looked +through them, and that I must needs bring them out for her use. That +same glance which I have already spoken of, which seemed to pass over +and through me, invited me to say in words what I felt she was beginning +to read with her eyes. We went together, the day before I was to leave +town, to the Gallery of Paintings. + +As we watched a fine landscape by Kensett, a stream of sunshine rested a +moment on the canvas, giving motion and color, as it were, to the +pictured sunlight. + +Miss Stuart turned to me. + +"Why will you not imprison sunlight in that way, Mr. Desmond? That would +be artistic." + +"You forget," I said, "if I could put the real sunlight into such a +picture, it would no longer be mine; I should be a borrower, not a +creator of light; I should be no more of an artist than I am now." + +"You will always refuse to acknowledge it," she said; "but you can never +persuade me that you have not the power to create a sunbeam. An +imprisoned sunbeam! The idea is absurd." + +"It is because the idea is so absurd," I said, "that, if I felt the +power were mine to imprison sunbeams, I should hardly care to repeat the +effort. The sunshine rests upon the grass, freely we say, but in truth +under some law that prevents its penetrating farther. A sunbeam existing +in the absence of the sun is, of course, an absurdity. Yet they are +there, the sunbeams of last spring, in your oval room, as I saw them one +day in May." + +"Which convinces me," said Miss Stuart, "that you are an artist. That is +not real sunshine. You have created it. You are born for an artist-life. +Do not go back to your drudgery." + +"Daily work," I answered, "must become mechanical work, if we perform it +in a servile way. A lawyer is perhaps inspired, when he is engaged in a +cause on which he thinks his reputation hangs; but, day by day, when he +goes down to the work that brings him his daily bread, he is quite as +likely to call it his drudgery as I my daily toil." + +She left her seat and walked with me towards a painting which hung not +far from us. It represented sunset upon the water. "The tender-curving +lines of creamy spray" were gathering up the beach; the light was +glistening across the waves; and shadows and light almost seemed to move +over the canvas. + +"There," said Miss Stuart, "is what I call work that is worthy. I know +there was inspiration in every touch of the brush. I know there was +happy life in the life that inspired that painting. It is worth while to +live and to show that one has been living in that way." + +"But I think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside +his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it +finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he +went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the +work,--because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy +was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The days of +drudgery hung heavily on the days of inspiration; and it was only when +he carried his heart into the most monotonous part of his work that he +found any inspiration in it, that he could feel he had accomplished +anything." We turned suddenly away into a room where we had not been +before. I could not notice the pictures that covered the walls for the +sake of one to which Miss Stuart led the way. After looking upon that, +there could be no thought of finding out any other. It possessed the +whole room. The inspiration which uplifted the eyes fell over the whole +painting. We looked at it silently, and it was not till we had left the +building that Miss Stuart said,-- + +"We have seen there something which takes away all thought of artist or +style of painting or work. I have never been able to ask myself what is +the color of the eyes of that Madonna, or of her flowing hair, or the +tone of the drapery. I see only an expression that inspires the whole +figure, gives motion to the hands, life to the eyes, thought to the +lips, and soul to the whole being." + +"The whole inspiration, the whole work," I said, "is far above us. It is +quite above me. No, I am not an artist; my fingers do not tingle for the +brush. This is an inspiration I cannot reach; it floats above me. It +moves and touches me, but shows me my own powerlessness." + +I left Boston. I went back to winter, to my old home, to my every-day's +work. My work was not monotonous; or if one tone did often recur in it, +I built upon it, out of my heart and life, full chords of music. The +vision of Margaret Stuart came before my eyes in the midst of all +mechanical labor, in all the hours of leisure, in all the dreams of +night. My life, indeed, grew more varied than ever; for I found myself +more at ease with those around me, finding more happiness than I had +ever found before in my intercourse with others. I found more of myself +in them, more sympathy in their joy or sorrow, myself more of an equal +with those around me. + +The winter months passed quickly away. Mr. Clarkson frequently showed +his disappointment because the mills no longer produced the wonder of +last year. For me, it had almost passed out of my thoughts. It seemed +but a part of the baser fabric of that vision where Margaret Stuart +reigned supreme. I saw no way to help him; but more and more, daily, +rejoiced in the outer sunshine of the world, in the fresh, glowing +spring, in the flowers of May. So I was surprised again, when, near the +close of May, after a week of stormy weather, the sunlight broke through +the window where it had shone the year before. It hung a moment on the +threads of work,--then, seeming to spurn them, fell upon the ground. + +We were weaving, alas! a strange "arabesque pattern," as it was called, +with no special form,--so it seemed to my eyes,--bringing in gorgeous +colors, but set in no shape which Nature ever produced, either above the +earth or in metals or crystals hid far beneath. How I reproached myself, +on Mr. Clarkson's account, that I had not interceded, just for this one +day of sunshine, for some pattern that Nature might be willing to +acknowledge! But the hour was past, I knew it certainly, when the next +day the sun was clouded, and for many days we did not see its +face again. + +So the time passed away. Another summer came along, and another glowing +autumn, and that winter I did not go to Boston. Mr. Clarkson let me fall +back again into my commonplace existence. I was no longer more than one +of the common workmen. Perhaps, indeed, he looked upon, me with a +feeling of disappointment, as though a suddenly discovered diamond had +turned to charcoal in his hands. Sometimes he consulted me upon chemical +matters, finding I knew what the books held, but evidently feeling a +little disturbed that I never brought out any hidden knowledge. + +This second winter seemed more lonely to me. The star that had shone +upon me seemed farther away than ever. I could see it still. It was +hopelessly distant. My Juno! For a little while I could imagine she was +thinking of me, that my little name might be associated in her memory +with what we had talked of, what we had seen together, with some of the +high things which I knew must never leave her thoughts. But this +glimmering memory of me I knew must have faded away as her life went on, +varied as it was with change of faces, sounds of music, and whirl of +excitement. Then, too, I never heard her name mentioned. She was out of +my circle, as far away from my sphere as the heroines of those old +romances that I had read so long ago; but more life-like, more warm, +more sunny was her influence still. It uplifted my work, and crowned my +leisure with joy. I blessed the happy sunshine of that 27th of May, +which in a strange way had been the clue that led to my knowledge +of her. + +The longest winter-months melt away at last into spring, and so did +these. May came with her promises and blights of promise. Recalling, +this time, how sunshine would come with the latter end of May through +the dark walls, I begged of Mr. Clarkson that a favorite pattern of mine +might be put upon the looms. Its design was imagined by one of my +companions in my later walks. He was an artist of the mills, and had +been trying to bring within the rigid lines that were required some of +the grace and freedom of Nature. He had scattered here some water-lilies +among broad green leaves. My admiration for Nature, alas! had grown only +after severe cultivation among the strange forms which we carpet-makers +indulge in with a sort of mimicry of Nature. So I cannot be a fair judge +of this, even as a work of art. I see sometimes tapestries in a meadow +studded with buttercups, and I fancy patterns for carpets when I see a +leaf casting its shadow upon a stone. So I may be forgiven for saying +that these water-lilies were dear to me as seeming like Nature, as they +were lying upon their green leaves. + +Mr. Clarkson granted my request, and for a few days, this pattern was +woven by the machine. These trial-days I was excited from my usual +calmness. The first day the sunshine did not reach the narrow window. +The second day we had heavy storm and rain. But the third day, not far +from the expected hour, the sunshine burst through the little space. It +fell upon my golden threads; it seemed directly to embrace them +joyously, to encircle them closely. The sunlight seemed to incorporate +itself with the woolly fibre, to conceal itself among the work where the +shuttle chose to hide it. I fancied a sort of laughing joy, a clatter +and dash in the machinery itself, as though there were a happy time, +where was usually only a monotonous whirl. I could scarcely contain +myself till noon. + +When I left my room, I found, on inquiry, that Mr. Clarkson was not in +the building, and was to be away all day. I went out into the air for a +free breath, and looked up into the glowing sky, yet was glad to go back +again to my machines, which I fancied would greet me with an unwonted +joy. But, as I passed towards the stairway, I glanced into one of the +lower rooms, where some of the clerks were writing. I fancied Mr. +Clarkson might be there. There were women employed in this room, and +suddenly one who was writing at a desk attracted my attention. I did not +see her face; but the impression that her figure gave me haunted me as I +passed on. Some one passing me saw my disturbed look. + +"What have you seen? a ghost?" he asked. + +"Who is writing in that room? Can you tell me?" I said. + +"You know them all," was his answer, "except the new-comer, Miss Stuart. +Have not you heard the talk of her history,--how the father has failed +and died and all that, and how the daughter is glad enough to get work +under Mr. Clarkson's patronage?" + +The bell was ringing that called me, and I could not listen to more. My +brain was whirling uncertainly, and I doubted if I ought to believe my +ears. I went back to my work more dazed and bewildered than ever in my +youthful days. I forgot the wonder of the morning. It was quite +outshone by the wonder of the afternoon. I longed for my hour of +release. I longed for a time for thought,--to learn whether what had +been told me could be true. When the time came, I hastened down-stairs; +but I found the door of the office closed. Its occupants had all gone. I +hastened through the village, turned back again, and on the bridge over +the little stream met Margaret Stuart. She was the same. It made no +difference what were her surroundings, she was the same; there was the +same wonderful glance, the same smile of repose. It made no difference +where or how I met her, she ruled me still. She greeted me with the same +air and manner as in her old home when I saw her first. + +She told me afterwards of the changes and misfortunes of the past year, +of her desire for independence, and how she found she was little able to +uphold it herself. + +"Some of my friends," she said, "were very anxious I should teach +singing,--I had such a delicious voice, which had been so well +cultivated. I could sing Italian opera-songs and the like. But I found I +could only sing the songs that pleased me, and it was doubtful whether +they would happen to suit the taste or the voice of those I should try +to teach. For, I must confess it, I have never cultivated my voice +except for my own pleasure, and never for the sake of the art. I did try +to teach music a little while, and, oh, it was hopeless! I remembered +some of our old talks about drudgery, and thought it had been a happy +thing for me, if I had ever learned how to drudge over anything. What I +mean is, I have never learned how to go through a monotonous duty, how +to give it an inspiration which would make it possible or endurable. It +would have been easier to summon up all my struggling for the sake of +one great act of duty. I did not know how to scatter it over work day +after day the same. Worse than all, in spite of all my education, I did +not know enough of music to teach it." + +She went on, not merely this evening, but afterwards, to tell me of the +different efforts she had made to earn a living for herself with the +help of kind friends. + +"At last," she said, "I bethought me of my handwriting, of the 'elegant' +notes which used to receive such praise; and when I met Mr. Clarkson one +day in Boston, I asked him what price he would pay me for it. I will +tell you that he was very kind, very thoughtful for me. He fancied the +work he had to offer would be distasteful to me; but he has made it as +agreeable, as easy to be performed, as can be done. My aunt was willing +to come here with me. She has just enough to live upon herself, and we +are likely to live comfortably together here. So I am trying that sort +of work you praised so much when you were with me; and I shall be glad, +if you can go on and show me what inspiration can bring into it." + +So day after day I saw her, and evening after evening we renewed the old +talks. The summer passed on, and the early morning found her daily at +her work, every day pursuing an unaccustomed labor. Her spirit seemed +more happy and joyous than ever. She seemed far more at home than in the +midst of crowded streets and gay, brilliant rooms. Her expression was +more earnest and spiritual than ever,--her life, I thought, gayer +and happier. + +So I thought till one evening, when we had walked far away down the +little stream that led out of the town. We stopped to look into its +waters, while she leaned against the trunk of a tree overshadowed it. We +watched the light and shade that nickered below, the shadow of the +clover-leaves, of the long reeds that hung almost across the stream. The +quiet was enhanced by the busy motion below, the bustle of little animal +life, the skimming of the water-insects, the tender rustling of the +leaves, and the gentle murmuring of the stream itself. Then I looked at +her, from the golden hair upon her head down to its shadow in the brook +below. I saw her hands folded over each other, and, suddenly, they +looked to me very thin and white and very weary. I looked at her again, +and her whole posture was one of languor and weariness,--the languor of +the body, not a weariness of the soul. There was a happy smile on the +lips, and a gleam of happiness from under the half-closed eyes. But, oh, +so tired and faint did the slender body look that I almost feared to see +the happier spirit leave it, as though it were incumbered by something +which could not follow it. + +"Margaret!" I exclaimed. "You are wearing yourself away. You were never +made for such labor. You cannot learn this sort of toil. You are of the +sunshine, to play above the dusty earth, to gladden the dreary places. +Look at my hands, that are large for work,--at my heavy shoulders, +fitted to bear the yoke. Let me work for us both, and you shall still be +the inspiration of my work, and the sunshine that makes it gold. The +work we talked of is drudgery for you; you cannot bear it." + +I think she would not agree to what I said about her work. She "had +began to learn how to find life in every-day work, just as she saw a new +sun rise every day." But she did agree that we would work together, +without asking where our sunshine came from, or our inspiration. + +So it was settled. And her work was around and within the old +"natural-colored" house, whose walls by this time were half-embowered in +vines. There was gay sunshine without and within. And the lichen was +yellow that grew on the deeply sloping roof, and we liked to plant +hollyhocks and sunflowers by the side of the quaint old building, while +scarlet honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers and gay convolvuli gladdened +the front porch. + +There was but one question that was left to be disputed between us. +Margaret still believed I was an artist, all-undeveloped. + +"Those sunbeams"-- + +"I had nothing to do with them. They married golden threads that seemed +kindred to them." + +"It is not true. Sunbeams cannot exist without the sun. Your magnetic +power, perhaps, attracted the true sunbeam, and you recreated others." + +She fancies, if I would only devote myself to Art, I might become an +American Murillo, and put a Madonna upon canvas. + +But before we carried the new sunshine into the old house, I had been +summoned again by Mr. Clarkson. Another wonderful piece of carpeting had +gone out from the works, discovered by our agent before it had left our +warehouse. It was the Water-Lily pattern,--lilies sitting among green +leaves with sunshine playing in and out and among them. So dazzling it +seemed, that it shed a light all round the darkened walls of the +warehouse. It was priceless, he thought, a perfect unique. Better, +almost, that never such a pattern should appear again. It ought to +remain the only one in the world. + +And it did so remain. The rival establishment built a new chimney to +their mill, which shut out completely all sunshine or hope of sunshine +from our narrow windows. This was accomplished before the next May, and +I showed Mr. Clarkson how utterly impossible it was for the most +determined sunbeam ever to mingle itself with our most inviting fabrics. +Mr. Clarkson pondered a long time. We might build our establishment a +story higher; we might attempt to move it. But here were solid changes, +and the hopes were uncertain. Affairs were going on well, and the +reputation of the mills was at its height. And the carpets of sunshine +were never repeated. + + + * * * * * + + + +THE TWO TONGUES. + + +Whoever would read a profound political pamphlet under the guise of a +brilliant novel may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay +overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the +curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the _prolétaire_ +in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness, +and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober truth of present +history. And we are often tempted to bind up the novel of the dashing +Parliamenteer with our copy of "Ivanhoe," that we may thus have, side by +side, from the pens of the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli and Sir +Walter Scott, the beginning and the end of these eight hundred years of +struggle between Norman rule and Saxon endurance. For let races and +families change as they will, there have ever been in England two +nations; and the old debate of Wamba and Gurth in the forest-glade by +Rotherwood is illustrated by the unconscious satires of last week's +"Punch." In Chartism, Reform-Bills, and Strikes, in the etiquette which +guards the Hesperides of West-End society, in the rigid training which +stops many an adventurer midway in his career, are written the old +characters of the forest-laws of Rufus and the Charter of John. Races +and families change, but the distinction endures, is stamped upon all +things pertaining to both. + +We in America, who boast our descent from this matrimony of Norman and +Saxon, claim also that we have blent the features of the two into one +homogeneous people. In this country, where the old has become new, and +the new is continually losing its raw lustre before the glitter of some +fresher splendor, the traces of the contest are all but obliterated. +Only our language has come to us with the brand of the fatherland upon +it. In our mother-tongue prevails the same principle of dualism, the +same conflict of elements, which not all the lethean baptism of the +Atlantic could wash out. The two nations of England survive in the two +tongues of America. + +We beg the reluctant reader not to prematurely pooh-pooh as a "miserable +mouse" this conclusion, thinking that we are only serving up again that +old story of Wamba and Gurth with an added _sauce-piquante_ from Dean +Trench. We admit that we allude to that original composition of English +past and present from a Latin and a Teutonic stock. But that is to us +not an ultimate, but a primal fact. It is the premise from which we +propose to trace out the principle now living and working in our present +speech. We commence our history with that strife of the tongues which +had at the outset also their battle of Hastings, their field of Sanilac. +There began the feud which to-day continues to divide our language, +though the descendants of the primitive stocks are inextricably mingled. + +For it is as in "Sibyl." That novel showed us the peer's descendants at +the workman's forge, while the manufacturer's grandchildren were wearing +the ermine and the strawberry-leaves. There is the constant passing to +and fro across the one border-line which never changes. Dandy Mick and +Devilsdust save a little money and become "respectable." We can follow +out their history after Mr. Disraeli leaves them. They marry Harriet and +Caroline, and contrive to educate a sharp boy or two, who will rise to +become superintendents in the mills and to speculate in cotton-spinning. +They in turn send into trade, with far greater advantages, their sons. +The new generation, still educating, and, faithful to the original +impulse, putting forth its fresh and aspiring tendrils, gets one boy +into the church, another at the bar, and keeps a third at the great +_Rouge-et-Noir_ table of commerce. Some one of their stakes has a run of +luck. Either it is my Lord Eldon who sits on the wool-sack, or the young +curate bids his Oxford laurels against a head-mastership of a public +school and covers his baldness with a mitre, or Jones Lloyd steps from +his back parlor into the carriage which is to take Lord Overstone to the +House of Peers. From the day when young Osborne, the bold London +'prentice, leaped into the Thames to fish up thence his master's +daughter, and brought back, not only the little lady, but the ducal +coronet of Leeds in prospective, to that when Thomas Newcome the elder +walked up to the same London that he might earn the "bloody hand" for +Sir Brian and Sir Barnes, English life has been full of such gallant +achievements. + +So it has been with the words these speak. The phrases of the noble +Canon Chaucer have fallen to the lips of peasants and grooms, while many +a pert Cockney saying has elbowed its sturdy way into her Majesty's High +Court of Parliament. Yet still there are two tongues flowing through our +daily talk and writing, like the Missouri and Mississippi, with distinct +and contrasted currents. + +And this appears the more strikingly in this country, where other +distinctions are lost. We have an aristocracy of language, whose +phrases, like the West-End men of "Sibyl," are effeminate, extravagant, +conventional, and prematurely worn-out. These words represent ideas +which are theirs only by courtesy and conservatism, like the law-terms +of the courts, or the "cant" of certain religious books. We have also a +plebeian tongue, whose words are racy, vigorous, and healthy, but which +men look askance at, when met in polite usage, in solemn literature, and +in sermons. Norman and Saxon are their relative positions, as in the old +time when "Ox" was for the serf who drove a-field the living animal, and +"Beef" for the baron who ate him; but their lineage is counter-crossed +by a hundred, nay, a thousand vicissitudes. + +With this aristocracy of speech we are all familiar. We do not mean with +the speech of our aristocracy, which is quite another thing, but that +which is held appropriate for "great occasions," for public parade, and +for pen, ink, and types. It is cherished where all aristocracies +flourish best,--in the "rural districts." There is a style and a class +of words and phrases belonging to country newspapers, and to the city +weeklies which have the largest bucolic circulation, which you detect in +the Congressional eloquence of the honorable member for the Fifteenth +District, Mass., and in the Common-School Reports of Boston Corner,--a +style and words that remind us of the country gentry whose titles date +back to the Plantagenets. They look so strangely beside the brisk, +dapper curtnesses in which metropolitan journals transact their daily +squabbles! We never write one of them out without an involuntary +addition of quotation-marks, as a New-Yorker puts to his introduction of +his verdant cousin the supplementary, "From the Jerseys." Their +etymological Herald's Office is kept by schoolmasters, and especially +schoolma'ams, or, in the true heraldic tongue, "Preceptresses of +Educational Seminaries." You may find them in Mr. Hobbs, Jr.'s, +celebrated tale of "The Bun-Baker of Cos-Cob," or in Bowline's thrilling +novelette of "Beauty and Booty, or The Black Buccaneer of the Bermudas." +They glitter in the train of "Napoleon and his Marshals," and look down +upon us from the heights of "The Sacred Mountains." + +Occasionally you will find them degraded from their high estate and +fallen among the riff-raff of slang. They become "seedy" words, stripped +of their old meaning, mere _chevaliers d'industrie_, yet with something +of the air noble about them which distinguishes them from the born +"cad." The word "convey" once suffered such eclipse, (we are glad to say +it has come up again,) and consorted, unless Falstaff be mistaken, with +such low blackguards as "nim" and "cog" and "prig" and similar +"flash" terms. + +But we do not propose to linger among the "upper-ten" of the +dictionaries. The wont of such is to follow the law of hereditary +aristocracies: the old blood gets thin, there is no sparkle to the +_sangre azul_, the language dies out in poverty. The strong, new, +popular word forces its way up, is heard at the bar, gets quoted in the +pulpit, slips into the outer ring of good society. King Irving or King +Emerson lays his pen across its shoulder and it rises up ennobled, till +finally it is accepted of the "Atlantic Monthly," and its +court-presentation is complete. + +We have thus indicated the nature of the great contest in language +between the conventional and the idiomatic. Idioms are just what their +name implies. They are the commonalty of language,--private, proletarian +words, who do the work, "_dum alteri tulerunt honores_." They come to us +from all handiworks and callings, where you will always find them at +their posts. Sharp, energetic, incisive, they do the hard labor of +speech,--that of carrying heavy loads of thought and shaping new ideas. + +We think them vulgar at first, and savoring of the shop; but they are +useful and handy, and we cannot do without them. They rivet, they forge, +they coin, they "fire up," "brake up," "switch off," "prospect," "shin" +for us when we are "short," "post up" our books, and finally ourselves, +"strike a lead," "follow a trail," "stand up to the rack," "dicker," +"swap," and "peddle." They are "whole teams" beside the "one-horse" +vapidities which fail to bear our burdens. The Norman cannot keep down +the Saxon. The Saxon finds his Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Now "Mose" brings +his Bowery Boys into our parlor, or Cromwell Judd recruits his Ironsides +from the hamlets of the Kennebec. + +We declare for the prolétaires. We vote the working-words ticket. We +have to plead the cause of American idioms. Some of them have, as we +said, good blood in them and can trace their lineage and standing to the +English Bible and Book of Common Prayer; others are "new men," born +under hedge-rows and left as foundlings at furnace-doors. And before we +go farther, we have a brief story to tell in illustration of the +two tongues. + +A case of assault and battery was tried in a Western court. The +plaintiff's counsel informed the jury in his opening, that he was +"prepared to prove that the defendant, a steamboat-captain, menaced his +client, an English traveller, and put him in bodily fear, commanding him +to vacate the avenue of the steamboat with his baggage, or he would +precipitate him into the river." The evidence showed that the captain +called out,--"Stranger, ef you don't tote your plunder off that +gang-plank, I'll spill you in the drink." + +We submit that for terseness and vigor the practitioner at the bar of +the Ohio had the better of the learned counsel who appeared at the bar +of justice, albeit his client was in a Cockney mystification at +the address. + +The illustration will serve our turn. It points to a class of phrases +which are indigenous to various localities of the land, in which the +native thought finds appropriate, bold, and picturesque utterance. And +these in time become incorporate into the universal tongue. Of them is +the large family of political phrases. These are coined in moments of +intense excitement, struck out at white heat, or, to follow our leading +metaphor, like the speakers who use them, come upon the stump in their +shirt-sleeves. Every campaign gives us a new horde. Some die out at +once; others felicitously tickle the public ear and ring far and wide. +They "speak for Buncombe," are Barn-Burners, Old Hunkers, Hard Shells, +Soft Shells, Log-Rollers, Pipe-Layers, Woolly Heads, Silver Grays, +Locofocos, Fire-Eaters, Adamantines, Free Soilers, Freedom Shriekers, +Border Ruffians. They spring from a bon-mot or a retort. The log-cabin +and hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the +Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers +may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious +arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, to transfer the balance of +power to his own party. One of his opponents, poring over the map of the +Commonwealth, was struck by the odd look of the geographical lines +which thus were drawn, curving in and out among the towns and counties. +"It looks," said he, "like a Salamander." "Looks like a _Gerry_-mander!" +ejaculated another; and the term stuck long and closely. + +Now and then you have the aristocratic and democratic sides of an idea +in use at the same time. Those who style themselves "Gentlemen of the +Press" are known to the rest of mankind as "Dead Heads,"--being, for +paying purposes, literally, _capita mortua_. + +So, too, our colleges are provided, over and above the various dead +languages of their classic curriculum, with the two tongues. The one +serves the young gentlemen, especially in their Sophomoric maturity, +with appropriate expressions for their literary exercises and public +flights. The other is for their common talk, tells who "flunked" and was +"deaded," who "fished" with the tutor, who "cut" prayers, and who was +"digging" at home. Each college, from imperial Harvard and lordly Yale +to the freshest Western "Institution," whose three professors fondly +cultivate the same number of aspiring Alumni, has its particular dialect +with its quadrennial changes. The just budded Freshmen of the class of +'64 could hardly without help decipher "The Rebelliad," which in the +Consulship of Plancus Kirkland was the epic of the day. The good old +gentlemen who come up to eat Commencement dinners and to sing with +quavery voices the annual psalm thereafter, are bewildered in the mazes +of the college-speech of their grandsons. Whence come these phrases few +can tell. Like witty Dr. S------'s "quotation," which never was +anything else, they started in life as sayings, springing full-grown, +like Pallas Athene, from the laboring brain of some Olympic Sophister. +Here in the quiet of our study in the country, we wonder if the boys +continue as in our day to "create a shout," instead of "making a call," +upon their lady acquaintances,--if they still use "ponies,"--if they +"group," and get, as we did, "parietals" and "publics" for the same. + +The police courts contribute their quota. Baggage-smashing, +dog-smudging, ring-dropping, watch-stuffing, the patent-safe men, the +confidence men, garroters, shysters, policy-dealers, mock-auction Peter +Funks, bogus-ticket swindlers, are all terms which have more or less +outgrown the bounds of their Alsatia of Thieves' Latin and are known +of men. + +Even the pulpit, with its staid decorums, has its idioms, which it +cannot quite keep to itself. We hear in the religious world of +"professors," and "monthly concerts," (which mean praying, and not +psalmody,) of "sensation-preaching," (which takes the place of the +"painful" preaching of old times,) of "platform-speakers," of +"revival-preachers," of "broad pulpits," and "Churches of the Future," +of the "Eclipse of Faith" and the "Suspense of Faith," of "liberal" +Christians, (with no reference to the contribution-plates,) of +"subjective" and "objective" sermons, "Spurgeonisms," and "businessmen's +meetings." And we can never think without a smile of that gifted genius, +whoever he was, who described a certain public exercise as _"the most +eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience."_ He surely created +a new and striking idiom. + +The boys do, as Young America should, their share. And the sayings of +street urchins endure with singular tenacity. Like their sports, which +follow laws of their own, uninfluenced by meteorological considerations, +tending to the sedentary games of marbles in the cold, chilly spring, +and bursting into base-and foot-ball in the midsummer solstice, strict +tradition hands down from boy to boy the well-worn talk. There are still +"busters," as in our young days, and the ardent youth upon floating +cakes of ice "run bendolas" or "kittly-benders," or simply "benders." In +different latitudes the phrase varies,--one-half of it going to Plymouth +Colony, and the other abiding in Massachusetts Bay. And this tendency to +dismember a word is curiously shown in that savory fish which the +Indian christened "scup-paug." Eastward he swims as "scup," while at the +Manhattan end of the Sound he is fried as "porgie." And apropos of him, +let us note a curious instance of the tenacity of associated ideas. The +street boys of our day and early home were wont to term the _hetairai_ +of the public walks "scup." The young Athenians applied to the classic +courtesans the epithet of [Greek: saperdion], the name of a small fish +very abundant in the Black Sea. Here now is a bit of slang which may +fairly be warranted to keep fresh in any climate. + +But boy-talk is always lively and pointed; not at all precise, but very +prone to prosopopeia; ever breaking out of the bounds of legitimate +speech to invent new terms of its own. Dr. Busby addresses Brown, Jr., +as Brown Secundus, and speaks to him of his "young companions." Brown +himself talks of "the chaps," or "the fellows," who in turn know Brown +only as Tom Thumb. The power of nicknaming is a school-boy gift, which +no discouragement of parents and guardians can crush out, and which +displays thoroughly the idiomatic faculty. For a man's name was once +_his_, the distinctive mark by which the world got at his identity. +Long, Short, White, Black, Greathead, Longshanks, etc., told what a +person in the eyes of men the owner presented. The hereditary or +aristocratic process has killed this entirely. Men no longer make their +names; even the poor foundlings, like Oliver Twist, are christened +alphabetically by some Bumble the Beadle. But the nickname restores his +lost rights, and takes the man at once out of the _ignoble vulgus_ to +give him identity. We recognize this gift and are proud of our +nicknames, when we can get them to suit us. Only the sharp judgment of +our peers reverses our own heraldry and sticks a surname like a burr +upon us. The nickname is the idiom of nomenclature. The sponsorial +appellation is generally meaningless, fished piously out of Scripture or +profanely out of plays and novels, or given with an eye to future +legacies, or for some equally insufficient reason apart from the name +itself. So that the gentleman who named his children One, Two, and +Three, was only reducing to its lowest term the prevailing practice. But +the nickname abides. It has its hold in affection. When the "old boys" +come together in Gore Hall at their semi-centennial Commencement, or the +"Puds" or "Pores" get together after long absence, it is not to inquire +what has become of the Rev. Dr. Heavysterne or his Honor Littleton Coke, +but it is, "Who knows where Hockey Jones is?" and "Did Dandy Glover +really die in India?" and "Let us go and call upon Old Sykes" or "Old +Roots" or "Old Conic-Sections,"--thus meaning to designate +Professor----, LL.D., A.A.S., F.R.S., etc. A college president who had +no nickname would prove himself, _ipso facto_, unfit for his post. It is +only dreadfully affected people who talk of "Tully"; the sensible all +cling to the familiar "Chick-Pea" or Cicero, by which the wart-faced +orator was distinguished. For it is not the boys only, but all American +men, who love nicknames, the idioms of nomenclature. The first thing +which is done, after a nominating convention has made its platform and +balloted for its candidates, is to discover or invent a nickname: Old +Hickory, Tippecanoe, The Little Giant, The Little Magician, The Mill-Boy +of the Slashes, Honest John, Harry of the West, Black Dan, Old Buck, Old +Rough and Ready. A "good name" is a tower of strength and many votes. + +And not only with candidates for office, the spots on whose "white +garments" are eagerly sought for and labelled, but in the names of +places and classes the principle prevails, the democratic or Saxon +tongue gets the advantage. Thus, we have for our states, cities, and +ships-of-war the title of fondness which drives out the legal title of +ceremony. Are we not "Yankees" to the world, though to the diplomatists +"citizens of the United States of America"? We have a Union made up upon +the map of Maine, New Hampshire, etc., to California; we have another in +the newspapers, composed of the Lumber State, the Granite State, the +Green-Mountain State, the Nutmeg State, the Empire State, the Keystone +State, the Blue Hen, the Old Dominion, of Hoosiers, Crackers, Suckers, +Badgers, Wolverines, the Palmetto State, and Eldorado. We have the +Crescent City, the Quaker City, the Empire City, the Forest City, the +Monumental City, the City of Magnificent Distances. We hear of Old +Ironsides sent to the Mediterranean to relieve the Old Tea-Wagon, +ordered home. Everywhere there obtains the Papal principle of taking a +new title upon succeeding to any primacy. The Norman imposed his laws +upon England; the courts, the parish-registers, the Acts of Parliament +were all his; but to this day there are districts of the Saxon Island +where the postman and census-taker inquire in vain for Adam Smith and +Benjamin Brown, but must perforce seek out Bullhead and Bandyshins. So +indomitable is the Saxon. + +We have not done yet with our national idioms. In the seaboard towns +nautical phrases make tarry the talk of the people. "Where be you +a-cruising to?" asks one Nantucket matron of her gossip. "Sniver-dinner, +I'm going to Egypt; Seth B. has brought a letter from Turkey-wowner to +Old Nancy." "Dressed-to-death-and-drawers-empty, don't you see we're +goin' to have a squall? You had better take in your stu'n'-sails." The +good woman was dressed up, intending, "_as soon as ever_ dinner was +over," to go, not to the land of the Pharaohs, but to the negro-quarter +of the town, with a letter which "Seth B." (her son, thus identified by +his middle letter) had brought home from Talcahuana. + +For the rural idioms we refer the reader to the late Sylvester Judd's +"Margaret" and "Richard Edney," and to the Jack Downing Letters. + +The town is not behind the country. For, whatever is the current fancy, +pugilism, fire-companies, racing, railway-building, or the opera, its +idioms invade the talk. The Almighty Dollar of our worship has more +synonymes than the Roman Pantheon had divinities. We are not +"well-informed," but "posted" or "posted up." We are not "hospitably +entreated" any more, but "put through." We do not "meet with +misadventure," but "see the elephant," which we often do through the +Hibernian process of "fighting the tiger." + +Purists deplore this, but it is inevitable; and if one searches beneath +the surface, there is often a curious deposit of meaning, sometimes +auriferous enough to repay our use of cradle and rocker. We "panned +out," the other day, a phrase which gave us great delight, and which +illustrated a fact in New England history worth noting. We were puzzling +over the word "socdollager," which Bartlett, we think, defines as +"Anything very large and striking,"--_Anglicé_, a "whopper,"--"also a +peculiar fish-hook." The word first occurs in print, we believe, in Mr. +Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of +Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that +there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon +us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology." +This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or +"j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis, +both because its words were familiar to all without book, and because it +served instead of the chanted creed of their Anglican forefathers. The +last thing, after which nothing could properly follow, the most +important and most conspicuous of all, it represented to our Yankee +Walton the crowning hope of his life,--the big bass, after taking which +he might put hook-and-line on the shelf. By a slight transposition, +natural enough to untrained organs, "doxology" became "socdollager." + +We are not making a dictionary of Americanisms, but merely wandering a +little way into our native forests. We refer to the prevalent habit of +idiomatic speech as a fact that makes part of our literature. It cannot +be ignored, nor do we see how it is to be avoided. It is well, of +course, to retain the sterling classic basis of our speech as we +received it from abroad, and to this all that is best and purest in our +literature past and present will tend. But we hold to no Know-Nothing +platform which denies a right of naturalization to the worthy. As Ruskin +says of the river, that it does not make its bed, but finds it, seeking +out, with infinite pains, its appointed channel, so thought will seek +its expression, guided by its inner laws of association and sympathy. If +the mind and heart of a nation become barbarized, no classic culture can +keep its language from corruption. If its ideas are ignoble, it will +turn to the ignoble and vulgar side of every word in its tongue, it will +affix the mean sense it desires to utter where it had of old no place. +It converts the prince's palace into a stable or an inn; it pulls down +the cathedral and the abbey to use the materials for the roads on which +it tramples. It is good to sanctify language by setting some of its +portions apart for holy uses,--at least, by preserving intact the high +religious association which rests upon it. The same silver may be +moulded to the altar-chalice or the Bacchic goblet; but we touch the one +with reverent and clean hands, while the other is tossed aside in the +madness of the revel. Men clamor for a new version of the Sacred +Scriptures, and profess to be shocked at its plain outspokenness, +forgetting that to the pure all things are pure, and that to the +prurient all things are foul. It was a reverent and a worshipping age +that gave us that treasure, and so long as we have the temper of +reverence and worship we shall not ask to change it. + +And to return once more to our original illustration. We have the two +nations also in us, the Norman and the Saxon, the dominant and the +aspiring, the patrician and the _prolétaire_. The one rules only by +right of rule, the other rises only by right of rising. The power of +conservatism perishes, when there is no longer anything to keep; the +might of radicalism overflows into excess, when the proper check is +taken away or degraded. So long as the noble is noble and "_noblesse +oblige_," so long as Church and State are true to their guiding and +governing duties, the elevation of the base is the elevation of the +whole. If the standards of what is truly aristocratic in our language +are standards of nobility of thought, they will endure and draw up to +them, on to the episcopal thrones and into the Upper House of letters, +all that is most worthy. Whatever makes the nation's life will make its +speech. War was once the career of the Norman, and he set the seal of +its language upon poetry. Agriculture was the Saxon's calling, and he +made literature a mirror of the life he led. We in this new land are +born to new heritages, and the terms of our new life must be used to +tell our story. The Herald's College gives precedence to the +Patent-Office, and the shepherd's pipe to the steam-whistle. And since +all literature which can live stands only upon the national speech, we +must look for our hopes of coming epics and immortal dramas to the +language of the land, to its idioms, in which its present soul abides +and breathes, and not to its classicalities, which are the empty shells +upon its barren sea-shore. + + + +MIDSUMMER AND MAY. + +[Continued.] + +II. + +When Miss Kent, the maternal great-aunt of Mr. Raleigh, devised her +property, the will might possibly have been set aside as that of a +monomaniac, but for the fact that he cared too little about anything to +go to law for it, and for the still more important fact that the +heirs-at-law were sufficiently numerous to ingulf the whole property and +leave no ripple to attest its submerged existence, had he done so; and +on deserting it, he was better pleased to enrich the playfellow of his +childhood than a host of unknown and unloved individuals. I cannot say +that he did not more than once regret what he had lost: he was not of a +self-denying nature, as we know; on the contrary, luxurious and +accustomed to all those delights of life generally to be procured only +through wealth. But, for all that, there had been intervals, ere his +thirteen years' exile ended, in which, so far from regret, he +experienced a certain joy at remembrance of this rough and rugged point +of time where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to one of action +and freedom and real life. He had been happy in reaching India before +his uncle's death, in applying his own clear understanding to the +intricate entanglements of the affairs before him, in rescuing his +uncle's commercial good name, and in securing thus for himself a +foothold on the ladder of life, although that step had not occurred to +him till thrust there by the pressure of circumstances. For the rest, I +am not sure that Mr. Raleigh did not find his path suiting him well +enough. There was no longer any charm in home; he was forbidden to think +of it. That strange summer, that had flashed into his life like the +gleam of a carnival-torch into quiet rooms, must be forgotten; the forms +that had peopled it, in his determination, should become shadows. +Valiant vows! Yet there must have come moments, in that long lapse of +days and years, when the whole season gathered up its garments and swept +imperiously through his memory: nights, when, under the shadow of the +Himmaleh, the old passion rose at spring-tide and flooded his heart and +drowned out forgetfulness, and a longing asserted itself, that, if +checked as instantly by honor as despair, was none the less insufferable +and full of pain,--warm, wide, Southern nights, when all the stars, +great and golden, leaned out of heaven to meet him, and all ripe +perfumes, wafted by their own principle of motion, floated in the rich +dusk and laden air about him, and the phantom of snow on topmost heights +sought vainly to lend him its calm. Days also must have showered their +fervid sunshine on him, as he journeyed through plains of rice, where +all the broad reaches whitening to harvest filled him with intense and +bitterest loneliness. What region of spice did not recall the noons when +they two had trampled the sweet-fern on wide, high New England pastures, +and breathed its intoxicating fragrance? and what forest of the tropics, +what palms, what blooms, what gorgeous affluence of color and of growth, +equalled the wood on the lake-shores, with its stately hemlocks, its +joyous birches, its pale-blue, shadow-blanched violets? Nor was this +regret, that had at last become a part of the man's identity, entirely a +selfish one. He had no authority whatever for his belief, yet believe he +did, that, firmly and tenderly as he loved, he was loved, and of the two +fates his was not the harder. But a man, a man, too, in the stir of the +world, has not the time for brooding over the untoward events of his +destiny that a woman has; his tender memories are forever jostled by +cent. per cent.; he meets too many faces to keep the one in constant and +unchanging perpetuity sacredly before his thought. And so it happened +that Mr. Raleigh became at last a silent, keen-eyed man, with the shadow +of old and enduring melancholy on his life, but with no certain +sorrow there. + +In the course of time his business-connections extended themselves; he +was associated with other men more intent than he upon their aim; +although not wealthy, years might make him so; his name commanded +respect. Something of his old indifference lingered about him; it was +seldom that he was in earnest; he drifted with the tide, and, except to +maintain a clear integrity before God and men and his own soul, exerted +scarcely an effort. It was not an easy thing for him to break up any +manner of life; and when it became necessary for one of the firm to +visit America, and he as the most suitable was selected, he assented to +the proposition with not a heart-beat. America was as flat a wilderness +to him as the Desert of Sahara. On landing in India, he had felt like a +semi-conscious sleeper in his dream, the country seemed one of +phantasms: the Lascars swarming in the port,--the merchants wrapped in +snowy muslins, who moved like white-robed bronzes faintly animate,--the +strange faces, modes, and manners,--the stranger beasts, immense, and +alien to his remembrance; all objects that crossed his vision had seemed +like a series of fantastic shows; he could have imagined them to be the +creations of a heated fancy or the weird deceits of some subtle draught +of magic. But now they had become more his life than the scenes which he +had left; this land with its heats and its languors had slowly and +passively endeared itself to him; these perpetual summers, the balms and +blisses of the South, had unconsciously become a need of his nature. One +day all was ready for his departure; and in the clipper ship Osprey, +with a cargo for Day, Knight, and Company, Mr. Raleigh bade farewell +to India. + +The Osprey was a swift sailer and handled with consummate skill, so that +I shall not venture to say in how few days she had weathered the Cape, +and, ploughing up the Atlantic, had passed the Windward Islands, and off +the latter had encountered one of the severest gales in Captain +Tarbell's remembrance, although he was not new to shipwreck. If Mr. +Raleigh had found no time for reflection in the busy current of affairs, +when, ceasing to stand aside, he had mingled in the turmoil and become a +part of the generations of men, he could not fail to find it in this +voyage, not brief at best, and of which every day's progress must assure +him anew toward what land and what people he was hastening. Moreover, +Fate had woven his lot, it seemed, inextricably among those whom he +would shun; for Mr. Laudersdale himself was deeply interested in the +Osprey's freight, and it would be incumbent upon him to extend his +civilities to Mr. Raleigh. But Mr. Raleigh was not one to be cozened by +circumstances more than by men. + +The severity of the gale, which they had met some three days since, had +entirely abated; the ship was laid to while the slight damage sustained +was undergoing repair, and rocked heavily under the gray sky on the +long, sullen swell and roll of the grayer waters. Mr. Raleigh had just +come upon deck at dawn, where he found every one in unaccountable +commotion. "Ship to leeward in distress," was all the answer his +inquiries could obtain, while the man on the topmast was making his +observations. Mr. Raleigh could see nothing, but every now and then the +boom of a gun came faintly over the distance. The report having been +made, it was judged expedient to lower a boat and render her such +assistance as was possible. Mr. Raleigh never could tell how it came to +pass that he found himself one of the volunteers in this +dangerous service. + +The disabled vessel proved to be a schooner from the West Indies in a +sinking condition. A few moments sufficed to relieve a portion of her +passengers, sad wretches who for two days had stared death in the face, +and they pulled back toward the Osprey. A second and third journey +across the waste, and the remaining men prepared to lower the last woman +into the boat, when a stout, but extremely pale individual, who could no +longer contain his frenzy of fear, clambered down the chains and dropped +in her place. There was no time to be lost, and nothing to do but +submit; the woman was withdrawn to wait her turn with the captain and +crew, and the laden boat again labored back to the ship. Each trip in +the heavy sea and the blinding rain occupied no less than a couple of +hours, and it was past noon when, uncertain just before if she might yet +be there, they again came within sight of the little schooner, slowly +and less slowly settling to her doom. As they approached her at last, +Mr. Raleigh could plainly detect the young woman standing at a little +distance from the anxious group, leaning against the broken mast with +crossed arms, and looking out over the weary stretch with pale, grave +face and quiet eyes. At the motion of the captain, she stepped forward, +bound the ropes about herself, and was swung over the side to await the +motion of the boat, as it slid within reach on the top of the long wave, +or receded down its shining, slippery hollow. At length one swell brought +it nearer, Mr. Raleigh's arms snatched the slight form and drew her +half-fainting into the boat, a cloak was tossed after, and one by one +the remainder followed; they were all safe, and some beggared. The bows +of the schooner already plunged deep down in the gaping gulfs, they +pulled bravely away, and were tossed along from billow to billow. + +"You are very uncomfortable, Mademoiselle Le Blanc?" asked the rescued +captain at once of the young woman, as she sat beside him in the +stern-sheets. + +"_Moi?_" she replied. "_Mais non, Monsieur._" + +Mr. Raleigh wrapped the cloak about her, as she spoke. They were +equidistant from the two vessels, neither of which was to be seen, the +rain fell fast into the hissing brine, their fate still uncertain. There +was something strangely captivating and reassuring in this young girl's +equanimity, and he did not cease speculating thereon till they had again +reached the Osprey, and she had disappeared below. + +By degrees the weather lightened; the Osprey was on the wing again, and +a week's continuance of this fair wind would bring them into port. The +next day, toward sunset, as Mr. Raleigh turned about in his regular +pacing of the deck, he saw at the opposite extremity of the ship the +same slight figure dangerously perched upon the taffrail, leaning over, +now watching the closing water, and now eagerly shading her eyes with +her hand to observe the ship which they spoke, as they lay head to the +wind, and for a better view of which she had climbed to this position. +It was not Mr. Raleigh's custom to interfere; if people chose to drown +themselves, he was not the man to gainsay them; but now, as his walk +drew him toward her, it was the most natural thing in the world to pause +and say,-- + +"_Il serait fâcheux, Mademoiselle, lorsqu' on a failli faire naufrage, +de se noyer_"--and, in want of a word, Mr. Raleigh ignominiously +descended to his vernacular--"with a lee-lurch." + +The girl, resting on the palm of one hand, and unsupported otherwise, +bestowed upon him no reply, and did not turn her head. Mr. Raleigh +looked at her a moment, and then continued his walk. Returning, the +thing happened as he had predicted, and, with a little quick cry, +Mademoiselle Le Blanc was hanging by her hands among the ropes. Reaching +her with a spring, "_Viens, petite!_" he said, and with an effort placed +her on her feet again before an alarm could have been given. + +"_Ah! mais je crus c'en était fait de moi!_" she exclaimed, drawing in +her breath like a sob. In an instant, however, surveying Mr. Raleigh, +the slight emotion seemed to yield to one of irritation, that she had +been rescued by him; for she murmured quickly, in English, head +haughtily thrown back and eyes downcast,--"Monsieur thinks that I owe +him much for having saved my life!" + +"Mademoiselle best knows its worth," said he, rather amused, and turning +away. + +The girl was still looking down; now, however, she threw after him a +quick glance. + +"_Tenez!_" said she, imperiously, and stepping toward him. "You fancy me +very ungrateful," she continued, lifting her slender hand, and with the +back of it brushing away the floating hair at her temples. "Well, I am +not, and at some time it may be that I prove it. I do not like to owe +debts; but, since I must, I will not try to cancel them with thanks." + +Mr. Raleigh bowed, but said nothing. She seemed to think it necessary to +efface any unpleasant impression, and, with a little more animation and +a smile, added,--"The Captain Tarbell told me your name, Mr. Raleigh, +and that you had not been at home for thirteen years. _Ni moi non +plus_,--at least, I suppose it is home where I am going; yet I remember +no other than the island and my"-- + +And here the girl opened her eyes wide, as if determined that they +should not fill with tears, and looked out over the blue and sparkling +fields around them. There was a piquancy in her accent that made the +hearer wish to hear further, and a certain artlessness in her manner not +met with recently by him. He moved forward, keeping her beside him. + +"Then you are not French," he said. + +"I? Oh, no,--nor Creole. I was born in America; but I have always lived +with mamma on the plantation; _et maintenant, il y a six mois qu'elle +est morte!_" + +Here she looked away again. Mr. Raleigh's glance followed hers, and, +returning, she met it bent kindly and with a certain grave interest upon +her. She appeared to feel reassured, somewhat protected by one so much +her elder. + +"I am going now to my father," she said, "and to my other mother." + +"A second marriage," thought Mr. Raleigh, "and before the orphan's +crapes are"--Then, fearful lest she should read his thought, he +added,--"And how do you speak such perfect English?" + +"Oh, my father came to see us every other year, and I have written home +twice a week since I was a little child. Mamma, too, spoke as much +English as French." + +"I have not been in America for a long time," said Mr. Raleigh, after a +few steps. "But I do not doubt that you will find enjoyment there. It +will be new: womanhood will have little like youth for you; but, in +every event, it is well to add to our experience, you know." + +"What is it like, Sir? But I know! Rows of houses, very counterparts of +rows of houses, and they of rows of houses yet beyond. Just the +toy-villages in boxes, uniform as graves and ugly as bricks"-- + +"Brick houses are not such ugly things. I remember one, low and wide, +possessed of countless gables, covered with vines and shaded with +sycamores; it could not have been so picturesque, if built of the marble +of Paros, and gleaming temple-white through masks of verdure." + +"It seems to me that I, too, remember such a one," said she, dreamily. +"_Mais non, je m'y perds_. Yet, for all that, I shall not find the New +York avenues lined with them." + +"No; the houses there are palaces." + +"I suppose, then, I am to live in a palace," she answered, with a light +tinkling laugh. "That is fine; but one may miss the verandas, all the +whiteness and coolness. How one must feel the roof!" + +"Roofs should be screens, and not prisons, not shells, you think?" said +Mr. Raleigh. + +"At home," she replied, "our houses are, so to say, parasols; in those +cities they must be iron shrouds. _Ainsi soit il!_" she added, and +shrugged her shoulders like a little fatalist. + +"You must not take it with such desperation; perhaps you will not be +obliged to wear the shroud." + +"Not long, to be sure, at first. We go to freeze in the country, a place +with distant hills of blue ice, my old nurse told me,--old Ursule. Oh, +Sir, she was drowned! I saw the very wave that swept her off!" + +"That was your servant?" + +"Yes." + +"Then, perhaps, I have some good news for you. She was tall and large?" + +"_Oui_." + +"Her name was Ursule?" + +"_Oui! je dis que oui!_" + +Mr. Raleigh laughed at her eagerness. "She is below, then," he +said,--"not drowned. There is Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds, will you take this +young lady to her servant, Ursule, the woman you rescued?" + +And Mademoiselle Le Blanc disappeared under that gentleman's escort. + +The ordinary restraints of social life not obtaining so much on board +ship as elsewhere, Mr. Raleigh saw his acquaintance with the pale young +stranger fast ripening into friendliness. It was an agreeable variation +from the monotonous routine of his voyage, and he felt that it was not +unpleasant to her. Indeed, with that childlike simplicity that was her +first characteristic, she never saw him without seeking him, and every +morning and every evening it became their habit to pace the deck +together. Sunrise and twilight began to be the hours with which he +associated her; and it was strange, that, coming, as she did, out of the +full blaze of tropical suns, she yet seemed a creature that had taken +life from the fresh, cool, dewy hours, and that must fairly dissolve +beneath the sky of noon. She puzzled him, too, and he found singular +contradictions in her: to-night, sweetness itself,--to-morrow, petulant +as a spoiled child. She had all a child's curiosity, too; and he amused +himself by seeing, at one time, with what novelty his adventures struck +her, when, at another, he would have fancied she had always held Taj and +Himmaleh in her garden. Now and then, excited, perhaps, by emulation and +wonder, her natural joyousness broke through the usually sad and quiet +demeanor; and she related to him, with dramatic _abandon_, scenes of her +gay and innocent island-life, so that he fancied there was not an +emotion in her experience hidden from his knowledge, till, all-unaware, +he tripped over one reserve and another, that made her, for the moment, +as mysterious a being as any of those court-ladies of ancient _régimes_, +in whose lives there were strange _lacunae_, and spaces of shadow. And a +peculiarity of their intercourse was, that, let her depart in what freak +or perversity she pleased, she seemed always to have a certainty of +finding him in the same mood in which she had left him,--as some bright +wayward vine of Southern forests puts out a tendril to this or that +enticing point, yet, winding back, will find its first support +unchanged. Shut out, as Mr. Raleigh had been, from any but the most +casual female society, he found a great charm in this familiarity, and, +without thinking how lately it had begun or how soon it must cease, he +yielded himself to its presence. At one hour she seemed to him an +impetuous and capricious thing, for whose better protection the accident +of his companionship was extremely fortunate,--at another hour, a woman +too strangely sweet to part with; and then Mr. Raleigh remembered that +in all his years he had really known but two women, and one of these had +not spent a week in his memory. + +Mademoiselle Le Blanc came on deck, one evening, and, wrapping a soft, +thick mantle round her, looked about for a minute, shaded her eyes from +the sunset, meantime, with a slender, transparent hand, bowed to one, +spoke to another, slipped forward and joined Mr. Raleigh, where he +leaned over the ship's side. + +"_Voici ma capote!_" said she, before he was aware of her approach. +"_Ciel! qu'il fait frais!_" + +"We have changed our skies," said Mr. Raleigh, looking up. + +"It is not necessary that you should tell me that!" she replied. "I +shiver all the time. I shall become a little iceberg, for the sake of +floating down to melt off Martinique!" + +"Warm yourself now in the sunset; such a blaze was kindled for the +purpose." + +"Whenever I see a sunset, I find it to be a splendid fact, _une +jouissance vraie, Monsieur_, to think that men can paint,--that these +shades, which are spontaneous in the heavens, and fleeting, can be +rivalled by us and made permanent,--that man is more potent than light." + +"But you are all wrong in your _jouissance_." + +She pouted her lip, and hung over the side in an attitude that it seemed +he had seen a hundred times before. + +"That sunset, with all its breadth and splendor, is contained in every +pencil of light." + +She glanced up and laughed. + +"Oh, yes! a part of its possibilities. Which proves?"-- + +"That color is an attribute of light and an achievement of man." + + "Cà et là, + Toute la journée, + Le vent vain va + En sa tournée," + +hummed the girl, with a careless dismissal of the subject. + +Mr. Raleigh shut up the note-book in which he had been writing, and +restored it to his pocket. She turned about and broke off her song. + +"There is the moon on the other side," she said, "floating up like a +great bubble of light. She and the sun are the scales of a balance, I +think; as one ascends, the other sinks." + +"There is a richness in the atmosphere, when sunset melts into moonrise, +that makes one fancy it enveloping the earth like the bloom on a plum." + +"And see how it has powdered the sea! The waters look like the wings of +the _papillon bleu_." + +"It seems that you love the sea." + +"Oh, certainly. I have thought that we islanders were like those Chinese +who live in great _tanka_-boats on the rivers; only our boat rides at +anchor. To climb up on the highest land, and see yourself girt with +fields of azure enamelled in sheets of sunshine and fleets of sails, and +lifted against the horizon, deep, crystalline, and translucent as a +gem,--that makes one feel strong in isolation, and produces keen races. +Don't you think so?" + +"I think that isolation causes either vivid characteristics or idiocy, +seldom strong or healthy ones; and I do not value race." + +"Because you came from America!"--with an air of disgust,--"where there +is yet no race, and the population is still too fluctuating for the +mould of one." + +"I come from India, where, if anywhere, there is race." + +"But, pshaw! that was not what we were talking about." + +"No, Mademoiselle, we were speaking of an element even more fluctuating +than American population." + +"Of course I love the sea; but if the sea loves me, it is the way a cat +loves the mouse." + +"It is always putting up a hand to snatch you?" + +"I suppose I am sent to Nineveh and persist in shipping for Tarshish. I +never enter a boat without an accident. The Belle Voyageuse met +shipwreck, and I on board. That was anticipated, though, by all the +world; for the night before we set sail,--it was a very murk, hot night, +--we were all called out to see the likeness of a large merchantman +transfigured in flames upon the sky,--spars and ropes and hull one net +and glare of fire." + +"A mirage, probably, from some burning ship at sea." + +"No, I would rather think it supernatural. Oh, it was frightful! Rather +superb, though, to think of such a spectral craft rising to warn us with +ghostly flames that the old Belle Voyageuse was riddled with rats!" + +"Did it burn blue?" asked Mr. Raleigh. + +"Oh, if you're going to make fun of me, I'll tell you nothing more!" + +As she spoke, Capua, who had considered himself, during the many years +of wandering, both guiding and folding star to his master, came up, with +his eyes rolling fearfully in a lively expansion of countenance, and +muttered a few words in Mr. Raleigh's ear, lifting both hands in comical +consternation the while. + +"Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Raleigh, following him, and, meeting +Captain Tarbell at the companion-way, the three descended together. + +Mr. Raleigh was absent some fifteen minutes, at the end of that time +rejoining Mademoiselle Le Blanc. + +"I did not mean to make fun of you," said he, resuming the conversation +as if there had been no interruption. "I was watching the foam the +Osprey makes in her speed, which certainly burns blue. See the flashing +sparks! now that all the red fades from the west, they glow in the moon +like broken amethysts." + +"What did you mean, then?" she asked, pettishly. + +"Oh, I wished to see if the idea of a burning ship was so terrifying." + +"Terrifying? No; I have no fear; I never was afraid. But it must, in +reality, be dreadful. I cannot think of anything else so appalling." + +"Not at all timid?" + +"Mamma used to say, those that know nothing fear nothing." + +"Eminently your case. Then you cannot imagine a situation in which you +would lose self-possession?" + +"Scarcely. Isn't it people of the finest organization, comprehensive, +large-souled, that are capable of the extremes either of courage or +fear? Now I am limited, so that, without rash daring or pale panic, I +can generally preserve equilibrium." + +"How do you know all this of yourself?" he asked, with an amused air. + +"_Il se présentait des occasions_," she replied, briefly. + +"So I presumed," said he. "Ah? They have thrown out the log. See, we +make progress. If this breeze holds!" + +"You are impatient, Mr. Raleigh. You have dear friends at home, whom you +wish to see, who wish to see you?" + +"No," he replied, with a certain bitterness in his tone. "There is no +one to whom I hasten, no one who waits to receive me." + +"No one? But that is terrible! Then why should you wish to hasten? For +me, I would always be willing to loiter along, to postpone home +indefinitely." + +"That is very generous, Mademoiselle." + +"Mr. Raleigh"-- + +"Well?" + +"I wish--please--you must not say Mademoiselle. Nobody will address me +so, shortly. Give me my name,--call me Marguerite. _Je vous en prie_." + +And she looked up with a blush deepening the apple-bloom of her cheek. + +"Marguerite? Does it answer for pearl or for daisy with you?" + +"Oh, they called me so because I was such a little round white baby. I +couldn't have been very precious, though, or she never would have parted +with me. Yes, I wish we might drift on some lazy current for years. I +hate to shorten the distance. I stand in awe of my father, and I do not +remember my mother." + +"Do not remember?" + +"She is so perfect, so superb, so different from me! But she ought to +love her own child!" + +"Her own child?" + +"And then I do not know the customs of this strange land. Shall I be +obliged to keep an establishment?" + +"Keep an establishment?" + +"It is very rude to repeat my words so! You oughtn't! Yes, keep an +establishment!" + +"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle." + +"No, it is I who am rude." + +"Not at all,--but mysterious. I am quite in the dark concerning you." + +"Concerning me?" + +"Ah, Miss Marguerite, it is my turn now." + +"Oh! It must be----This is your mystery, _n'est ce pas?_ Mamma was my +grandmamma. My own mother was far too young when mamma gave her in +marriage; and, to make amends, mamma adopted me and left me her name and +her fortune. So that I am very wealthy. And now shall I keep an +establishment?" + +"I should think not," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile. + +"Do you know, you constantly reassure me? Home grows less and less a +bugbear when you speak of it. How strange! It seems as if I had known +you a year, instead of a week." + +"It would probably take that period of time to make us as well +acquainted under other circumstances." + +"I wish you were going to be with us always. Shall you stay in America, +Mr. Raleigh?" + +"Only till the fall. But I will leave you at your father's door"---- + +And then Mr. Raleigh ceased suddenly, as if he had promised an +impossibility. + +"How long before we reach New York?" she asked. + +"In about nine hours," he replied,--adding, in unconscious undertone, +"if ever." + +"What was that you said to yourself?" she asked, in a light and gayly +inquisitive voice, as she looked around and over the ship. "Why, how +many there are on deck! It is such a beautiful night, I suppose. Eh, +Mr. Raleigh?" + +"Are you not tired of your position?" he asked. "Sit down beside me +here." And he took a seat. + +"No, I would rather stand. Tell me what you said." + +"Sit, then, to please me, Marguerite, and I will tell you what I said." + +She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood of her capote, +with its rich purple, dropping from the fluttering yellow hair that the +moonlight deepened into gold, and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling +with her breath, like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still +warm and soft, with his own, which was icy. She withdrew it, turned her +eyes, whose fair, faint lustre, the pale forget-me-not blue, was +darkened by the antagonistic light to an amethystine shadow, +inquiringly upon him. + +"There is some danger," she murmured. + +"Yes. When you are not a mark for general observation, you shall hear +it." + +"I would rather hear it standing." + +"I told you the condition." + +"Then I shall go and ask Captain Tarbell." + +"And come sobbing back to me for 'reassurance.'" + +"No," she said, quickly, "I should go down to Ursule." + +"Ursule has a mattress on deck; I assisted her up." + +"There is the captain! Now"---- + +He seized her hand and drew her down beside him. For an instant she +would have resisted, as the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks +attested,--and then, with the instinctive feminine baseness that compels +every woman, when once she has met her master, she submitted. + +"I am sorry, if you are offended," said he. "But the captain cannot +attend to you now, and it is necessary to be guarded in movement; for a +slight thing on such occasions may produce a panic." + +"You should not have forced me to sit," said she, in a smothered voice, +without heeding him; "you had no right." + +"This right, that I assume the care of you." + +"Monsieur, you see that I am quite competent to the care of myself." + +"Marguerite, I see that you are determined to quarrel." + +She paused a moment, ere replying; then drew a little nearer and turned +her face toward him, though without looking up. + +"Forgive me, then!" said she. "But I would rather be naughty and +froward, it lets me stay a child, and so you can take me in keeping, and +I need not think for myself at all. But if I act like a woman grown, +then comes all the responsibility, and I must rely on myself, which is +such trouble now, though I never felt it so before,--I don't know why. +Don't you see?" And she glanced at him with her head on one side, and +laughing archly. + +"You were right," he replied, after surveying her a moment; "my +proffered protection is entirely superfluous." + +She thought he was about to go, and placed her hand on his, as it lay +along the side. "Don't leave me," she murmured. + +"I have no intention of leaving you," he said. + +"You are very good. I have never seen one like you. I love you well." +And, bathed in moonlight, she raised her face and her glowing lips +toward him. + +Mr. Raleigh gazed in the innocent eyes a moment, to seek the extent of +her meaning, and felt, that, should he take advantage of her childlike +forgetfulness, he would be only reënacting the part he had so much +condemned in one man years before. So he merely bent low over the hand +that lay in his, raised it, and touched his lips to that. In an instant +the color suffused her face, she snatched the hand away, half rose +trembling from her seat, then sank into it again. + +"_Soit, Monsieur!_" she exclaimed, abruptly. "But you have not told me +the danger." + +"It will not alarm you now?" he replied, laughing. + +"I have said that I am not a coward." + +"I wonder what you would think of me when I say that without doubt I +am." + +"You, Mr. Raleigh?" she cried, astonishment banishing anger. + +"Not that I betray myself. But I have felt the true heart-sinking. Once, +surprised in the centre of an insurrection, I expected to find my hair +white as snow, if I escaped." + +"Your hair is very black. And you escaped?" + +"So it would appear." + +"They suffered you to go on account of your terror? You feigned death? +You took flight?" + +"Hardly, neither." + +"Tell me about it," she said, imperiously. + +Though Mr. Raleigh had exchanged the singular reserve of his youth for a +well-bred reticence, he scarcely cared to be his own hero. + +"Tell me," said she. "It will shorten the time; and that is what you are +trying to do, you know." + +He laughed. + +"It was once when I was obliged to make an unpleasant journey into the +interior, and a detachment was placed at my service. We were in a +suspected district quite favorable to their designs, and the commanding +officer was attacked with illness in the night. Being called to his +assistance, I looked abroad and fancied things wore an unusual aspect +among the men, and sent Capua to steal down a covered path and see if +anything were wrong. Never at fault, he discovered a revolt, with intent +to murder my companion and myself, and retreat to the mountains. Of +course there was but one thing to do. I put a pistol in my belt and +walked down and in among them, singled out the ringleader, fixed him +with my eye, and bade him approach. My appearance was so sudden and +unsuspected that they forgot defiance." + +"_Bien_, but I thought you were afraid." + +"So I was. I could not have spoken a second word. I experienced intense +terror, and that, probably, gave my glance a concentration of which I +was unaware and by myself incapable; but I did not suffer it to waver; I +could not have moved it, indeed; I kept it on the man while he crept +slowly toward me. I shall never forget the horrible sensation. I did not +dare permit myself to doubt his conquest; but if I had failed, as I then +thought, his approach was like the slow coil of a serpent about me, and +it was his glittering eyes that had fixed mine, and not mine his. At my +feet, I commanded him, with a gesture, to disarm. He obeyed, and I +breathed; and one by one they followed his example. Capua, who was +behind me, I sent back with the weapons, and in the morning gave them +their choice of returning to town with their hands tied behind their +backs, or of going on with me and remaining faithful. They chose the +latter, did me good service, and I said nothing about the affair." + +"That was well. But were you really frightened?" + +"So I said. I cannot think of it yet without a slight shudder." + +"Yes, and a rehearsal. Your eyes charge bayonets now. I am not a Sepoy." + +"Well, you are still angry with me?" + +"How can I be angry with you?" + +"How, indeed? So much your senior that you owe me respect, Miss +Marguerite. I am quite old enough to be your father." + +"You are, Sir?" she replied, with surprise. "Why, are you fifty-five +years old?" + +"Is that Mr. Laudersdale's age?" + +"How did you know Mr. Laudersdale Was my father?" + +"By an arithmetical process. That is his age?" + +"Yes; and yours?" + +"Not exactly. I was thirty-seven last August." + +"And will be thirty-eight next?" + +"That is the logical deduction." + +"I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just twice my age." + +"By what courier will you make it reach me?" + +"Oh, I forgot. But--Mr. Raleigh?" "What is it?" he replied, turning to +look at her,--for his eyes had been wandering over the deck. + +"I thought you would ask me to write to you." + +"No, that would not be worth while." + +His face was too grave for her to feel indignation. + +"Why?" she demanded. + +"It would give me great pleasure, without doubt. But in a week you will +have too many other cares and duties to care for such a burden." + +"That shows that you do not know me at all. _Vous en avez usé mal avec +moi!_" + +Though Mr. Raleigh still looked at her, he did not reply. She rose and +walked away a few steps, coming back. + +"You are always in the right, and I consequently in the wrong," she +said. "How often to-night have I asked pardon? I will not put up +with it!" + +"We shall part in a few hours," he replied; "when you lose your temper, +I lose my time." + +"In a few hours? Then is the danger which you mentioned past?" + +"I scarcely think so." + +"Now I am not going to be diverted again. What is this dreadful danger?" + +"Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the +port before our situation becomes apparently worse,--that we do not take +to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the +Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several +other becauses,--that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the +captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape"---- + +"_Allez au hut!_" + +"That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of +excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail +into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal." + +"Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?" + +"Yes." + +She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite +faint. Soon recovering herself,-- + +"And what do you think of the mirage now?" she asked. "Where is Ursule? +I must go to her," she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting +to her feet. + +"Shall I accompany you?" + +"Oh, no." + +"She lies on a mattress there, behind that group,"--nodding in the +implied direction; "and it would be well, if you could lie beside her +and get an hour's rest." + +"Me? I couldn't sleep. I shall come back to you,--may I?" And she was +gone. + +Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had left him, when, a +half-hour afterward, she returned. + +"Where is your cloak?" he asked, rising to receive her. + +"I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly." + +"You will not take cold?" + +"I? I am on fire myself." + +"Ah, I see; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you." + +"It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not?--drifting on before +the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire and all red-hot raging +turbulence. Just look up the long sparkling length of these white, full +shrouds, swelling and curving like proud swans, in the gale,--and then +imagine the devouring monster below in his den!" + +"_Don't_ imagine it. Be quiet and sit beside me. Half the night is +gone." + +"I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driving forward to +destruction on fearful breakers, drank and sang and died madly. I wish +the whole ship's company would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or +that we might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance,--dance +wildly into death and daylight." + +"We have nothing to do with death," said Mr. Raleigh. "Our foe is simply +time. You dance, then?" + +"Oh, yes. I dance well,--like those white fluttering butterflies,--as if +I were _au gré du vent_." "That would not be dancing well." + +"It would not be dancing well to _be_ at the will of the wind, but it is +perfection to appear so." + +"The dance needs the expression of the dancer's will. It is breathing +sculpture. It is mimic life beyond all other arts." + +"Then well I love to dance. And I do dance well. Wait,--you shall see." + +He detained her. + +"Be still, little maid!" he said, and again drew her beside him, though +she still continued standing. + +At this moment the captain approached. + +"What cheer?" asked Mr. Raleigh. + +"No cheer," he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger-nails into his +palm. "The planks forward are already hot to the hand. I tremble at +every creak of cordage, lest the deck crash in and bury us all." + +"You have made the Sandy Hook light?" + +"Yes; too late to run her ashore." + +"You cannot try that at the Highlands?" + +"Certain death." + +"The wind scarcely"---- + +"Veered a point I am carrying all sail. But if this tooth of fire gnaws +below, you will soon see the masts go by the board. And then we are +lost, indeed!" + +"Courage! she will certainly hold together till you can hail the +pilots." + +"I think no one need tremble when he has such an instance of +fearlessness before him," replied the captain, bowing to Marguerite; and +turning away, he hid his suspense and pain again under a calm +countenance. + +Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had heard the whole of +the conversation, and he felt the hand in his growing colder as it +continued. He wondered if it were still the same excitement that sent +the alternate flush and pallor up her cheek. She sat down, leaning her +head back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and suffering +the light, fine hair to blow about her temples before the steady breeze. +He bent over to look into her eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless. + +"Marguerite!" he exclaimed. + +She tried to speak, but the teeth seemed to hinder the escape of her +words, and to break them into bits of sound; a shiver shook her from +head to foot. + +"I wonder if this is fear," she succeeded in saying. "Oh, if there were +somewhere to go, something to hide me! A great horror is upon me! I am +afraid! _Seigneur Dieu! Mourir par le feu! Périssons alors au plus +vite!_" And she shuddered, audibly. + +Mr. Raleigh passed his arm about her and gathered her closer to himself. +He saw at once, that, sensitive as she was to every impression, this +fear was a contagious one, a mere gregarian affinity, and that she +needed the preponderating warmth and strength of a protecting presence, +the influence of a fuller vitality. He did not speak, but his touch must +in some measure have counteracted the dread that oppressed her. She +ceased trembling, but did not move. + +The westering moon went to bury herself in banks of cloud; the wind +increasing piped and whistled in strident threatening through the +rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No +murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they +drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one +voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light +was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the +forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. +Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all the people. The +captain's voice thundered through the tumult, and instantly the mates +sprang forward and the jib went crashing overboard. Mr. Raleigh tore his +eyes away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them by chance +on two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with +intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with +hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting +prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat +at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into +file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if +possible, the flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed over +to Ursule. + +The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to the girl a +portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and +rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve +with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and +unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else +broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of +breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place +was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to +leave below the stings of the blistering deck. None waited on the order +of their going, but thronged and sprang precipitately. Ursule was at +once deposited in safety. The captain moved to conduct Marguerite +across, but she drew back and clung to Mr. Raleigh. + +"_J'ai honte_," she said; "_je ne bougerai pas plus tót que vous._" + +The breath of the fierce flames scorched her cheek as she spoke, the +wind of their roaring progress swept her hair. He lifted her over +without further consultation, and still kept her in his care. + +There was a strange atmosphere on board the little vessels, as they +labored about and parted from the doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with +awe and joy at their deliverance; others broke the tense strain of the +last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the panting engines they +answered with waiting heart-beats, as it sent them farther from the +fearful wonder, now blazing in multiplex lines of fire against the gray +horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration of +a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze with him. An hour +silently passed, and as the fiery phantom faded into dawn and distance +she sang sweetly the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another +voice took up the measure, stronger and clearer; those who knew nothing +of the words caught the spirit of the tune; and no choral service ever +pealed up temple-vaults with more earnest accord than that in which this +chant of grateful, exultant devotion now rose from rough-throated men +and weary women in the crisp air and yellowing spring-morning. + +As the moment of parting approached, Marguerite stood with folded hands +before Mr. Raleigh, looking sadly down the harbor. + +"I regret all that," she said,--"these days that seem years." + +"An equivocal phrase," he replied, with a smile. + +"But you know what I mean. I am going to strangers; I have been with +you. I shall find no one so kind to me as you have been, Monsieur." + +"Your strangers can be much kinder to you than I have been." + +"Never! I wish they did not exist! What do I care for them? What do they +care for me? They do not know me; I shall shock them. I miss you, I hate +them, already. _Non! Personne ne m'aime, et je n'aime personne!_" she +exclaimed, with low-toned vehemence. + +"Rite," began Mr. Raleigh. + +"Rite! No one but my mother ever called me that. How did you know it?" + +"I have met your mother, and I knew you a great many years ago." + +"Mr. Raleigh!" And there was the least possible shade of unconscious +regret in the voice before it added,--"And what was I?" + +"You were some little wood-spirit, the imp of a fallen cone, mayhap, or +the embodiment of birch-tree shadows. You were a soiled and naughty +little beauty, not so different from your present self, and who kissed +me on the lips." "And did you refuse to take the kiss?" + +He laughed. + +"You were a child then," he said. "And I was not"---- + +"Was not?"---- + +Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the shock prevented Mr. +Raleigh's finishing his sentence. + +"Ursule is with us, or on the other one?" she asked. + +"With us." + +"That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by which to prove my +identity." + +"As if there could be two such maidens in the world!" + +Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tarbell her address, and +returning, they were shortly afterward seated side by side in a coach, +Capua and Ursule following in another. As they stopped at the destined +door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She lingered a moment +ere taking it,--not to say adieu, nor to offer him cheek or lip again. + +"_Que je te remercie!_" she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "_Que je +te trouve bon!_" and sprang before him up the steps. + +He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined +them; he reëntered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall. + +The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's +business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally +lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and proceeded +at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he found that +affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had been +instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the +overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could +take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months +of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a +little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at +first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the +seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him. +Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him, +if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the +lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues +of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate +and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,-- + + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie, + brave Charlie! + + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine + wi' McLean!" + +Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best +to remain long in the city; he would be glad to know if sight of the old +scenes could renew a throb. He answered his letters, replenished his +wardrobe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. At noon +of the second day thereafter he found Mr. McLean's coach, with that +worthy gentleman in person, awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it +paused at the foot of his former garden, with a strange sense of the +world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error. + +Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him,--a face less round and rosy +than once, as the need of pink cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and +bright as youth. + +"The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the first greeting, +putting his hands on her shoulders and smiling down at her benevolently. + +"Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking her head. "I +expected this stain on your skin; but, dear me! your eyes look as if you +had not a friend in the world." + +"How can they look so, when you give me such a welcome?" + +"Dear old Roger, you _are_ just the same," said she, bestowing a little +caress upon his sleeve. "And if you remember the summer before you went +away, you will not find that pleasant company so very much changed +either." "I do not expect to find them at all." + +"Oh, then they will find you; because they are all here,--at least the +principals; some with different names, and some, like myself, with +duplicates,"--as a shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother +and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over rosy blushes. + +After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. Raleigh turned again +to Mrs. McLean. + +"And who are there here?" he asked. + +"There is Mrs. Purcell,--you remember Helen Heath? Poor Mrs. Purcell, +whom you knew, died, and her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary, +who is single and speechless yet; and Captain, now Colonel, Purcell +makes a very good silent partner. He is hunting in the West, on +furlough; she is here alone. There is Mrs. Heath,--you never have +forgotten her?" + +"Not I." + +"There is"------ + +"And how came you all in the country so early in the season,--anybody +with your devotion to company?" + +"To be made April fools, John says." + +"Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will be." + +"I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter; and Mrs. Laudersdale +and I agreed, that, the moment the snow was off the ground up here, we +would fly away and be at rest." + +"Mrs. Laudersdale? Can she come here?" + +"Goodness! Why not? The last few summers we have always spent together." + +"She is with you now, then?" + +"Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I didn't mean to tell, but +keep her as a surprise. Of course, you will be a surprise to +everybody.--There, run along, children; we'll follow.--Yes, won't it be +delightful, Roger? We can all play at youth again." + +"Like skeletons in some Dance of Death!" he exclaimed. "We shall be +hideous in each other's sight." + +"McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding the late misanthropy; +"Helen is a girl; the ghost of the prior Mrs. Purcell shall be +_rediviva_; and Katy there"------ + +"Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin. + +"Before you have shuffled off mortality for the whole party, sit down +under this hedge,--here is an opportune bench,--and give me accounts +from the day of my departure." + +"Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible! The ocean in a tea-cup? Let +me see,--you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn't you? Well, +she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It was odd to +miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once. Mrs. +Laudersdale was ill; I don't know exactly what the trouble was. You know +she had been in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer; +and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old city-life, she +became oppressed with a speechless melancholy, I believe, so that the +doctors foreboded insanity. She expressed great disinclination to follow +their advice, and her husband finally banished them all. It was a great +care to him; he altered much. McLean surmised that she didn't like to +see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround +her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and +raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her +sight during the greater part of the winter. I don't know whether she +became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she +conquered it, and decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing, +or what happened. But one cold March evening he set out for his home, +dreary, as usual, he thought; and he found the fire blazing and +reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich +shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as +you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and +impenetrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, "I have +manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has +now and then reported from his conversation. I dare say there isn't a +bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale isn't a man to publish his affairs; +but _I_ believe it. One thing is certain: Mrs. Laudersdale withdrew from +society one autumn and returned one spring, and has queened it +ever since." + +"Is Mr. Laudersdale with you?" + +"No. But he will come with their daughter shortly." + +"And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray?" + +"Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to do. Mrs. Purcell +gossips and lounges, as if she were playing with the world for +spectator. Mrs. Laudersdale lounges, and attacks things with her +finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them. Mrs. McLean gossips +and scolds, as if it depended on her to keep the world in order." + +"Are you going to keep me under the hedge all night?" + +"This is pretty well! Hush! Who is that?" + +As Mrs. McLean spoke, a figure issued from the tall larches on the left, +and crossed the grass in front of them,--a woman, something less tall +than a gypsy queen might be, the round outlines of her form rich and +regular, with a certain firm luxuriance, still wrapped in a morning-robe +of palm-spread cashmere. In her hand she carried various vines and +lichens that had maintained their orange-tawny stains under the winter's +snow, and the black hair that was folded closely over forehead and +temple was crowned with bent sprays of the scarlet maple-blossom. As +vivid a hue dyed her cheek through warm walking, and with a smile of +unconscious content she passed quickly up the slope and disappeared +within the doorway. She impressed the senses of the beholder like some +ripe and luscious fruit, a growth of sunshine and summer. + +"Well," said Mrs. McLean, drawing breath again, "who is it?" + +"Really, I cannot tell," replied Mr. Raleigh. + +"Nor guess?" + +"And that I dare not." + +"Must I tell you?" + +"Was it Mrs. Laudersdale?" + +"And shouldn't you have known her?" + +"Scarcely." + +"Mercy! Then how did you know me? She is unaltered." + +"If that is Mrs. Purcell, at the window, she does not recognize me, you +see; neither did -----. Both she and yourself are nearly the same; one +could not fail to know either of you; but of the Mrs. Laudersdale of +thirteen years ago there remains hardly a vestige." + +If Mrs. McLean, at this testimony, indulged in that little inward +satisfaction which the most generous woman may feel, when told that her +color wears better than the color of her dearest friend, it must have +been quickly quenched by the succeeding sentence. + +"Yes, she is certainly more beautiful than I ever dreamed of a woman's +being. If she continues, I do not know what perfect thing she will +become. She is too exquisite for common use. I wonder her husband is not +jealous of every mote in the air, of rain and wind, of every day that +passes over her head,--since each must now bear some charm from her in +its flight." + +Mr. Raleigh was talking to Mrs. McLean as one frequently reposes +confidence in a person when quite sure that he will not understand a +word you say. + +An hour afterward, Mrs. Purcell joined Mrs. McLean. + +"So that is Mr. Raleigh, is it?" she said. "He looks as if he had made +the acquaintance of Siva the Destroyer. There's nothing left of him. Is +he taller, or thinner, or graver, or darker, or what? My dear Kate, your +cousin, that promised to be such a hero, has become a mere +man-of-business. Did you ever burn firecrackers? You have probably found +some that just fizzed out, then." And Mrs. Purcell took an attitude. + +"Roger is a much finer man than he was, I think,--so far as I could +judge in the short time we have seen each other," replied Mrs. McLean, +with spirit. + +"Do you know," continued Mrs. Purcell, "what makes the Laudersdale so +gay? No? She has a letter from her lord, and he brings you that little +Rite next week. I must send for the Colonel to see such patterns of +conjugal felicity as you and she. Ah, there is the tea-bell!" + +Mr. Raleigh was standing with one hand on the back of his chair, when +Mrs. Laudersdale entered. The cheek had resumed its usual pallor, and +she was in her customary colors of black and gold. She carried a +curiously cut crystal glass, which she placed on the sideboard, and then +moved toward her chair. Her eye rested casually for a moment on Mr. +Raleigh, as she crossed the threshold, and then returned with a species +of calm curiosity. + +"Mrs. Laudersdale has forgotten me?" he asked, with a bow. His voice, +not susceptible of change in its tone of Southern sweetness, +identified him. + +"Not at all," she replied, moving toward him, and offering him her hand +quietly. "I am happy at meeting Mr. Raleigh again." And she took +her seat. + +There was something in her grasp that relieved him. It was neither +studiedly cold, nor absurdly brief, nor traitorously tremulous. It was +simply and forgetfully indifferent. Mr. Raleigh surveyed her with +interest during the light table-talk. He had been possessed with a +restless wish to see her once more, to ascertain if she had yet any +fraction of her old power over him; he had all the more determinedly +banished himself from the city,--to find her in the country. Now he +sought for some trace of what had formerly aroused his heart. He rose +from table convinced that the woman whom he once loved with the whole +fervor of youth and strength and buoyant life was no more, that she did +not exist, and that Mr. Raleigh might experience a new passion, but his +old one was as dead as the ashes that cover the Five Cities of the +Plain. He wondered how it might be with her. For a moment he cursed his +inconstancy; then he feared lest she were of larger heart and firmer +resolve than he,--lest her love had been less light than his; he could +scarcely feel himself secure of freedom,--he must watch. And then stole +in a deeper sense of loneliness than exile and foreign tongues had +taught him,--the knowledge of being single and solitary in the world, +not only for life, but for eternity. + +The evening was passed in the recitation of affairs by himself and his +cousins alone together, and until a week completed its tale of dawns and +sunsets there was the same diurnal recurrence of question and answer. +One day, as the afternoon was paling, Rite came. + +Mr. Raleigh had fallen asleep on the vine-hidden seat outside the +bay-window, and was awakened, certainly not by Mrs. Laudersdale's +velvets trailing over the drawing-room carpet. She was just entering, +slow-paced, though in haste. She held out both of her beautiful arms. A +little form of airy lightness, a very snow-wreath, blew into them. + +"_O ma maman! Est ce que c'est toi_," it cried. "_O comme tu es douce! +Si belle, si molle, si chère!_" And the fair head was lying beneath the +dark one, the face hidden in the bent and stately neck. + +Mr. Raleigh left his seat, unseen, and betook himself to another abode. +As he passed the drawing-room door, on his return, he saw the mother +lying on a lounge, with the slight form nestled beside her, playing with +it as some tame leopardess might play with her silky whelp. It was +almost the only portion of the maternal nature developed within her. + +It seemed as if the tea-hour were a fated one. Mr. Raleigh had been out +on the water and was late. As he entered, Rite sprang up, +half-overturning her chair, and ran to clasp his hand. + +"I did not know that you and Mr. Raleigh were acquainted," said Mrs. +McLean. + +"Oh, Madam, Mr. Raleigh and I had the pleasure of being shipwrecked +together," was the reply; and except that Mrs. Laudersdale required +another napkin where her cup had spilled, all went on smoothly. + +Mrs. Laudersdale took Marguerite entirely to herself for a while. She +seemed, at first, to be like some one suddenly possessed of a new sense, +and who did not know in the least what to do with it; but custom and +familiarity destroyed this sentiment. She did not appear to entertain a +doubt of her child's natural affection, but she had care to fortify it +by the exertion of every charm she possessed. From the presence of +dangerous rivals in the house, an element of determination blended with +her manner, and she moved with a certain conscious power, as if +wonderful energies were but half-latent with her, as if there were +kingdoms to conquer and crowns to win, and she the destined instrument +You would have selected her, at this time of her lavish devotion to +Marguerite, as the one woman of complete capability, of practical +effective force, and have declared that there was nothing beyond her +strength. The relation between herself and her child was certainly as +peculiar as anything else about them; the disparity of age seemed so +slight that they appeared like sisters, full of mutual trust, the +younger leaning on the elder for support in the most trivial affairs. +They walked through the woods together, learned again its glades and +coverts, searched its early treasure of blossoms; they went out on the +lake and spent long April afternoons together, floating about cove and +inlet of island-shores; they returned with innocent gayety to that house +which once the mother, in her moment of passion, had fancied to be a +possible heaven of delight, and which, since, she had found to be a very +indifferent limbo. For, after all, we derive as much happiness from +human beings as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that +bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was +careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this +woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never +bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the +little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or +whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that +estranged the past from the present, there was nothing to tell; it +seemed, nevertheless, as if they could have no closer bond, had they +read each other's thoughts from birth. + +That this assumption of Marguerite could not continue exclusive Mr. +Raleigh found, when now and then joined in his walks by an airy figure +flitting forward at his side: now and then; since Mrs. Laudersdale, +without knowing how to prevent, had manifested an uneasiness at every +such rencontre;--and that it could not endure forever, another +gentleman, without so much reason, congratulated himself,--Mr. Frederic +Heath, the confidential clerk of Day, Knight, and Company,--a rather +supercilious specimen, quite faultlessly got up, who had accompanied her +from New York at her father's request, and who already betrayed every +symptom of the suitor. Meanwhile, Mrs. McLean's little women clamorously +demanded and obtained a share of her attention,--although Capua and +Ursule, with their dark skins, brilliant dyes, and equivocal dialects, +were creatures of a more absorbing interest. + +One afternoon, Marguerite came into the drawing-room by one door, as Mr. +Raleigh entered by another; her mother was sitting near the window, and +other members of the family were in the vicinity, having clustered +preparatory to the tea-bell. + +Marguerite had twisted tassels of the willow-catkins in her hair, +drooping things, in character with her wavy grace, and that sprinkled +her with their fragrant yellow powder, the very breath of spring; and in +one hand she had imprisoned a premature lace-winged fly, a fairy little +savage, in its sheaths of cobweb and emerald, and with its jewel eyes. + +"Dear!" said Mrs. Purcell, gathering her array more closely about her. +"How do you dare touch such a venomous sprite?" + +"As if you had an insect at the North with a sting!" replied Marguerite, +suffering it, a little maliciously, to escape in the lady's face, and +following the flight with a laugh of childlike glee. + +"Here are your snowflakes on stems, mamma," she continued, dropping +anemones over her mother's hands, one by one;--"that is what Mr. Raleigh +calls them. When may I see the snow? You shall wrap me in eider, that I +may be like all the boughs and branches. How buoyant the earth must be, +when every twig becomes a feather!" And she moved toward Mr. Raleigh, +singing, "Oh, would I had wings like a dove!" + +"And here are those which, if not daffodils, +yet + + "'Come before the swallow dares, and take + The winds of March with beauty,'" + +he said, giving her a basket of hepaticas and winter-green. + +Marguerite danced away with the purple trophy, and, emptying a carafe +into a dish of moss that stood near, took them to Mrs. Laudersdale, and, +sitting on the footstool, began to rearrange them. It was curious to +see, that, while Mrs. Laudersdale lifted each blossom and let the stem +lie across her hand, she suffered it to fall into the place designated +for it by Marguerite's fingers, that sparkled in the mosaic till double +wreaths of gold-threaded purple rose from the bed of vivid moss and +melted into a fringe of the starry spires of winter-green. + +"Is it not sweet?" said she then, bending over it. + +"They have no scent," said her mother. + +"Oh, yes, indeed! the very finest, the most delicate, a kind of aërial +perfume; they must of course alchemize the air into which they waste +their fibres with some sweetness." + +"A smell of earth fresh from 'wholesome drench of April rains,'" said +Mr. Raleigh, taking the dish of white porcelain between his brown, +slender hands. "An immature scent, just such an innocent breath as +should precede the epigea, that spicy, exhaustive wealth of savor, that +complete maturity of odor, marriage of daphne and linnaea. The charm of +these first bidders for the year's favor is neither in the ethereal +texture, the depth or delicacy of tint, nor the large-lobed, +blood-stained, ancient leaves. This imponderable soul gives them such a +helpless air of babyhood." + +"Is fragrance the flower's soul?" asked Marguerite. "Then anemones are +not divinely gifted. And yet you said, the other day, that to paint my +portrait would be to paint an anemone." + +"A satisfactory specimen in the family-gallery," said Mrs. Purcell. + +"A flaw in the indictment!" replied Mr. Raleigh. "I am not one of those +who paint the lily." + +"Though you've certainly added a perfume to the violet," remarked Mr. +Frederic Heath, with that sweetly lingering accent familiarly called the +drawl, as he looked at the hepaticas. + +"I don't think it very complimentary, at any rate," continued +Marguerite. "They are not lovely after bloom,--only the little +pink-streaked, budded bells, that hang so demurely. _Oui, dà!_ I have +exchanged great queen magnolias for rues; what will you give me for +pomegranates and oleanders?" + +"Are the old oleanders in the garden yet?" asked Mrs. Laudersdale. + +"Not the very same. The hurricane destroyed those, years ago; these are +others, grand and rosy as sunrise sometimes." + +"It was my Aunt Susanne who planted those, I have heard." + +"And it was your daughter Rite who planted these." + +"She buried a little box of old keepsakes at its foot, after her brother +had examined them,--a ring or two, a coin from which she broke and kept +one half"------ + +"Oh, yes! we found the little box, found it when Mr. Heath was in +Martinique, all rusted and moulded and falling apart, and he wears that +half of the coin on his watch-chain. See!" + +Mrs. Laudersdale glanced up indifferently, but Mrs. Purcell sprang from +her elegant lounging and bent to look at her brother's chain. + +"How odd that I never noticed it, Fred!" she exclaimed. "And how odd +that I should wear the same!" And, shaking her _châtelaine_, she +detached a similar affair. + +They were placed side by side in Mr. Raleigh's hand; they matched +entirely, and, so united, they formed a singular French coin of value +and antiquity, the missing figures on one segment supplied by the other, +the embossed profile continued and lost on each, the scroll begun by +this and ended by that; they were plainly severed portions of the +same piece. + +"And this was buried by your Aunt Susanne Le Blanc?" asked Mrs. Purcell, +turning to Mrs. Laudersdale again, with a flush on her cheek. + +"So I presume." + +"Strange! And this was given to mamma by her mother, whose maiden name +was Susan White. There's some _diablerie_ about it." + +"Oh, that is a part of the ceremony of money-hiding," said Mr. Raleigh. +"Kidd always buried a little imp with his pots of gold, you know, to +work deceitful charms on the finder." + +"Did he?" said Marguerite, earnestly. + +They all laughed thereat, and went in to tea. + +[To be continued.] + + + +EPITHALAMIA. + + +I. + +THE WEDDING. + + + O Love! the flowers are blowing in park and field, + With love their bursting hearts are all revealed. + So come to me, and all thy fragrance yield! + + O Love! the sun is sinking in the west, + And sequent stars all sentinel his rest. + So sleep, while angels watch, upon my breast! + + O Love! the flooded moon is at its height, + And trances sea and land with tranquil light. + So shine, and gild with beauty all my night! + + O Love! the ocean floods the crooked shore, + Till sighing beaches give their moaning o'er. + So, Love, o'erflow me, till I sigh no more! + +II. + +THE GOLDEN WEDDING. + + O wife! the fragrant Mayflower now appears, + Fresh as the Pilgrims saw it through their tears. + So blows our love through all these changing years. + + O wife! the sun is rising in the east, + Nor tires to shine, while ages have increased. + So shines our love, and fills my happy breast + + O wife! on yonder beach the ocean sings, + As when it bore the Mayflower's drooping wings. + So in my heart our early love-song rings. + + O wife! the moon and stars slide down the west + To make in fresher skies their happy quest. + So, Love, once more we'll wed among the blest! + + + + +ARTHUR HALLAM. + +We were standing in the old English church at Clevedon on a summer +afternoon. And here, said my companion, pausing in the chancel, sleeps +Arthur Hallam, the friend of Alfred Tennyson, and the subject of "In +Memoriam." + + "'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand + Where he in English earth is laid." + +His burial-place is on a hill overhanging the Bristol Channel, a spot +selected by his father as a fit resting-place for his beloved boy. +And so + + "They laid him by the pleasant shore, + And in the hearing of the wave." + +Dying at twenty-two, the hope and pride of all who knew him, "remarkable +for the early splendor of his genius," the career of this young man +concentres the interest of more than his native country. Tennyson has +laid upon his early grave a poem which will never let his ashes be +forgotten, or his memory fade like that of common clay. What Southey so +felicitously says of Kirke White applies most eloquently to young +Hallam:--"Just at that age when the painter would have wished to fix his +likeness and the lover of poetry would delight to contemplate him, in +the fair morning of his virtues, the full spring-blossom of his hopes,-- +just at that age hath death set the seal of eternity upon him, and the +beautiful hath been made permanent." + +Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place, London, on the 1st of +February, 1811. The eldest son of Henry Hallam, the eminent historian +and critic, his earliest years had every advantage which culture and +moral excellence could bring to his education. His father has feelingly +commemorated his boyish virtues and talents by recording his "peculiar +clearness of perception, his facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above +all, an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his sense +of what was right and becoming." From that tearful record, not publicly +circulated, our recital is partly gathered. Companions of his childhood +have often told us well-remembered incidents of his life, and this is +the too brief story of his earthly career. + +When about eight years of age, Arthur resided some time in Germany and +Switzerland, with his father and mother. He had already become familiar +with the French language, and a year later he read Latin with some +facility. Although the father judiciously studied to repress his son's +marked precocity of talent, Arthur wrote about this time several plays +in prose and in rhyme,--compositions which were never exhibited, +however, beyond the family-circle. + +At ten years of age he became a pupil at a school in Putney, under the +tuition of an excellent clergyman, where he continued two years. He then +took a short tour on the Continent, and, returning, went to Eton, where +he studied nearly five years. While at Eton, he was reckoned, according +to the usual test at that place, not a first-rate Latin student, for his +mind had a predominant bias toward English literature, and there he +lingered among the exhaustless fountains of the earlier poetry of his +native tongue. One who knew him well in those years has described him to +us as a sweet-voiced lad, moving about the pleasant playing-fields of +Eton with a thoughtful eye and a most kindly expression. Afterwards, as +Tennyson, singing to the witch-elms and the towering sycamore, paints +him, he mixed in all the simple sports, and loved to gather a happy +group about him, as he lay on the grass and discussed grave questions of +state. And again,-- + + "Thy converse drew us with delight, + The men of rathe and riper years: + The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, + Forgot his weakness in thy sight." + +His taste for philosophical poetry increased with his years, and +Wordsworth and Shelley became his prime favorites. His contributions to +the "Eton Miscellany" were various, sometimes in prose and now and then +in verse. A poet by nature, he could not resist the Muse's influence, +and he expressed a genuine emotion, oftentimes elegantly, and never +without a meaning. + +In the summer of 1827 he left Eton, and travelled with his parents eight +months in Italy. And now began that life of thought and feeling so +conspicuous to the end of his too brief career. Among the Alps his whole +soul took the impress of those early introductions to what is most +glorious and beautiful in Nature. After passing the mountains, Italian +literature claimed his attention, and he entered upon its study with all +the ardor of a young and earnest student. An Abbate who recognized his +genius encouraged him with his assistance in the difficult art of +Italian versification, and, after a very brief stay in Italy, at the age +of seventeen, he wrote several sonnets which attracted considerable +attention among scholars. Very soon after acquiring the Italian +language, the great Florentine poet opened to him his mystic visions. +Dante became his worship, and his own spirit responded to that of the +author of the "Divina Commedia." + +His growing taste led him to admire deeply all that is noble in Art, and +he soon prized with enthusiasm the great pictures of the Venetian, the +Tuscan, and the Roman schools. "His eyes," says his father, "were fixed +on the best pictures with silent, intense delight." One can imagine him +at this period wandering with all the ardor of youthful passion through +the great galleries, not with the stolid stony gaze of a coldblooded +critic, but with that unmixed enthusiasm which so well becomes the +unwearied traveller in his buoyant days of experience among the unveiled +glories of genius now first revealed to his astonished vision. + +He returned home in 1828, and went to reside at Cambridge, having been +entered, before his departure for the Continent, at Trinity College. It +is said that he cared little for academical reputation, and in the +severe scrutiny of examination he did not appear as a competitor for +accurate mathematical demonstrations. He knew better than those about +him where his treasures lay,--and to some he may have seemed a dreamer, +to others an indifferent student, perhaps. His aims were higher than the +tutor's black-board, and his life-thoughts ran counter to the usual +college-routine. Disordered health soon began to appear, and a too rapid +determination of blood to the brain often deprived him of the power of +much mental labor. At Florence he had been seized with a slight attack +of the same nature, and there was always a tendency to derangement of +the vital functions. Irregularity of circulation occasioned sometimes a +morbid depression of spirits, and his friends anxiously watched for +symptoms of returning health. In his third Cambridge year he grew +better, and all who knew and loved him rejoiced in his apparent recovery. + +About this time, some of his poetical pieces were printed, but withheld +from publication. It was the original intention for the two friends, +Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, to publish together; but the idea was +abandoned. Such lines as these the young poet addressed to the man who +was afterwards to lend interest and immortality to the story of his +early loss:-- + + "Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, + Sitting beneath a mossy, ivied wall + On a quaint bench, which to that structure old + Winds an accordant curve. Above my head + Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves, + Seeming received into the blue expanse + That vaults this summer noon. Before me lies + A lawn of English verdure, smooth, and bright, + Mottled with fainter hues of early hay, + Whose fragrance, blended with the rose-perfume + From that white flowering bush, invites my sense + To a delicious madness,--and faint thoughts + Of childish years are borne into my brain + By unforgotten ardors waking now. + Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade + Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown + Is the prime labor of the pettish winds, + That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves + Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies, + And the gay humming things that summer loves, + Through the warm air, or altering the bound + Where yon elm-shadows in majestic line + Divide dominion with the abundant light." + +And this fine descriptive passage was also written at this period of his +life:-- + + "The garden trees are busy with the shower + That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk, + Lowly and sweetly, as befits the hour, + One to another down the grassy walk. + Hark! the laburnum from his opening flower + This cheery creeper greets in whisper light, + While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, + Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore. + What shall I deem their converse? Would they hail + The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud, + Or the half-bow rising like pillared fire? + Or are they sighing faintly for desire + That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, + And dews about their feet may never fail?" + +The first college prize for English declamation was awarded to him this +year; and his exercise, "The Conduct of the Independent Party during the +Civil War," greatly improved his standing at the University. Other +honors quickly followed his successful essay, and he was chosen to +deliver an oration in the College Chapel just before the Christmas +vacation. This was in the year 1831. He selected as his subject the one +eminently congenial to his thought; and his theme, "The Influence of +Italian upon English Literature," was admirably treated. The oration is +before us as we write, and we turn the pages with a fond and loving eye. +We remember, as we read, his brief sojourn,--that he died "in the sweet +hour of prime,"--and we are astonished at the eloquent wisdom displayed +by a lad of twenty summers. "I cannot help considering," he says, "the +sonnets of Shakspeare as a sort of homage to the Genius of Christian +Europe, necessarily exacted, although voluntarily paid, before he was +allowed to take in hand the sceptre of his endless dominion." And he +ends his charming disquisition in these words;--"An English mind that +has drunk deep at the sources of Southern inspiration, and especially +that is imbued with the spirit of the mighty Florentine, will be +conscious of a perpetual freshness and quiet beauty resting on his +imagination and spreading gently over his affections, until, by the +blessing of Heaven, it may be absorbed without loss in the pure inner +light of which that voice has spoken, as no other can,-- + + "'Light intellectual, yet full of love, + Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy, + Joy, every other sweetness far above.'" + +It was young Hallam's privilege to be among Coleridge's favorites, and +in one of his poems Arthur alludes to him as a man in whose face "every +line wore the pale cast of thought." His conversations with "the old man +eloquent" gave him intense delight, and he often alluded to the +wonderful talks he had enjoyed with the great dreamer, whose magical +richness of illustration took him captive for the time being. + +At Abbotsford he became known to Sir Walter Scott, and Lockhart thus +chronicles his visit:-- + +"Among a few other friends from a distance, Sir Walter received this +summer [1829] a short visit from Mr. Hallam, and made in his company +several of the little excursions which had in former days been of +constant recurrence. Mr. Hallam had with him his son, Arthur, a young +gentleman of extraordinary abilities, and as modest as able, who not +long afterwards was cut off in the very bloom of opening life and +genius. His beautiful verses, 'On Melrose seen in Company with Scott,' +have since been often printed." + + "I lived an hour in fair Melrose: + It was not when 'the pale moonlight' + Its magnifying charm bestows; + Yet deem I that I 'viewed it right.' + The wind-swept shadows fast careered, + Like living things that joyed or feared, + Adown the sunny Eildon Hill, + And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crowned well. + + "I inly laughed to see that scene + Wear such a countenance of youth, + Though many an age those hills were green, + And yonder river glided smooth, + Ere in these now disjointed walls + The Mother Church held festivals, + And full-voiced anthemings the while + Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the echoing aisle. + + "I coveted that Abbey's doom: + For if, I thought, the early flowers + Of our affection may not bloom, + Like those green hills, through countless hours, + Grant me at least a tardy waning + Some pleasure still in age's paining; + Though lines and forms must fade away, + Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay! + + "But looking toward the grassy mound + Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie, + Who, living, quiet never found, + I straightway learnt a lesson high: + And well I knew that thoughtful mien + Of him whose early lyre had thrown + Over these mouldering walls the magic of its tone. + + "Then ceased I from my envying state, + And knew that aweless intellect + Hath power upon the ways of Fate, + And works through time and space uncheck'd. + That minstrel of old Chivalry + In the cold grave must come to be; + But his transmitted thoughts have part + In the collective mind, and never shall depart. + + "It was a comfort, too, to see + Those dogs that from him ne'er would rove, + And always eyed him reverently, + With glances of depending love. + They know not of that eminence + Which marks him to my reasoning sense; + They know but that he is a man, + And still to them is kind, and glads them all he can. + + "And hence their quiet looks confiding, + Hence grateful instincts seated deep, + By whose strong bond, were ill betiding, + They'd risk their own his life to keep. + What joy to watch in lower creature + Such dawning of a moral nature, + And how (the rule all things obey) + They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!" + +At the University he lived a sweet and gracious life. No man had truer +or fonder friends, or was more admired for his excellent +accomplishments. Earnest in whatever he attempted, his enthusiasm for +all that was high and holy in literature stamped his career at Trinity +as one of remarkable superiority. "I have known many young men, both at +Oxford and elsewhere, of whose abilities I think highly, but I never met +with one whom I considered worthy of being put into competition with +Arthur for a moment," writes his early and intimate friend. "I can +scarcely hope to describe the feelings with which I regarded him, much +less the daily beauty of his existence, out of which they grew," writes +another of his companions. Politics, literature, philosophy he discussed +with a metaphysical subtilty marvellous in one so young. The highest +comprehension seemed native to his mind, so that all who came within the +sphere of his influence were alike impressed with his vast and various +powers. The life and grace of a charmed circle, the display of his gifts +was not for show, and he never forgot to keep the solemn injunction, +_"My son, give me thine heart,"_ clearly engraven before him. + +Among his favorite authors, while at the University, we have been told +he greatly delighted in the old dramatists, Webster, Heywood, and +Fletcher. The grace and harmony of style and versification which he +found particularly in the latter master became one of his favorite +themes, and he often dwelt upon this excellence. He loved to repeat the +sad old strains of Bion; and Aeschylus and Sophocles interested +him deeply. + +On leaving Cambridge, he took his degree and went immediately to London +to reside with his father. It was a beautiful relation which always +existed between the elder and the younger scholar; and now, as soon as +Arthur had been entered on the boards of the Inner Temple, the father +and son sat down to read law together. Legal studies occupied the young +student till the month of October, 1832, when he became an inmate of the +office of an eminent conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Although he +applied himself diligently to obtain a sound practical knowledge of the +profession he had chosen, his former habits of literary pursuit did not +entirely desert him. During the winter he translated most of the sonnets +in the "Vita Nuova," and composed a dramatic sketch with Raffaello for +the hero. About this period he wrote brief, but excellent, memoirs of +Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the "Gallery of Portraits," then +publishing by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But his +time, when unoccupied at the office, was principally devoted to +metaphysical research and the history of philosophical opinion. His +spirits, sometimes apt to be graver than is the wont of youth, now +became more animated and even gay, so that his family were cheered on to +hope that his health was firmly gaining ground. The unpleasant symptoms +which manifested themselves in his earlier years had almost entirely +disappeared, when an attack of intermittent fever in the spring of 1833 +gave the fatal blow to his constitution. In August, the careful, tender +father took his beloved son into Germany, trusting to a change of +climate for restoration. Travelling slowly, they lingered among the +scenes connected with a literature and a history both were so familiar +with, and many pleasant and profitable hours of delightful converse +gladdened Arthur's journey. It is difficult to picture a more +interesting group of travellers through the picturesque regions they +were again exploring. + +No child was ever more ardently loved--nay, worshipped--by his father +than Arthur Hallam. The parallel, perhaps, exists in Edmund Burke's fond +attachment for and subsequent calamity in the loss of his son Richard. +That passage in the life of the great statesman is one of the most +affecting in all biographical literature. "The son thus deeply +lamented," says Prior, "had always conducted himself with much filial +duty and affection. Their confidence on all subjects was even more +unreserved than commonly prevails between father and son, and their +esteem for each other higher.... The son looked to the father as one of +the first, if not the very first, character in history; the father had +formed the very highest opinion of the talents of the son, and among his +friends rated them superior to his own." The same confiding +companionship grew up between Henry Hallam and his eldest boy, and +continued till "death set the seal of eternity" upon the young and +gifted Arthur. + +The travellers were returning to Vienna from Pesth; a damp day set in +while they were on the journey; again intermittent fever attacked the +sensitive invalid, and suddenly, mysteriously, his life was ended. It +was the 15th of September, 1833, and Arthur Hallam lay dead in his +father's arms. Twenty-two brief years, and all high hopes for him, the +manly, the noble-spirited, this side the tomb, are broken down forever. +Well might his heart-crushed father sob aloud, "He seemed to tread the +earth as a spirit from some better world." The author of "Horae +Subsecivae" aptly quotes Shakspeare's memorable words, in connection +with the tragic bereavement of that autumnal day in Vienna:-- + + "The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep + Into my study of imagination; + And every lovely organ of thy life + Shall come apparelled in more precious habit, + More moving delicate, and full of life, + Into the eye and prospect of my soul, + Than when thou liv'dst indeed." + +Standing by the grave of this young person, now made so renowned by the +genius of a great poet, whose song has embalmed his name and called the +world's attention to his death, the inevitable reflection is not of +sorrow. He sleeps well who is thus lamented, and "nothing can touch +him further." + + + + +THE CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIUM. + + +It is not yet a year since I ceased to act as a Spiritual Medium. (I am +forced to make use of this title as the most intelligible, but I do it +with a strong mental protest.) At first, I desired only to withdraw +myself quietly from the peculiar associations into which I had been +thrown by the exercise of my faculty, and be content with the simple +fact of my escape. A man who joins the Dashaways does not care to have +the circumstance announced in the newspapers. "So, he was an habitual +drunkard," the public would say. I was overcome by a similar +reluctance,--nay, I might honestly call it shame,--since, although I had +at intervals officiated as a Medium for a period of seven years, my name +had been mentioned, incidentally, only once or twice in the papers +devoted especially to Spiritualism. I had no such reputation as that of +Hume or Andrew Jackson Davis, which would call for a public statement of +my recantation. The result would be, therefore, to give prominence to a +weakness, which, however manfully overcome, might be remembered to my +future prejudice. + +I find, however, that the resolution to be silent leaves me restless and +unsatisfied. And in reflecting calmly--objectively, for the first +time--upon the experience of those seven years, I recognize so many +points wherein my case is undoubtedly analogous to that of hundreds of +others who may be still entangled in the same labyrinth whence I have +but recently escaped, so clear a solution of much that is enigmatical, +even to those who reject Spiritualism, that the impulse to write weighs +upon me with the pressure of a neglected duty. I _cannot_ longer be +silent, and, in the conviction that the truth of my statement will be +evident enough to those most concerned in hearing it, without the +authority of any name, (least of all, of one so little known as mine,) +I now give my confession to the world. The names of the individuals whom +I shall have occasion to introduce are, of course, disguised; but, with +this exception, the narrative is the plainest possible record of my own +experience. Many of the incidents winch I shall be obliged to describe +are known only to the actors therein, who, I feel assured, will never +foolishly betray themselves. I have therefore no fear that any harm can +result from my disclosures. + +In order to make my views intelligible to those readers who have paid no +attention to psychological subjects, I must commence a little in advance +of my story. My own individual nature is one of those apparently +inconsistent combinations which are frequently found in the children of +parents whose temperaments and mental personalities widely differ. This +class of natures is much larger than would be supposed. Inheriting +opposite, even conflicting, traits from father and mother, they assume, +as either element predominates, diverse characters; and that which is +the result of temperament (in fact, congenital inconsistency) is set +down by the unthinking world as moral weakness or duplicity. Those who +have sufficient skill to perceive and reconcile--or, at least, +govern--the opposing elements are few, indeed. Had the power come to me +sooner, I should have been spared the necessity of making these +confessions. + +From one parent I inherited an extraordinarily active and sensitive +imagination,--from the other, a sturdy practical sense, a disposition to +weigh and balance with calm fairness the puzzling questions which life +offers to every man. These conflicting qualities--as is usual in all +similar natures--were not developed in equal order of growth. The former +governed my childhood, my youth, and enveloped me with spells, which all +the force of the latter and more slowly ripened faculty was barely +sufficient to break. Luxuriant weeds and brambles covered the soil which +should have been ploughed and made to produce honest grain. +Unfortunately, I had no teacher who was competent to understand and +direct me. The task was left for myself, and I can only wonder, after +all that has occurred, how it has been possible for me to succeed. +Certainly, this success has not been due to any vigorous exercise of +virtue on my part, but solely to the existence of that cool, reflective +reason which lay _perdue_ beneath all the extravagances of my mind. + +I possessed, even as a child, an unusual share of what phrenologists +call Concentrativeness. The power of absorption, of self-forgetfulness, +was at the same time a source of delight and a torment. Lost in some +wild dream or absurd childish speculation, my insensibility to outward +things was chastised as carelessness or a hardened indifference to +counsel. With a memory almost marvellous to retain those things which +appealed to my imagination, I blundered painfully over the commonest +tasks. While I frequently repeated the Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too +often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my +corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, +to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing +my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat +moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman +required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They +could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. +The closing hymn recalled me to myself, always with a shock, or sense of +pain, and sometimes even with a temporary nausea. + +This habit of abstraction--properly a complete _passivity_ of the +mind--after a while developed another habit, in which I now see the root +of that peculiar condition which made me a Medium. I shall therefore +endeavor to describe it. I was sitting, one Sunday, just as the minister +was commencing his sermon, with my eyes carelessly following the fingers +of my right hand, as I drummed them slowly across my knee. Suddenly, the +wonder came into my mind,--How is it my fingers move? What set them +going? What is it that stops them? The mystery of that communication +between will and muscle, which no physiologist has ever fathomed, burst +upon my young intellect. I had been conscious of no intention of thus +drumming my fingers; they were in motion when I first noticed them: they +were certainly a part of myself, yet they acted without my knowledge or +design! My left hand was quiet; why did its fingers not move also? +Following these reflections came a dreadful fear, as I remembered Jane, +the blacksmith's daughter, whose elbows and shoulders sometimes jerked +in such a way as to make all the other scholars laugh, although we were +sorry for the poor girl, who cried bitterly over her unfortunate, +ungovernable limbs. I was comforted, however, on finding that I could +control the motion of my fingers at pleasure; but my imagination was too +active to stop there. What if I should forget how to direct my hands? +What if they should refuse to obey me? What if my knees, which were just +as still as the hymn-books in the rack before me, should cease to bend, +and I should sit there forever? These very questions seemed to produce a +temporary paralysis of the will. As my right hand lay quietly on my +knee, and I asked myself, with a stupid wonder, "Now, can I move it?" it +lay as still as before. I had only questioned, not willed. "No I cannot +move it," I said, in real doubt I was conscious of a blind sense of +exertion, wherein there was yet no proper exertion, but which seemed to +exhaust me. Fascinated by this new mystery, I contemplated my hand as +something apart from myself,--something subordinate to, but not +identical with, me. The rising of the congregation for the hymn broke +the spell, like the snapping of a thread. + +The reader will readily understand that I carried these experiences much +farther. I gradually learned to suspend (perhaps in imagination only, +but therefore none the less really) the action of my will upon the +muscles of my arms and legs; and I did it with the greater impunity, +from knowing that the stir consequent upon the conclusion of the +services would bring me to myself. In proportion as the will became +passive, the activity of my imagination was increased, and I experienced +a new and strange delight in watching the play of fantasies which +appeared to come and go independently of myself. There was still a dim +consciousness of outward things mingled with my condition; I was not +beyond the recall of my senses. But one day, I remember, as I sat +motionless as a statue, having ceased any longer to attempt to control +my dead limbs, more than usually passive, a white, shining mist +gradually stole around me; my eyes finally ceased to take cognizance of +objects; a low, musical humming sounded in my ears, and those creatures +of the imagination which had hitherto crossed my brain as _thoughts_ now +spoke to me as audible voices. If there is any happy delirium in the +first stages of intoxication, (of which, thank Heaven, I have no +experience,) it must be a sensation very much like that which I felt. +The death of external and the birth of internal consciousness +overwhelmed my childish soul with a dumb, ignorant ecstasy, like that +which savages feel on first hearing the magic of music. + +How long I remained thus I know not. I was aroused, by feeling myself +violently shaken. "John!" exclaimed my mother, who had grasped my arm +with a determined hand,--"bless the boy! what ails him? Why, his face +is as white as a sheet!" Slowly I recovered my consciousness, saw the +church and the departing congregation, and mechanically followed my +parents. I could give no explanation of what had happened, except to say +that I had fallen asleep. As I ate my dinner with a good appetite, my +mother's fears were quieted. I was left at home the following Sunday, +and afterwards only ventured to indulge sparingly in the exercise of my +newly discovered faculty. My mother, I was conscious, took more note of +my presence than formerly, and I feared a repetition of the same +catastrophe. As I grew older and my mind became interested in a wider +range of themes, I finally lost the habit, which I classed among the +many follies of childhood. + +I retained, nevertheless, and still retain, something of that subtile +instinct which mocks and yet surpasses reason. My feelings with regard +to the persons whom I met were quite independent of their behavior +towards me, or the estimation in which they were held by the world. +Things which puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in +sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid +doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible +to understand my motives of action,--because, in fact, there were no +_motives_,--complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I +presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the +instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which +I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and was +generally able to distinguish between its suggestions and the mere +humors of my imagination. It is scarcely necessary to say that I assume +the existence of such a power, at the outset. I recognize it as a normal +faculty of the human mind,--not therefore universal, any more than the +genius which makes a poet, a painter, or a composer. + +My education was neither general nor thorough; hence I groped darkly +with the psychological questions which were presented to me. Tormented +by those doubts which at some period of life assail the soul of every +thinking man, I was ready to grasp at any solution which offered, +without very carefully testing its character. I eagerly accepted the +theory of Animal Magnetism, which, so far as it went, was satisfactory; +but it only illustrated the powers and relations of the soul in its +present state of existence; it threw no light upon that future which I +was not willing to take upon faith alone. Though sensible to mesmeric +influences, I was not willing that my spiritual nature should be the +instrument of another's will,--that a human being, like myself, should +become possessed of all my secrets and sanctities, touching the keys of +every passion with his unhallowed fingers. In the phenomena of +clairvoyance I saw only other and more subtile manifestations of the +power which I knew to exist in my own mind. Hence, I soon grew weary of +prosecuting inquiries which, at best, would fall short of solving my own +great and painful doubt,--Does the human soul continue to exist after +death? That it could take cognizance of things beyond the reach of the +five senses, I was already assured. This, however, might be a sixth +sense, no less material and perishable in its character than the others. +My brain, as yet, was too young and immature to follow the thread of +that lofty spiritual logic in the light of which such doubts melt away +like mists of the night. Thus, uneasy because undeveloped, erring +because I had never known the necessary guidance, seeking, but almost +despairing of enlightenment, I was a fit subject for any spiritual +epidemic which seemed to offer me a cure for worse maladies. + +At this juncture occurred the phenomena known as the "Rochester +Knockings." (My home, let me say, is in a small town not far from New +York.) I shared in the general interest aroused by the marvellous +stories, which, being followed by the no less extraordinary display of +some unknown agency at Norwalk, Connecticut, excited me to such a degree +that I was half-converted to the new faith before I had witnessed any +spiritual manifestation. Soon after the arrival of the Misses Fox in New +York I visited them in their rooms at the Howard House. Impressed by +their quiet, natural demeanor, the absence of anything savoring of +jugglery, and the peculiar character of the raps and movements of the +table, I asked my questions and applied my tests, in a passive, if not a +believing frame of mind. In fact, I had not long been seated, before the +noises became loud and frequent. + +"The spirits like to communicate with you," said Mrs. Fish: "you seem to +be nearer to them than most people." + +I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother, +and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained +correct answers to all my questions. I did not then remark, what has +since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I +knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind +at the time. The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression +upon me. Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train +that morning, I asked,--"Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind +communicate with me?" To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on +calling over the alphabet,--"_He is living!_" + +I returned home, very much puzzled. Precisely those features of the +exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me. The +searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the +manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me +favorably towards the spiritual theory. If disembodied souls, I said, +really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should +they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for +their visitations? What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in +places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than +when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination? In such +reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination, +while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical. + +Soon after this, circles began to be formed in my native town, for the +purpose of table-moving. A number of persons met, secretly at +first,--for as yet there were no avowed converts,--and quite as much for +sport as for serious investigation. The first evening there was no +satisfactory manifestation. The table moved a little, it is true, but +each one laughingly accused his neighbors of employing some muscular +force: all isolated attempts were vain. I was conscious, nevertheless, +of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind +my forgotten experiments in church. No rappings were heard, and some of +the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole thing +a delusion. + +A few evenings after this we met again. Those who were most incredulous +happened to be absent, while, accidentally, their places were filled by +persons whose temperaments disposed them to a passive seriousness. Among +these was a girl of sixteen, Miss Abby Fetters, a pale, delicate +creature, with blond hair and light-blue eyes. Chance placed her next to +me, in forming the ring, and her right hand lay lightly upon my left. We +stood around a heavy circular dining-table. A complete silence was +preserved, and all minds gradually sank into a quiet, passive +expectancy. In about ten minutes I began to feel, or to imagine that I +felt, a stream of light,--if light were a palpable substance,--a +something far finer and more subtile than an electric current, passing +from the hand of Miss Fetters through my own into the table. Presently +the great wooden mass began to move,--stopped,--moved again,--turned in +a circle, we following, without changing the position of our hands,--and +finally began to rock from side to side, with increasing violence. Some +of the circle were thrown off by the movements; others withdrew their +hands in affright; and but four, among whom were Miss Fetters and +myself, retained their hold. My outward consciousness appeared to be +somewhat benumbed, as if by some present fascination or approaching +trance, but I retained curiosity enough to look at my companion. Her +eyes, sparkling with a strange, steady light, were fixed upon the table; +her breath came quick and short, and her cheek had lost every trace of +color. Suddenly, as if by a spasmodic effort, she removed her hands; I +did the same, and the table stopped. She threw herself into a seat, as +if exhausted, yet, during the whole time, not a muscle of the hand which +lay upon mine had stirred. I solemnly declare that my own hands had +been equally passive, yet I experienced the same feeling of +fatigue,--not muscular fatigue, but a sense of _deadness_, as if every +drop of nervous energy had been suddenly taken from me. + +Further experiments, the same evening, showed that we two, either +together or alone, were able to produce the same phenomena without the +assistance of the others present. We did not succeed, however, in +obtaining any answers to our questions, nor were any of us impressed by +the idea that the spirits of the dead were among us. In fact, these +table-movings would not, of themselves, suggest the idea of a spiritual +manifestation. "The table is bewitched," said Thompson, a hard-headed +young fellow, without a particle of imagination; and this was really the +first impression of all: some unknown force, latent in the dead matter, +had been called into action. Still, this conclusion was so strange, so +incredible, that the agency of supernatural intelligences finally +presented itself to my mind as the readiest solution. + +It was not long before we obtained rappings, and were enabled to repeat +all the experiments which I had tried during my visit to the Fox family. +The spirits of our deceased relatives and friends announced themselves, +and generally gave a correct account of their earthly lives. I must +confess, however, that, whenever we attempted to pry into the future, we +usually received answers as ambiguous as those of the Grecian oracles, +or predictions which failed to be realized. Violent knocks or other +unruly demonstrations would sometimes interrupt an intelligent +communication which promised us some light on the other life: these, we +were told, were occasioned by evil or mischievous spirits, whose delight +it was to create disturbances. They never occurred, I now remember, +except when Miss Fetters was present. At the time, we were too much +absorbed in our researches to notice the fact. + +The reader will perceive, from what he knows of my previous mental +state, that it was not difficult for me to accept the theories of the +Spiritualists. Here was an evidence of the immortality of the +soul,--nay, more, of its continued individuality through endless future +existences. The idea of my individuality being lost had been to me the +same thing as complete annihilation. The spirits themselves informed us +that they had come to teach these truths. The simple, ignorant faith of +the Past, they said, was worn out; with the development of science, the +mind of man had become skeptical; the ancient fountains no longer +sufficed for his thirst; each new era required a new revelation; in all +former ages there had been single minds pure enough and advanced enough +to communicate with the dead and be the mediums of their messages to +men, but now the time had come when the knowledge of this intercourse +must be declared unto all; in its light the mysteries of the Past became +clear; in the wisdom thus imparted, that happy Future which seems +possible to every ardent and generous heart would be secured. I was not +troubled by the fact that the messages which proclaimed these things +were often incorrectly spelt, that the grammar was bad and the language +far from elegant. I did not reflect that these new and sublime truths +had formerly passed through my own brain as the dreams of a wandering +imagination. Like that American philosopher who looks upon one of his +own neophytes as a man of great and profound mind because the latter +carefully remembers and repeats to him his own carelessly uttered +wisdom, I saw in these misty and disjointed reflections of my own +thoughts the precious revelation of departed and purified spirits. + +How a passion for the unknown and unattainable takes hold of men is +illustrated by the search for the universal solvent, by the mysteries of +the Rosicrucians, by the patronage of fortune-tellers, even. Wholly +absorbed in spiritual researches,--having, in fact, no vital interest in +anything else,--I soon developed into what is called a Medium. I +discovered, at the outset, that the peculiar condition to be attained +before the tables would begin to move could be produced at will.[7] I +also found that the passive state into which I naturally fell had a +tendency to produce that trance or suspension of the will which I had +discovered when a boy. External consciousness, however, did not wholly +depart. I saw the circle of inquirers around me, but dimly, and as +phantoms,--while the impressions which passed over my brain seemed to +wear visible forms and to speak with audible voices. + +I did not doubt, at the time, that spirits visited me, and that they +made use of my body to communicate with those who could hear them in no +other way. Beside the pleasant intoxication of the semi-trance, I felt a +rare joy in the knowledge that I was elected above other men to be their +interpreter. Let me endeavor to describe the nature of this possession. +Sometimes, even before a spirit would be called for, the figure of the +person, as it existed in the mind of the inquirer, would suddenly +present itself to me,--not to my outward senses, but to my interior, +instinctive knowledge. If the recollection of the other embraced also +the voice, I heard the voice in the same manner, and unconsciously +imitated it. The answers to the questions I knew by the same instinct, +as soon as the questions were spoken. + +If the question was vague, asked for information rather than +_confirmation_, either no answer came, or there was an impression of a +_wish_ of what the answer might be, or, at times, some strange +involuntary sentence sprang to my lips. When I wrote, my hand appeared +to move of itself; yet the words it wrote invariably passed through my +mind. Even when blindfolded, there was no difference in its performance. +The same powers developed themselves in a still greater degree in Miss +Fetters. The spirits which spoke most readily through her were those of +men, even coarse and rude characters, which came unsummoned. Two or +three of the other members of our circle were able to produce motions in +the table; they could even feel, as they asserted, the touch of +spiritual hands; but, however much they desired it, they were never +personally possessed as we, and therefore could not properly be +called Mediums. + +These investigations were not regularly carried on. Occasionally the +interest of the circle flagged, until it was renewed by the visit of +some apostle of the new faith, usually accompanied by a "Preaching +Medium." Among those whose presence especially conduced to keep alive +the flame of spiritual inquiry was a gentleman named Stilton, the editor +of a small monthly periodical entitled "Revelations from the Interior." +Without being himself a Medium, he was nevertheless thoroughly +conversant with the various phenomena of Spiritualism, and both spoke +and wrote in the dialect which its followers adopted. He was a man of +varied, but not profound learning, an active intellect, giving and +receiving impressions with equal facility, and with an unusual +combination of concentrativeness and versatility in his nature. A +certain inspiration was connected with his presence. His personality +overflowed upon and influenced others. "My mind is not sufficiently +submissive," he would say, "to receive impressions from the spirits, but +my atmosphere attracts them and encourages them to speak." He was a +stout, strongly built man, with coarse black hair, gray eyes, large +animal mouth, square jaws, and short, thick neck. Had his hair been +cropped close, he would have looked very much like a prize-fighter; but +he wore it long, parted in the middle, and as meek in expression as its +stiff waves would allow. + +Stilton soon became the controlling spirit of our circle. His presence +really seemed, as he said, to encourage the spirits. Never before had +the manifestations been so abundant or so surprising. Miss Fetters, +especially, astonished us by the vigor of her possessions. Not only +Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe +Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens, +prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her +frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she +floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore +for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the +opposite cast. Hypatia, Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest +of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually +spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand, +and often without giving any clue to their personality. A practised +stenographer, engaged by Mr. Stilton, took down many of these +communications as they were spoken, and they were afterwards published +in the "Revelations." It was also remarked, that, while Miss Fetters +employed violent gestures and seemed to possess a superhuman strength, +I, on the contrary, sat motionless, pale, and with little sign of life +except in my voice, which, though low, was clear and dramatic in its +modulations. Stilton explained this difference without hesitation. "Miss +Abby," he said, "possesses soul-matter of a texture to which the souls +of these strong men naturally adhere. In the spirit-land the +superfluities repel each other; the individual souls seek to remedy +their imperfections: in the union of opposites only is to be found the +great harmonia of life. You, John, move upon another plane; through what +in you is undeveloped, these developed spirits are attracted." + +For two or three years, I must admit, my life was a very happy one. Not +only were those occasional trances an intoxication, nay, a coveted +indulgence, but they cast a consecration over my life. My restored faith +rested on the sure evidence of my own experience; my new creed contained +no harsh or repulsive feature; I heard the same noble sentiments which I +uttered in such moments repeated by my associates in the faith, and I +devoutly believed that a complete regeneration of the human race was at +hand. Nevertheless, it struck me sometimes as singular that many of the +Mediums whom I met--men and women chosen by spiritual hands to the same +high office--excited in my mind that instinct of repulsion on which I +had learned to rely as a sufficient reason for avoiding certain persons. +Far as it would have been from my mind, at that time, to question the +manifestations which accompanied them, I could not smother my mistrust +of their characters. Miss Fetters, whom I so frequently met, was one of +the most disagreeable. Her cold, thin lips, pale eyes, and lean figure +gave me a singular impression of voracious hunger. Her presence was +often announced to me by a chill shudder, before I saw her. Centuries +ago one of her ancestors must have been a ghoul or vampire. The trance +of possession seemed, with her, to be a form of dissipation, in which +she indulged as she might have catered for a baser appetite. The new +religion was nothing to her; I believe she valued it only on account of +the importance she obtained among its followers. Her father, a vain, +weak-minded man, who kept a grocery in the town, was himself a convert. + +Stilton had an answer for every doubt. No matter how tangled a labyrinth +might be exhibited to him, he walked straight through it. + +"How is it," I asked him, "that so many of my fellow-mediums inspire me +with an instinctive dislike and mistrust?" + +"By mistrust you mean dislike," he answered; "since you know of no +reason to doubt their characters. The elements of soul-matter are +differently combined in different individuals, and there are affinities +and repulsions, just as there are in the chemical elements. Your feeling +is chemical, not moral. A want of affinity does not necessarily imply an +existing evil in the other party. In the present ignorance of the world, +our true affinities can only he imperfectly felt and indulged; and the +entire freedom which we shall obtain in this respect is the greatest +happiness of the spirit-life." + +Another time I asked,-- + +"How is it that the spirits of great authors speak so tamely to us? +Shakspeare, last night, wrote a passage which he would have been +heartily ashamed of, as a living man. We know that a spirit spoke, +calling himself Shakspeare; but, judging from his communication, it +could not have been he." + +"It probably was not," said Mr. Stilton. "I am convinced that all +malicious spirits are at work to interrupt the communications from the +higher spheres. We were thus deceived by one professing to be Benjamin +Franklin, who drew for us the plan of a machine for splitting shingles, +which we had fabricated and patented at considerable expense. On trial, +however, it proved to be a miserable failure, a complete mockery. When +the spirit was again summoned, he refused to speak, but shook the table +to express his malicious laughter, went off, and has never since +returned. My friend, we know but the alphabet of Spiritualism, the mere +A B C; we can no more expect to master the immortal language in a day +than a child to read Plato after learning his letters." + +Many of those who had been interested in the usual phenomena gradually +dropped off, tired, and perhaps a little ashamed, in the reaction +following their excitement; but there were continual accessions to our +ranks, and we formed, at last, a distinct clan or community. Indeed, the +number of _secret_ believers in Spiritualism would never be suspected by +the uninitiated. In the sect, however, as in Masonry and the Catholic +Church, there are circles within circles,--concentric rings, whence you +can look outwards, but not inwards, and where he alone who stands at the +centre is able to perceive everything. Such an inner circle was at last +formed in our town. Its object, according to Stilton, with whom the plan +originated, was to obtain a purer spiritual atmosphere, by the exclusion +of all but Mediums and those non-mediumistic believers in whose presence +the spirits felt at ease, and thus invite communications from the +farther and purer spheres. + +In fact, the result seemed to justify the plan. The character of the +trance, as I had frequently observed, is vitiated by the consciousness +that disbelievers are present. The more perfect the atmosphere of +credulity, the more satisfactory the manifestations. The expectant +company, the dim light, the conviction that a wonderful revelation was +about to dawn upon us, excited my imagination, and my trance was really +a sort of delirium, in which I spoke with a passion and an eloquence I +had never before exhibited. The fear, which had previously haunted me, +at times, of giving my brain and tongue into the control of an unknown, +power, was forgotten; yet, more than ever, I was conscious of some +strong controlling influence, and experienced a reckless pleasure in +permitting myself to be governed by it. "Prepare," I concluded, (I quote +from the report in the "Revelations,") "prepare, sons of men, for the +dawning day! Prepare for the second and perfect regeneration of man! For +the prison-chambers have been broken into, and the light from the +interior shall illuminate the external! Ye shall enjoy spiritual and +passional freedom; your guides shall no longer be the despotism of +ignorant laws, nor the whip of an imaginary conscience,--but the natural +impulses of your nature, which are the melody of Life, and the natural +affinities, which are its harmony! The reflections from the upper +spheres shall irradiate the lower, and Death is the triumphal arch +through which we pass from glory to glory!" + +--I have here paused, deliberating whether I should proceed farther in +my narrative. But no; if any good is to be accomplished by these +confessions, the reader must walk with me through the dark labyrinth +which follows. He must walk over what may be considered delicate ground, +but he shall not be harmed. One feature of the trance condition is too +remarkable, too important in its consequences, to be overlooked. It is a +feature of which many Mediums are undoubtedly ignorant, the existence of +which is not even suspected by thousands of honest Spiritualists. + +Let me again anticipate the regular course of my narrative, and explain. +A suspension of the Will, when indulged in for any length of time, +produces a suspension of that inward consciousness of good and evil +which we call Conscience, and which can be actively exercised only +through the medium of the Will. The mental faculties and the moral +perceptions lie down together in the same passive sleep. The subject is, +therefore, equally liable to receive impressions from the minds of +others, and from their passions and lusts. Besides this, the germs of +all good and of all evil are implanted in the nature of every human +being; and even when some appetite is buried in a crypt so deep that its +existence is forgotten, let the warder be removed, and it will gradually +work its way to the light. Persons in the receptive condition which +belongs to the trance may be surrounded by honest and pure-minded +individuals, and receive no harmful impressions; they may even, if of a +healthy spiritual temperament, resist for a time the aggressions of evil +influences; but the final danger is always the same. The state of the +Medium, therefore, may be described as one in which the Will is passive, +the Conscience passive, the outward senses partially (sometimes wholly) +suspended, the mind helplessly subject to the operations of other minds, +and the passions and desires released from all restraining +influences.[8] I make the statement boldly, after long and careful +reflection, and severe self-examination. + +As I said before, I did not entirely lose my external consciousness, +although it was very dim and dream-like. On returning to the natural +state, my recollection of what had occurred during the trance became +equally dim; but I retained a general impression of the character of the +possession. I knew that some foreign influence--the spirit of a dead +poet, or hero, or saint, I then believed--governed me for the time; that +I gave utterance to thoughts unfamiliar to my mind in its conscious +state; and that my own individuality was lost, or so disguised that I +could no longer recognize it. This very circumstance made the trance an +indulgence, a spiritual intoxication, no less fascinating than that of +the body, although accompanied by a similar reaction. Yet, behind all, +dimly evident to me, there was an element of terror. There were times +when, back of the influences which spoke with my voice, rose another,--a +vast, overwhelming, threatening power, the nature of which I could not +grasp, but which I knew was evil. Even when in my natural state, +listening to the harsh utterances of Miss Fetters or the lofty spiritual +philosophy of Mr. Stilton, I have felt, for a single second, the touch +of an icy wind, accompanied by a sensation of unutterable dread. + +Our secret circle had not held many sessions before a remarkable change +took place in the character of the revelations. Mr. Stilton ceased to +report them for his paper. + +"We are on the threshold, at last," said he; "the secrets of the ages +lie beyond. The hands of spirits are now lifting the veil, fold by fold. +Let us not be startled by what we hear: let us show that our eyes can +bear the light,--that we are competent to receive the wisdom of the +higher spheres, and live according to it." + +Miss Fetters was more than ever possessed by the spirit of Joe Manton, +whose allowance of grog having been cut off too suddenly by his death, +he was continually clamoring for a dram. + +"I tell you," yelled he, or rather she, "I won't stand sich meanness. I +ha'n't come all the way here for nothin'. I'll knock Erasmus all to +thunder, if you go for to turn me out dry, and let him come in." + +Mr. Stilton thereupon handed him, or her, a tumbler half-full of brandy, +which she gulped down at a single swallow. Joe Manton presently retired +to make room for Erasmus, who spoke for some time in Latin, or what +appeared to be Latin. None of us could make much of it; but Mr. Stilton +declared that the Latin pronunciation of Erasmus was probably different +from ours, or that he might have learned the true Roman accent from +Cicero and Seneca, with whom, doubtless, he was now on intimate terms. +As Erasmus generally concluded by throwing his arms, or rather the arms +of Miss Fetters, around the neck of Mr. Stilton,--his spirit +fraternizing, apparently, with the spirit of the latter,--we greatly +regretted that his communications were unintelligible, on account of the +superior wisdom which they might be supposed to contain. + +I confess, I cannot recall the part I played in what would have been a +pitiable farce, if it had not been so terribly tragical, without a +feeling of utter shame. Nothing but my profound sympathy for the +thousands and tens of thousands who are still subject to the same +delusion could compel me to such a sacrifice of pride. Curiously enough, +(as I thought _then_, but not now,) the enunciation of sentiments +opposed to my moral sense--the abolition, in fact, of all moral +restraint--came from my lips, while the actions of Miss Fetters hinted +at their practical application. Upon the ground that the interests of +the soul were paramount to all human laws and customs, I declared--or +rather, _my voice_ declared--that self-denial was a fatal error, to +which half the misery of mankind could be traced; that the passions, +held as slaves, exhibited only the brutish nature of slaves, and would +be exalted and glorified by entire freedom; and that our sole guidance +ought to come from the voices of the spirits who communicated with us, +instead of the imperfect laws constructed by our benighted fellow-men. +How clear and logical, how lofty, these doctrines seemed! If, at times, +something in their nature repelled me, I simply attributed it to the +fact that I was still but a neophyte in the Spiritual Philosophy, and +incapable of perceiving the truth with entire clearness. + +Mr. Stilton had a wife,--one of those meek, amiable, simple-hearted +women whose individuality seems to be completely absorbed into that of +their husbands. When such women are wedded to frank, tender, protecting +men, their lives are truly blessed; but they are willing slaves to the +domestic tyrant. They bear uncomplainingly,--many of them even without a +thought of complaint,--and die at last with their hearts full of love +for the brutes who have trampled upon them. Mrs. Stilton was perhaps +forty years of age, of middle height, moderately plump in person, with +light-brown hair, soft, inexpressive gray eyes, and a meek, helpless, +imploring mouth. Her voice was mild and plaintive, and its accents of +anger (if she ever gave utterance to such) could not have been +distinguished from those of grief. She did not often attend our +sessions, and it was evident, that, while she endeavored to comprehend +the revelations, in order to please her husband, their import was very +far beyond her comprehension. She was now and then a little frightened +at utterances which no doubt sounded lewd or profane to her ears; but +after a glance at Mr. Stilton's face, and finding that it betrayed +neither horror nor surprise, would persuade herself that everything +must be right. + +"Are you sure," she once timidly whispered to me, "are you very sure, +Mr. ------, that there is no danger of being led astray? It seems +strange to me; but perhaps I don't understand it." + +Her question was so indefinite, that I found it difficult to answer. +Stilton, however, seeing me engaged in endeavoring to make clear to her +the glories of the new truth, exclaimed,-- + +"That's right, John! Your spiritual plane slants through many spheres, +and has points of contact with a great variety of souls. I hope my wife +will be able to see the light through you, since I appear to be too +opaque for her to receive it from me." + +"Oh, Abijah!" said the poor woman, "you know it is my fault. I try to +follow, and I hope I have faith, though I don't see everything as +clearly as you do." + +I began also to have my own doubts, as I perceived that an "affinity" +was gradually being developed between Stilton and Miss Fetters. She was +more and more frequently possessed by the spirit of Erasmus, whose +salutations, on meeting and parting with his brother-philosopher, were +too enthusiastic for merely masculine love. But, whenever I hinted at +the possibility of mistaking the impulses of the soul, or at evil +resulting from a too sudden and universal liberation of the passions, +Stilton always silenced me with his inevitable logic. Having once +accepted the premises, I could not avoid the conclusions. + +"When our natures are in harmony with spirit-matter throughout the +spheres," he would say, "our impulses will always be in accordance. Or, +if there should be any temporary disturbance, arising from our necessary +intercourse with the gross, blinded multitude, we can always fly to our +spiritual monitors for counsel. Will not they, the immortal souls of the +ages past, who have guided us to a knowledge of the truth, assist us +also in preserving it pure?" + +In spite of this, in spite of my admiration of Stilton's intellect, and +my yet unshaken faith in Spiritualism, I was conscious that the harmony +of the circle was becoming impaired to me. Was I falling behind in +spiritual progress? Was I too weak to be the medium for the promised +revelations? I threw myself again and again into the trance, with a +recklessness of soul which fitted me to receive any, even the darkest +impressions, to catch and proclaim every guilty whisper of the senses, +and, while under the influence of the excitement, to exult in the age of +license which I believed to be at hand. But darker, stronger grew the +terror which lurked behind this spiritual carnival. A more tremendous +power than that which I now recognized as coming from Stilton's brain +was present, and I saw myself whirling nearer and nearer to its grasp. I +felt, by a sort of blind instinct, too vague to be expressed, that some +demoniac agency had thrust itself into the manifestations,--perhaps had +been mingled with them from the outset. + +For two or three months, my life was the strangest mixture of happiness +and misery. I walked about with the sense of some crisis hanging over +me. My "possessions" became fiercer and wilder, and the reaction so much +more exhausting that I fell into the habit of restoring myself by means +of the bottle of brandy which Mr. Stilton took care should be on hand, +in case of a visit from Joe Manton. Miss Fetters, strange to say, was +not in the least affected by the powerful draughts she imbibed. But, at +the same time, my waking life was growing brighter and brighter under +the power of a new and delicious experience. My nature is eminently +social, and I had not been able--indeed, I did not desire--wholly to +withdraw myself from intercourse with non-believers. There was too much +in society that was congenial to me to be given up. My instinctive +dislike to Miss Abby Fetters and my compassionate regard for Mrs. +Stilton's weakness only served to render the company of intelligent, +cultivated women more attractive to me. Among those whom I met most +frequently was Miss Agnes Honeywood, a calm, quiet, unobtrusive girl, +the characteristic of whose face was sweetness rather than beauty, while +the first feeling she inspired was respect rather than admiration. She +had just that amount of self-possession which conceals without +conquering the sweet timidity of woman. Her voice was low, yet clear; +and her mild eyes, I found, were capable, on occasion, of both flashing +and melting. Why describe her? I loved her before I knew it; but, with +the consciousness of my love, that clairvoyant sense on which I had +learned to depend failed for the first time. Did she love me? When I +sought to answer the question in her presence, all was confusion within. + +This was not the only new influence which entered into and increased the +tumult of my mind. The other half of my two-sided nature--the cool, +reflective, investigating faculty--had been gradually ripening, and the +questions which it now began to present seriously disturbed the +complacency of my theories. I saw that I had accepted many things on +very unsatisfactory evidence; but, on the other hand, there was much for +which I could find no other explanation. Let me be frank, and say, that +I do not now pretend to explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism. This, +however, I determined to do,--to ascertain, if possible, whether the +influences which governed me in the trance state came from the persons +around, from the exercise of some independent faculty of my own mind, or +really and truly from the spirits of the dead. Mr. Stilton appeared to +notice that some internal conflict was going on; but he said nothing in +regard to it, and, as events proved, he entirely miscalculated its +character. + +I said to myself,--"If this chaos continues, it will drive me mad. Let +me have one bit of solid earth beneath my feet, and I can stand until it +subsides. Let me throw over the best bower of the heart, since all the +anchors of the mind are dragging!" I summoned resolution. I made that +desperate venture which no true man makes without a pang of forced +courage; but, thank God! I did not make it in vain. Agnes loved me, and +in the deep, quiet bliss which this knowledge gave I felt the promise of +deliverance. She knew and lamented my connection with the Spiritualists; +but, perceiving my mental condition from the few intimations which I +dared to give her, discreetly held her peace. But I could read the +anxious expression of that gentle face none the less. + +My first endeavor to solve the new questions was to check the _abandon_ +of the trance condition, and interfuse it with more of sober +consciousness. It was a difficult task; and nothing but the circumstance +that my consciousness had never been entirely lost enabled me to make +any progress. I finally succeeded, as I imagined, (certainty is +impossible,) in separating the different influences which impressed +me,--perceiving where one terminated and the other commenced, or where +two met and my mind vibrated from one to the other until the stronger +prevailed, or where a thought which seemed to originate in my own brain +took the lead and swept away with me like the mad rush of a prairie +colt. When out of the trance, I noticed attentively the expressions made +use of by Mr. Stilton and the other members of the circle, and was +surprised to find how many of them I had reproduced. But might they not, +in the first place, have been derived from me? And what was the vague, +dark Presence which still overshadowed me at such times? What was that +Power which I had tempted,--which we were all tempting, every time we +met,--and which continually drew nearer and became more threatening? I +knew not; _and I know not_. I would rather not speak or think of it +any more. + +My suspicions with regard to Stilton and Miss Fetters were confirmed by +a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should +treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, +but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there +was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon +the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual harmonies. Among +_us_, he said, there could be no more hatred or mistrust or +jealousy,--nothing but love, pure, unselfish, perfect love. "You, my +dear," (turning to Mrs. Stilton,) "belong to a sphere which is included +within my own, and share in my harmonies and affinities; yet the +soul-matter which adheres to you is of a different texture from mine. +Yours has also its independent affinities; I see and respect them; and +even though they might lead our bodies--our outward, material +lives--away from one another, we should still be true to that glorious +light of Jove which permeates all soul-matter." + +"Oh, Abijah!" cried Mrs. Stilton, really distressed, "how can you say +such a thing of me? You know I can never adhere to anybody else +but you!" + +Stilton would then call in my aid to explain his meaning, asserting that +I had a faculty of reaching his wife's intellect, which he did not +himself possess. Feeling a certain sympathy for her painful confusion of +mind, I did my best to give his words an interpretation which soothed +her fears. Then she begged his pardon, taking all the blame to her own +stupidity, and received his grudged, unwilling kiss with a restored +happiness which pained me to the heart. + +I had a growing presentiment of some approaching catastrophe. I felt, +distinctly, the presence of unhallowed passions in our circle; and my +steadfast love for Agnes, borne thither in my bosom, seemed like a pure +white dove in a cage of unclean birds. Stilton held me from him by the +superior strength of his intellect. I began to mistrust, even to hate +him, while I was still subject to his power, and unable to acquaint him +with the change in my feelings. Miss Fetters was so repulsive that I +never spoke to her when it could be avoided. I had tolerated her, +heretofore, for the sake of her spiritual gift; but now, when I began to +doubt the authenticity of that gift, her hungry eyes, her thin lips, her +flat breast, and cold, dry hands excited in me a sensation of absolute +abhorrence. + +The doctrine of Affinities had some time before been adopted by the +circle, as a part of the Spiritual Truth. Other circles, with which we +were in communication, had also received the same revelation; and the +ground upon which it was based, in fact, rendered its acceptance easy. +Even I, shielded as I was by the protecting arms of a pure love, sought +in vain for arguments to refute a doctrine, the practical operation of +which, I saw, might be so dangerous. The soul had a right to seek its +kindred soul: that I could not deny. Having found, they belonged to each +other. Love is the only law which those who love are bound to obey. I +shall not repeat all the sophistry whereby these positions were +strengthened. The doctrine soon blossomed and bore fruit, the nature of +which left no doubt as to the character of the tree. + +The catastrophe came sooner than I had anticipated, and partly through +my own instrumentality; though, in any case, it must finally have come. +We were met together at the house of one of the most zealous and +fanatical believers. There were but eight persons present,--the host and +his wife, (an equally zealous proselyte,) a middle-aged bachelor +neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Stilton, Miss Fetters and her father, and +myself. It was a still, cloudy, sultry evening, after one of those dull, +oppressive days when all the bad blood in a man seems to be uppermost in +his veins. The manifestations upon the table, with which we commenced, +were unusually rapid and lively. "I am convinced," said Mr. Stilton, +"that we shall receive important revelations to-night. My own mind +possesses a clearness and quickness, which, I have noticed, always +precede the visit of a superior spirit. Let us be passive and receptive, +my friends. We are but instruments in the hands of loftier +intelligences, and only through our obedience can this second advent of +Truth be fulfilled." + +He looked at me with that expression which I so well knew, as the signal +for a surrender of my will. I had come rather unwillingly, for I was +getting heartily tired of the business, and longed to shake off my habit +of (spiritual) intoxication, which no longer possessed any attraction, +since I had been allowed to visit Agnes as an accepted lover. In fact, I +continued to hold my place in the circle principally for the sake of +satisfying myself with regard to the real nature and causes of the +phenomena. On this night, something in Mr. Stilton's face arrested my +attention, and a rapid inspiration flashed through my mind. "Suppose," I +thought, "I allow the usual effect to be produced, yet reverse the +character of its operation? I am convinced that he has been directing +the current of my thought according to his will; let me now render +myself so thoroughly passive, that my mind, like a mirror, shall reflect +what passes through his, retaining nothing of my own except the simple +consciousness of what I am doing." Perhaps this was exactly what he +desired. He sat, bending forward a little over the table, his square +jaws firmly set, his eyes hidden beneath their heavy brows, and every +long, wiry hair on his head in its proper place. I fixed my eyes upon +him, threw my mind into a state of perfect receptivity, and waited. + +It was not long before I felt his approach. Shadow after shadow flitted +across the still mirror of my inward sense. Whether the thoughts took +words in his brain or in mine,--whether I first caught his disjointed +musings, and, by their utterance reacting upon him, gave system and +development to _his_ thoughts,--I cannot tell. But this I know: what I +said came wholly from him,--not from the slandered spirits of the dead, +not from the vagaries of my own imagination, but from _him_. "Listen to +me!" I said. "In the flesh I was a martyr to the Truth, and I am +permitted to communicate only with those whom the Truth has made free. +You are the heralds of the great day; you have climbed from sphere to +sphere, until now you stand near the fountains of light. But it is not +enough that you see: your lives must reflect the light. The inward +vision is for you, but the outward manifestation thereof is for the +souls of others. Fulfil the harmonies in the flesh. Be the living music, +not the silent instruments." + +There was more, much more of this,--a plenitude of eloquent sound, which +seems to embody sublime ideas, but which, carefully examined, contains +no more palpable substance than sea-froth. If the reader will take the +trouble to read an "Epic of the Starry Heavens," the production of a +Spiritual Medium, he will find several hundred pages of the same +character. But, by degrees, the revelation descended to details, and +assumed a personal application. "In you, in all of you, the spiritual +harmonies are still violated," was the conclusion. "You, Abijah Stilton, +who are chosen to hold up the light of truth to the world, require that +a transparent soul, capable of transmitting that light to you, should be +allied to yours. She who is called your wife is a clouded lens; she can +receive the light only through John----, who is her true spiritual +husband, as Abby Fetters is _your_ true spiritual wife!" + +I was here conscious of a sudden cessation of the influence which forced +me to speak, and stopped. The members of the circle opposite to me--the +host, his wife, neighbor, and old Mr. Fetters--were silent, but their +faces exhibited more satisfaction than astonishment. My eye fell upon +Mrs. Stilton. Her face was pale, her eyes widely opened, and her lips +dropped apart, with a stunned, bewildered expression. It was the blank +face of a woman walking in her sleep. These observations were +accomplished in an instant; for Miss Fetters, suddenly possessed with +the spirit of Black Hawk, sprang upon her feet. "Ugh! ugh!" she +exclaimed, in a deep, harsh voice, "where's the pale-face? Black Hawk, +he like him,--he love him much!"--and therewith threw her arms around +Stilton, fairly lifting him off his feet. "Ugh! fire-water for Black +Hawk!--big Injun drink!"--and she tossed off a tumbler of brandy. By +this time I had wholly recovered my consciousness, but remained silent, +stupefied by the extraordinary scene. + +Presently Miss Fetters became more quiet, and the possession left her. +"My friends," said Stilton, in his cold, unmoved voice, "I feel that the +spirit has spoken truly. We must obey our spiritual affinities, or our +great and glorious mission will be unfulfilled. Let us rather rejoice +that we have been selected as the instruments to do this work. Come to +me, Abby; and you, Rachel, remember that our harmony is not disturbed, +but only made more complete." + +"Abijah!" exclaimed Mrs. Stilton, with a pitiful cry, while the tears +burst hot and fast from her eyes; "dear husband, what does this mean? +Oh, don't tell me that I'm to be cast off! You promised to love me and +care for me, Abijah! I'm not bright, I know, but I'll try to understand +you; indeed I will! Oh, don't be so cruel!--don't"----And the poor +creature's voice completely gave way. + +She dropped on the floor at his feet, and lay there, sobbing piteously. + +"Rachel, Rachel," said he,--and his face was not quite so calm as his +voice,--"don't be rebellious. We are governed by a higher Power. This is +all for our own good, and for the good of the world. Besides, ours was +not a perfect affinity. You will be much happier with John, as he +harmonizes"---- + +I could endure it no longer. Indignation, pity, the full energy of my +will, possessed me. He lost his power over me then, and forever. + +"What!" I exclaimed, "you, blasphemer, beast that you are, you dare to +dispose of your honest wife in this infamous way, that you may be free +to indulge your own vile appetites?--you, who have outraged the dead and +the living alike, by making me utter your forgeries? Take her back, and +let this disgraceful scene end!--take her back, or I will give you a +brand that shall last to the end of your days!" + +He turned deadly pale, and trembled. I knew that he made a desperate +effort to bring me under the control of his will, and laughed mockingly +as I saw his knit brow and the swollen veins in his temples. As for the +others, they seemed paralyzed by the suddenness and fierceness of my +attack. He wavered but for an instant, however, and his +self-possession returned. + +"Ha!" he exclaimed, "it is the Spirit of Evil that speaks in him! The +Devil himself has risen to destroy our glorious fabric! Help me, +friends! help me to bind him, and to silence his infernal voice, before +he drives the pure spirits from our midst!" + +With that, he advanced a step towards me, and raised a hand to seize my +arm, while the others followed behind. But I was too quick for him. Weak +as I was, in comparison, rage gave me strength, and a blow, delivered +with the rapidity of lightning, just under the chin, laid him senseless +on the floor. Mrs. Stilton screamed, and threw herself over him. The +rest of the company remained as if stupefied. The storm which had been +gathering all the evening at the same instant broke over the house in +simultaneous thunder and rain. + +I stepped suddenly to the door, opened it, and drew a long, deep breath +of relief, as I found myself alone in the darkness. "Now," said I, "I +have done tampering with God's best gift; I will be satisfied with the +natural sunshine which beams from His Word and from His Works; I have +learned wisdom at the expense of shame!" I exulted in my new freedom, in +my restored purity of soul; and the wind, that swept down the dark, +lonely street, seemed to exult with me. The rains beat upon me, but I +heeded them not; nay, I turned aside from the homeward path, in order to +pass by the house where Agnes lived. Her window was dark, and I knew she +was sleeping, lulled by the storm; but I stood a moment below, in the +rain, and said aloud, softly,-- + +"Now, Agnes, I belong wholly to you! Pray to God for me, darling, that I +may never lose the true light I have found at last!" + +My healing, though complete in the end, was not instantaneous. The habit +of the trance, I found, had really impaired the action of my will. I +experienced a periodic tendency to return to it, which I have been able +to overcome only by the most vigorous efforts. I found it prudent, +indeed, to banish from my mind, as far as was possible, all subjects, +all memories, connected with Spiritualism. In this work I was aided by +Agnes, who now possessed my entire confidence, and who willingly took +upon herself the guidance of my mind at those seasons when my own +governing faculties flagged. Gradually my mental health returned, and I +am now beyond all danger of ever again being led into such fatal +dissipations. The writing of this narrative, in fact, has been a test of +my ability to overlook and describe my experience without being touched +by its past delusions. If some portions of it should not be wholly +intelligible to the reader, the defect lies in the very nature of +the subject. + +It will be noticed that I have given but a partial explanation of the +spiritual phenomena. Of the genuineness of the physical manifestations I +am fully convinced, and I can account for them only by the supposition +of some subtile agency whereby the human will operates upon inert +matter. Clairvoyance is a sufficient explanation of the utterances of +the Mediums,--at least of those which I have heard; but there is, as I +have said before, _something_ in the background,--which I feel too +indistinctly to describe, yet which I know to be Evil. I do not wonder +at, though I lament, the prevalence of the belief in Spiritualism. In a +few individual cases it may have been productive of good, but its +general tendency is evil. There are probably but few Stiltons among its +apostles, few Miss Fetterses among its Mediums; but the condition which +accompanies the trance, as I have shown, inevitably removes the +wholesome check which holds our baser passions in subjection. The Medium +is at the mercy of any evil will, and the impressions received from a +corrupt mind are always liable to be accepted by innocent believers as +revelations from the spirits of the holy dead. I shall shock many honest +souls by this confession, but I hope and believe that it may awaken and +enlighten others. Its publication is necessary, as an expiation for some +of the evil which has been done through my own instrumentality. + +I learned, two days afterwards, that Stilton (who was not seriously +damaged by my blow) had gone to New York, taking Miss Fetters with him. +Her ignorant, weak-minded father was entirely satisfied with the +proceeding. Mrs. Stilton, helpless and heart-broken, remained at the +house where our circle had met, with her only child, a boy of three +years of age, who, fortunately, inherited her weakness rather than his +father's power. Agnes, on learning this, insisted on having her removed +from associations which were at once unhappy and dangerous. We went +together to see her, and, after much persuasion, and many painful +scenes which I shall not recapitulate, succeeded in sending her to her +father, a farmer in Connecticut. She still remains there, hoping for the +day when her guilty husband shall return and be instantly forgiven. + +My task is ended; may it not have been performed in vain! + + + * * * * * + + + + +JOHN ANDRE AND HONORA SNEYD. + + +Many of our readers will remember the exquisite lines in which Béranger +paints the connection between our mortal lives and the stars of the sky. +With every human soul that finds its way to earth, a new gem is added to +the azure belt of heaven. Thenceforth the two exist in mutual +dependence, each influencing the other's fate; so that, when death comes +to seal the lips of the man, a flame is paled and a lamp extinguished in +the gulf above. In every loosened orb that shoots across the face of +night the experienced eye may trace the story and the fall of a +fellow-being. Youth, beauty, wealth, the humility of indigence and the +pride of power, alike find their term revealed in the bright, silent +course of the celestial spark; and still new signs succeed to provoke +the sympathy or dazzle the philosophy of the observer. + + "Quelle est cette étoile qui file, + Qui file, file, et disparait?" + +It is unfortunate that such a pretty manner of accounting for the nature +and origin of falling stars should be unsustained by sound astronomical +data, and utterly discountenanced by Herschel and Bond. There is +something in the theory very pleasant and very flattering to human +nature; and there are passages in the history of our race that might +make its promulgation not unacceptable. When, among the innumerable +"patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part +from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway +with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but +be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being +segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture, +hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their +memory with immortal fame. It is thus that the fulfilment of the vow +made in the heat of battle has given Jephthah's name a melancholy +permanence above all others of the captains of Israel. Mutius would long +ago have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave +as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but +for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And +Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty +years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was +failure and death that made him famous. + +Eighty years ago a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which, +in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes +far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by +calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of +undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan. +Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his +professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John André, +had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the +generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was +opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the +future. So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better +than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the +Promised Land. It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the +circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and +universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to +hold its seat in the bosom of friend and of foe. To this day, the most +distinguished American and English historians are at issue respecting +the justice of his doom; and to this day, the grave inquirer into the +rise and fall of empires pauses by the way to glean some scanty memorial +of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser +author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on +that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and +many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of +the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the +elucidation of the conduct of an individual. + +John André was born in England, probably at London,--possibly at +Southampton,--in the year 1751. His father was an honest, industrious +Switzer, who, following the example of his countrymen and his kindred, +had abandoned the rugged land of his birth, and come over to England to +see what could be made out of John Bull. The family-name appears to have +originally been St. André; and this was the style of the famous +dancing-master who gave to the courtiers of Charles II. their +graceful motions. + + "St. André's feet ne'er kept more equal time," + +wrote Dryden, in his "MacFlecknoe"; and the same writer again brings him +forward in the third act of "Limberham." It must be remembered that in +those days the teacher of fencing and dancing occupied a very +respectable position; and St. André's career was sufficiently prosperous +to tempt a young kinsman, who felt the elements of success strong within +him, to cross the seas in his own turn, and find wealth and reputation +in those pleasant pastures which England above all other countries then +laid open to the skilful adventurer. + +Nicholas St. André, who came to London about the close of the +seventeenth century, and who was undoubtedly nearly related to the +future Major André, seems to have passed through a career hardly +paralleled by that of Gil Blas himself. From the humblest beginnings, +his ready wit, his multifarious accomplishments, and his indomitable +assurance speedily carried him to the topmost wave of social prosperity. +A brief instruction in surgery gave him such a plausible appearance of +proficiency in the art as to permit his public lectures to be favorably +received, and to lead to his employment in the royal household. George +I. made him Anatomist to the Court, and, as a token of especial grace, +on one occasion, went so far as to bestow upon the young Swiss his own +sword. His attainments in all the amusements of a gentleman probably had +more to do with these advancements, however, than any professional +skill. He was a capital linguist; at fencing, leaping, running, and +other manly exercises, he found few rivals; and his dabblings in +architecture and botany were at least as notable as his mastership of +chess and his skill as a musician. But when it came to a scientific test +of his surgical and anatomical pretensions, his failure was lamentable +indeed. The unquenchable thirst for notoriety--which he may have +mistaken for fame--was perpetually leading him into questionable +positions, and finally covered his name with ridicule and confusion. + +An impudent woman, known as Mary Tofts, declared to the world, that, +instead of a human child, she had given birth to a litter of rabbits. +How such a ridiculous tale ever found believers, it is impossible to +conceive; but such was the case. All England, with the very small +exception of those who united the possession of learning with common +sense, was imbued with the frenzy. The price of warrens was abated to a +mere song, and for a season a Londoner would as readily have eaten a +baked child as a roasted rabbit. The children of men were believed to +populate the burrows, and authorities of the highest reputation lent an +unhesitating support to the delusion. The learned Whiston published in +the circumstance a fulfilment of a prophecy of Esdras, and St. André +loudly urged the authenticity of the entire fable and of the theories +that were founded upon it. But the satiric pen of Swift, the burin of +Hogarth, and the graver investigations of Cheselden at last turned the +popular tide, and covered St. André in particular with such a load of +contemptuous obloquy as to drive him forever from the high circles he +had moved in. So great was his spleen, that, from that time forth, he +would never suffer a dish upon his table or a syllable in his +conversation that could in any way bring to mind the absurd occasion of +his disgrace. + +If all reports are to be believed, St. André's career had led him into +many singular adventures. He had saved Voltaire's life, by violently +detaining Lord Peterborough, when the latter stood prepared to punish +with peremptory death some peccadillo of the Frenchman's. Voltaire fled +from the scene, while his adversary struggled to be released. His +services to Pope, when the poet was overturned in Lord Bolingbroke's +coach, did not protect him from a damaging allusion in the Epilogue to +the Satires, where the source of the wealth that he got by his marriage +with Lady Betty Molyneux is more plainly than politely pointed out. +Leaving forever, therefore, the sphere in which he had encountered so +much favor and so much severity, he retired to Southampton to end his +days in the society of his kindred; and it is more than probable that an +indisposition to proclaim too loudly their identity of race with the +unlucky surgeon was the cause of their modification of name by the +immediate family from which John André sprung. + +The father of our hero was a thrifty London trader, whose business as a +Turkey merchant had been prosperous enough to persuade him that no other +career could possibly be so well adapted for his son. The lad was of +another opinion; but those were not the days when a parent's will might +be safely contravened. Sent to Geneva to complete the education that had +been commenced at London, he returned to a seat in the counting-room +with intellectual qualifications that seemed to justify his aspirations +for a very different scene of action. He was a fluent linguist, a ready +and graceful master of the pencil and brush, and very well versed in the +schools of military design. Add to these a proficiency in poetry and +music, a person of unusual symmetry and grace, a face of almost feminine +softness, yet not descending from the dignity of manhood, and we have an +idea of the youth who was already meditating the means of throwing off +the chains that bound him to the inkhorn and ledger, and embracing a +more brilliant and glorious career. With him, the love of fame was an +instinctive passion. The annals of his own fireside taught him how +easily the path to distinction might be trod by men of parts and +address; and he knew in his heart that opportunity was the one and the +only thing needful to insure the accomplishment of his desires. Of very +moderate fortunes and utterly destitute of influential connections, he +knew that his education better qualified him for the useful fulfilment +of military duties than perhaps any man of his years in the service of +the king. Once embarked in the profession of arms, he had nothing to +rely upon but his own address to secure patronage and promotion,--nothing +but his own merits to justify the countenance that his ingenuity +should win. Without undue vanity, it is tolerably safe to say +now that he was authorized by the existing state of things to +confidently predicate his own success on these estimates. + +It is not easy to underrate the professional standard of the English +officer a hundred years ago. That some were good cannot be denied; that +most were bad is very certain. As there was no school of military +instruction in the realm, so no proof of mental or even of physical +capacity was required to enable a person to receive and to hold a +commission. A friend at the Horse Guards, or the baptismal gift of a +godfather, might nominate a baby three days old to a pair of colors. +Court influence or the ready cash having thus enrolled a puny suckling +among the armed defenders of the state, he might in regular process of +seniority come out a full-fledged captain or major against the season +for his being soundly birched at Eton; and an ignorant school-boy would +thus be qualified to govern the lives and fortunes of five hundred +stalwart men, and to represent the honor and the interests of the empire +in that last emergency when all might be depending on his courage and +capacity. Even women were thus saddled upon the pay-lists; and the time +is within the memory of living men, when a gentle lady, whose knowledge +of arms may be presumed to have never extended beyond the internecine +disputes of the nursery, habitually received the salary of a captaincy +of dragoons. In ranks thus officered, it was easy to foresee the speedy +and sure triumph of competent ability, when once backed by patronage. + +So long, however, as his dependence upon his father endured, it was +useless for André to anticipate the day when he might don the king's +livery. The repugnance with which his first motion in the matter was +greeted, and the affectionate opposition of his mother and sisters, seem +to have at least silenced, if they did not extinguish his desires. And +when the death of his father, in 1769, left him free to select his own +pathway through the world, a new conjuncture of affairs again caused him +to smother his cherished aspirations. + +The domestic relations of the André family were ever peculiarly tender +and affectionate; and in the loss of its head the survivors confessed a +great and a corroding sorrow. To repair the shattered health and recruit +the exhausted spirits of his mother and sisters, the son resolved to +lead them at once away from the daily contemplation of the grave to more +cheerful scenes. The medicinal waters of Derbyshire were then in vogue, +and a tour towards the wells of Buxton and of Matlock was undertaken. +Among the acquaintances that ensued from this expedition was that of the +family of the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield; and while a warm and lasting +friendship rapidly grew up between André and Miss Anna Seward, his heart +was surrendered to the charms of her adopted sister, Miss Honora Sneyd. + +By every account, Honora Sneyd must have been a paragon of feminine +loveliness. Her father was a country-gentleman of Staffordshire, who had +been left, by the untimely death of their mother, to the charge of a +bevy of infants. The solicitude of friends and relatives had sought the +care of these, and thus Honora became virtually a daughter of Mrs. +Seward's house. The character of this establishment may be conjectured +from the history of Anna Seward. Remote from the crushing weight of +London authority, she grew up in a provincial atmosphere of literary and +social refinement, and fondly believed that the polite praises (for +censure was a thing unknown among them) that were bandied about in her +own coterie would be cordially echoed by the voices of posterity. In +this she has been utterly deceived; but at the same time it must be +confessed that there was much in the tone of the reigning circles at +Lichfield, in those days, to contrast most favorably with the manners of +the literary sovereigns of the metropolis, or the intellectual elevation +of the rulers of fashion. At Lichfield, it was polite to be learned, and +good-breeding and mutual admiration went hand in hand. + +In such an atmosphere had Miss Sneyd been educated; and the +enthusiastic, not to say romantic, disposition of Miss Seward must have +given additional effect to every impulse that taught her to acknowledge +and rejoice in the undisguised admiration of the young London merchant. +His sentiments were as pure and lofty as her own; his person was as +attractive as that of any hero of romance; and his passion was deep and +true. With the knowledge and involuntary approbation of all their +friends, the love-affair between the two young people went on without +interruption or opposition. It seemed perfectly natural and proper that +they should be brought together. It was not, therefore, until a formal +betrothal began to loom up, that the seniors on either side bethought +themselves of the consequences. Neither party was a beggar; but neither +was in possession of sufficient estate to render a speedy marriage +advisable. It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which +must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons +whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved +a prolonged and wide separation. To this arrangement it would appear +that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover. His feelings +were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press +his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance. His +mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own +control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was +forbidden to regard as an elected husband. + +It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him +the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure +the means of accomplishing matrimony, that André was now persuaded to +renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back +to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional +visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss +Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are +vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which +his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a +specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental +fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her +name is Anna. + +"_London, October_ 19, 1769. + +"From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, +let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And +first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must +tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future +profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so +disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged +man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping +a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a +tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the +Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded +with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue +their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods; +Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his +gorgeous vessels 'launched on the bosom of the silver Thames' are +wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all +the mercantile glories crowd on my fancy, emblazoned in the most +effulgent colouring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soaring +pinions, I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my +labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to +receive me; I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and +poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabrick is +pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes +around, and find John André by a small coal-fire in a gloomy +compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been +making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is +at present. But, oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for +wealth.--You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I +must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this +threatening disease. + +"It is seven o'clock.--You and Honora, with two or three more select +friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fireplace. What +would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and +a snug circle round it, formed by a few select friends, transports me. +You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the +hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The +purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is +kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as +Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray, +imagine me with you; admit me to your _conversationés_:--Think how I +wish for the blessing of joining them!--and be persuaded that I take +part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that, ere it be very long, +your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray, keep me a place; let +the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me:--But you have Dutch tiles, +which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass be +my representative. + +"But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, +if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps +increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty. Silvered +with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps; musing, +as I homeward plod my way.--Ah! need I name the subject of my +contemplations? + +"_Thursday_. + +"I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with +their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their +amities, and will write in a few days. + +"This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable; +a solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light +was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the serene beams of an +autumnal sun! Gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, +ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, +expand the heart, and 'chase all sorrows but despair.' In the midst of +such a scene, no lesser sorrow can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A +calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating +power. The very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties. There is +a species of mild chearfulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but +indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented +look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave +unattempted. + +"Business calls me away--I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it +contain? No matter--You like anything better than news. Indeed, you have +never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, +from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the tastes of +Julia and _Cher Jean_. What is it to you or me, + + "If here in the city we have nothing but riot; + If the Spitalfield weavers can't be kept quiet; + If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty; + Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aged of thirty? + +"But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I +should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would +plead my cause with Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has +the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my +random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs.----. +Here it is at your service. + + "Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down, + With a flaming red face and a broad yellow gown, + And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown. + +"This little French cousin of our's, Delarise, was my sister Mary's +playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. +Doubtless they tell much of him to you in their letters. + +"How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh, let me not be forgot by the +friends most dear to you at Lichfield. Lichfield! Ah, of what magic +letters is that little word composed! How graceful it looks, when it is +written! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning, 'The Field of +Blood'! Oh, no such thing! It is the field of joy! 'The beautiful city, +that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, _I am, and there is +none beside me.'_ Who says she is vain? Julia will not say so,--nor yet +Honora,--and least of all, their devoted + +"John André." + +It is not difficult to perceive in the tone of this letter that its +writer was not an accepted lover. His interests with the lady, despite +Miss Seward's watchful care, were already declining; and the lapse of a +few months more reduced him to the level of a valued and entertaining +friend, whose civilities were not to pass the conventional limits of +polite intercourse. To André this fate was very hard. He was hopelessly +enamored; and so long as fortune offered him the least hope of eventual +success, he persevered in the faith that Honora might yet be his own. +But every returning day must have shaken this faith. His visits were +discontinued and his correspondence dropped. Other suitors pressed their +claims, and often urged an argument which it was beyond his means to +supply. They came provided with what Parson Hugh calls good gifts: +"Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts." Foremost among +these dangerous rivals were two men of note in their way: Richard Lovell +Edgeworth, and the eccentric, but amiable Thomas Day. + +Mr. Day was a man whose personal charms were not great. Overgrown, +awkward, pitted with the small-pox, he offered no pleasing contrast to +the discarded André: but he had twelve hundred pounds a year. His +notions in regard to women were as peculiar as his estimate of his own +merit. He seems to have really believed that it would be impossible for +any beautiful girl to refuse her assent to the terms of the contract by +which she might acquire his hand. These were absurd to a degree; and it +is not cause for surprise that Miss Sneyd should have unhesitatingly +refused them. Poor Mr. Day was not prepared for such continued ill-luck +in his matrimonial projects. He had already been very unfortunate in his +plans for obtaining a perfect wife,--having vainly provided for the +education of two foundlings between whom he promised himself to select a +paragon of a helpmate. To drop burning sealing-wax upon their necks, and +to discharge a pistol close to their ears, were among his philosophical +rules for training them to habits of submission and self-control; and +the upshot was, that they were fain to attach themselves to men of less +wisdom, but better taste. Miss Sneyd's conduct was more than he could +well endure, after all his previous disappointments; and he went to bed +with a fever that did not leave him till his passion was cured. He could +not at this time have anticipated, however, that the friendly hand which +had aided the prosecution of his addresses was eventually destined to +receive and hold the fair prize which so many were contending for. + +Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the ambassador and counsellor of Mr. Day in +this affair, was at the very moment of the rejection himself enamored of +Miss Sneyd. But Edgeworth had a wife already,--a pining, complaining +woman, he tells us, who did not make his home cheerful,--and honor and +decency forbade him to open his mouth on the subject that occupied his +heart. He wisely sought refuge in flight, and in other scenes the +natural exuberance of his disposition afforded a relief from the pangs +of an unlawful and secret passion. Lord Byron, who met him forty years +afterwards, in five lines shows us the man: if he was thus seen in the +dry wood, we can imagine what he was in the green:--"I thought Edgeworth +a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, +brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty,--no, nor +forty-eight even." He was in France when the death of his father left +him to the possession of a good estate,--and that of his wife occurring +in happy concurrence, he lost little time in opening in his own behalf +the communications that had failed when he spoke for Mr. Day. His wooing +was prosperous; in July, 1773, he married Miss Sneyd. + +It is a mistake, sanctioned by the constant acceptance of historians, to +suppose that it was this occasion that prompted André to abandon a +commercial life. The improbability of winning Honora's hand, and the +freedom with which she received the addresses of other men, undoubtedly +went far to convince him of the folly of sticking to trade with but one +motive; and so soon as he attained his majority, he left the desk and +stool forever, and entered the army. This was a long time before the +Edgeworth marriage was undertaken, or even contemplated. + +Lieutenant André of the Royal Fusileers had a very different line of +duty to perform from Mr. André, merchant, of Warnford Court, Throgmorton +Street; and the bustle of military life, doubtless, in some degree +diverted his mind from the disagreeable contemplation of what was +presently to occur at Lichfield. Some months were spent on the Continent +and among the smaller German courts about the Rhine. After all was over, +however, and the nuptial knot fairly tied that destroyed all his +youthful hopes, he is related to have made a farewell expedition to the +place of his former happiness. There, at least, he was sure to find one +sympathizing heart. Miss Seward, who had to the very last minute +contended with her friend against Mr. Edgeworth and in support of his +less fortunate predecessor, now met him with open arms. No pains were +spared by her to alleviate, since she could not remove, the +disappointment that evidently possessed him. A legend is preserved in +connection with this visit that is curious, though manifestly of very +uncertain credibility. It is said that an engagement had been made by +Miss Seward to introduce her friend to two gentlemen of some note in the +neighborhood, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Newton. On the appointed morning, +while awaiting their expected guests, Cunningham related to his +companion a vision--or rather, a series of visions--that had greatly +disturbed his previous night's repose. He was alone in a wide forest, he +said, when he perceived a rider approaching him. The horseman's +countenance was plainly visible, and its lines were of a character too +interesting to be readily forgotten. Suddenly three men sprang forth +from an ambush among the thickets, and, seizing the stranger, hauled him +from his horse and bore him away. To this succeeded another scene. He +stood with a great multitude near by some foreign town. A bustle was +heard, and he beheld the horseman of his earlier dream again led along a +captive. A gibbet was erected, and the prisoner was at once hanged. In +narrating this tale, Cunningham averred that the features of its hero +were still fresh in his recollection; the door opened, and in the face +of André, who at that moment presented himself, he professed to +recognize that which had so troubled his slumbers. + +Such is the tale that is recorded of the supernatural revelation of +André's fate. If it rested on somewhat better evidence than any we are +able to find in its favor, it would be at least more interesting. But +whether or no the young officer continued to linger in the spirit about +the spires of Lichfield and the romantic shades of Derbyshire, it is +certain that his fleshly part was moving in a very different direction. +In 1774, he embarked to join his regiment, then posted in Canada, and +arrived at Philadelphia early in the autumn of the year. + +It is not within the design of this paper to pursue to any length the +details of André's American career. Regimental duties in a country +district rarely afford matter worthy of particular record; and it is not +until the troubles of our Revolutionary War break out, that we find +anything of mark in his story. He was with the troops that Carleton sent +down, after the fall of Ticonderoga, to garrison Chambly and St. John's, +and to hold the passage of the Sorel against Montgomery and his little +army. With the fall of these forts, he went into captivity. There is +too much reason to believe that the imprisonment of the English on this +occasion was not alleviated by many exhibitions of generosity on the +part of their captors. Montgomery, indeed, was as humane and honorable +as he was brave; but he was no just type of his followers. The articles +of capitulation were little regarded, and the prisoners were, it would +seem, rapidly despoiled of their private effects. "I have been taken by +the Americans," wrote André, "and robbed of everything save the picture +of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving that, I think +myself happy." Sent into the remote parts of Pennsylvania, his +companions and himself met with but scant measure of courtesy from the +mountaineers of that region; nor was he exchanged for many long and +weary months. Once more free, however, his address and capacity soon +came to his aid. His reports and sketches speedily commended him to the +especial favor of the commander-in-chief, Sir William Howe; and ere long +he was promoted to a captaincy and made aide-de-camp to Sir Charles +Grey. This was a dashing, hard-fighting general of division, whose +element was close quarters and whose favorite argument was the cold +steel. If, therefore, André played but an inactive part at the +Brandywine, he had ample opportunity on other occasions of tasting the +excitement and the horrors of war. The night-surprises of Wayne at +Paoli, and of Baylor on the Hudson,--the scenes of Germantown and +Monmouth,--the reduction of the forts at Verplanck's Ferry, and the +forays led against New Bedford and the Vineyard,--all these familiarized +him with the bloody fruits of civil strife. But they never blunted for +one moment the keenness of his humanity, or warped those sentiments of +refinement and liberality that always distinguished him. Within the +limited range of his narrow sphere, he was constantly found the friend +and reliever of the wounded or captive Americans, and the protector and +benefactor of the followers of his own banner. Accomplished to a degree +in all the graces that adorn the higher circles of society, he was free +from most of their vices; and those who knew him well in this country +have remarked on the universal approbation of both sexes that followed +his steps, and the untouched heart that escaped so many shafts. Nor, +while foremost in the brilliant pleasures that distinguished the British +camp and made Philadelphia a Capua to Howe, was he ever known to descend +to the vulgar sports of his fellows. In the balls, the theatricals, the +picturesque _Mischianza_, he bore a leading hand; but his affections, +meanwhile, appear to have remained where they were earliest and last +bestowed. In our altered days, when marriage and divorce seem so often +interchangeable words, and loyal fidelity but an Old-World phrase, +ill-fashioned and out of date, there is something very attractive in +this hopeless constancy of an exiled lover. + +Beyond the seas, meanwhile, the object of this unfortunate attachment +was lending a happy and a useful life in the fulfilment of the various +duties of a wife, a mother, and a friend. Her husband was a large landed +proprietor, and in public spirit was inferior to no country-gentleman of +the kingdom. Many of his notions were fanciful enough, it must be +allowed; but they were all directed to the improvement and amelioration +of his native land and its people. In these pursuits, as well as in +those of learning, Mrs. Edgeworth was the active and useful coadjutor of +her husband; and it was probably to the desire of this couple to do +something that would make the instruction of their children a less +painful task than had been their own, that we are indebted for the +adaptation of the simpler rudiments of science to a childish dress. In +1778 they wrote together the First Part of "Harry and Lucy," and printed +a handful of copies in that largo black type which every one associates +with the first school-days of his childhood. From these pages she taught +her own children to read. The plan was communicated to Mr. Day, who +entered into it eagerly; and an educational library seemed about to be +prepared for the benefit of a far-away household in the heart of +Ireland. But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's +life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; +and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to +forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his +little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book +that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful +judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth +included "Harry and Lucy" in her "Early Lessons." It is thus a point to +be noticed, that nothing but the _res angusta domi_, the lack of wealth, +on the part of young André, was the cause of that series of little +volumes being produced by Miss Edgeworth, which so long held the first +place among the literary treasures of the nurseries of England and +America. Lazy Lawrence, Simple Susan, and a score more of excellently +conceived characters, might never have been called from chaos to +influence thousands of tender minds, but for André's narrow purse. + +The ravages of the insidious disease with which she was afflicted soon +came to an end; and after a term of wedlock as brief as it was +prosperous, Mrs. Edgeworth's dying couch was spread.--"I have every +blessing," she wrote, "and I am happy. The conversation of my beloved +husband, when my breath will let me have it, is my greatest delight: he +procures me every comfort, and, as he always said he thought he should, +contrives for me everything that can ease and assist my weakness,-- + + "'Like a kind angel, whispers peace, + And smooths the bed of death.'" + +Rightly viewed, the closing scenes in the life of this estimable woman +are not less solemn, not less impressive, than those of that memorable +day, when, with all the awful ceremonials of offended justice and the +stern pageantries of war, her lover died in the full glare of noonday +before the eyes of assembled thousands. He had played for a mighty +stake, and he had lost. He had perilled his life for the destruction of +our American empire, and he was there to pay the penalty: and surely +never, in all the annals of our race, has a man more gallantly yielded +up his forfeited breath, or under circumstances more impressive. He +perished regretted alike by friend and foe; and perhaps not one of the +throng that witnessed his execution but would have rejoicingly hailed a +means of reconciling his pardon with the higher and inevitable duties +which they owed to the safety of the army and the existence of the +state. And in the aspect which the affair has since taken, who can say +that André's fate has been entirely unfortunate? He drank out the wine +of life while it was still sparkling and foaming and bright in his cup: +he tasted none of the bitterness of its lees till almost his last sun +had risen. When he was forever parted from the woman whom he loved, a +new, but not an earthly mistress succeeded to the vacant throne; and +thenceforth the love of glory possessed his heart exclusively. And how +rarely has a greater lustre attached to any name than to his! His bones +are laid with those of the wisest and mightiest of the land; the +gratitude of monarchs cumbers the earth with his sepulchral honors; and +his memory is consecrated in the most eloquent pages of the history not +only of his own country, but of that which sent him out of existence. +Looked upon thus, death might have been welcomed by him as a benefit +rather than dreaded as a calamity, and the words applied by Cicero to +the fate of Crassus be repeated with fresh significancy,--"_Mors dortata +quam vita erepta_." + +The same year that carries on its records the date of André's fall +witnessed the death of a second Honora Edgeworth, the only surviving +daughter of Honora Sneyd. She is represented as having inherited all the +beauty, all the talents of her mother. The productions of her pen and +pencil seem to justify this assertion, so far as the precocity of such a +mere child may warrant the ungarnered fruits of future years. But with +her parent's person she received the frailties of its constitution; and, +ere girlhood had fairly opened upon her way of life, she succumbed to +the same malady that had wrecked her mother. + + + * * * * * + + + + +WE SHALL RISE AGAIN. + + We know the spirit shall not taste of death: + Earth bids her elements, + "Turn, turn again to me!" + But to the soul, unto the soul, she saith, + "Flee, alien, flee!" + + And circumstance of matter what doth weigh? + Oh! not the height and depth of this to know + But reachings of that grosser element, + Which, entered in and clinging to it so, + With earthlier earthiness than dwells in clay, + Can drag the spirit down, that, looking up, + Sees, through surrounding shades of death and time, + With solemn wonder, and with new-born hope, + The dawning glories of its native clime; + And inly swell such mighty floods of love, + Unutterable longing and desire, + For that celestial, blessed home above, + The soul springs upward like the mounting fire, + Up, through the lessening shadows on its way, + While, in its raptured vision, grows more clear + The calm, the high, illimitable day + To which it draws more near and yet more near. + Draws near? Alas! its brief, its waning strength + Upward no more the fetters' weight can bear: + It falters,--pauses,--sinks; and, sunk at length, + Plucks at its chain in frenzy and despair. + + Not forever fallen! Not in eternal prison! + No! hell with fire of pain + Melteth apart its chain; + Heaven doth once more constrain: + It hath arisen! + + And never, never again, thus to fall low? + Ah, no! + Terror, Remorse, and Woe, + Vainly they pierced it through with many sorrows; + Hell shall regain it,--thousand times regain it; + But can detain it + Only awhile from ruthful Heaven's to-morrows. + + That sin is suffering, + It knows,--it knows this thing; + And yet it courts the sting + That deeply pains it; + It knows that in the cup + The sweet is but a sup, + That Sorrow fills it up, + And who drinks drains it. + + It knows; who runs may read. + But, when the fetters dazzle, heaven's far joy seems dim; + And 'tis not life but so to be inwound. + A little while, and then--behold it bleed + With madness of its throes to be unbound! + + It knows. But when the sudden stress + Of passion is resistlessness, + It drags the flood that sweeps away, + For anchorage, or hold, or stay, + Or saving rock of stableness, + And there is none,-- + No underlying fixedness to fasten on: + Unsounded depths; unsteadfast seas; + Wavering, yielding, bottomless depths: + But these! + + Yea, sometimes seemeth gone + The Everlasting Arm we lean upon! + + So blind, as well as maimed and halt and lame, + What sometimes makes it see? + Oppressed with guilt and gnawed upon of shame, + What comes upon it so, + Faster and faster stealing, + Flooding it like an air or sea + Of warm and golden feeling? + What makes it melt, + Dissolving from the earthiness that made it hard and heavy? + What makes it melt and flow, + And melt and melt and flow,-- + Till light, clear-shining through its heart of dew, + Makes all things new? + + Loosed from the spirit of infirmity, listen its cry. + "Was it I that longed for oblivion, + O wonderful Love! was it I, + That deep in its easeful water + My wounded soul might lie? + That over the wounds and anguish + The easeful flood might roll? + A river of loving-kindness + Has healed and hidden the whole. + Lo! in its pitiful bosom + Vanish the sins of my youth,-- + Error and shame and backsliding + Lost in celestial ruth. + + "O grace too great! + O excellency of my new estate! + + "No more, for the friends that love me, + I shall veil my face or grieve + Because love outrunneth deserving; + I shall be as they believe. + And I shall be strong to help them, + Filled of Thy fulness with stores + Of comfort and hope and compassion. + Oh, upon all my shores, + With the waters with which Thou dost flood me, + Bid me, my Father, o'erflow! + Who can taste Thy divineness, + Nor hunger and thirst to bestow? + Send me, oh, send me! + The wanderers let me bring! + The thirsty let me show + Where the rivers of gladness spring, + And fountains of mercy flow! + How in the hills shall they sit and sing, + With valleys of peace below!" + + Oh that the keys of our hearts the angels would bear in their bosoms! + For revelation fades and fades away, + Dream-like becomes, and dim, and far-withdrawn; + And evening comes to find the soul a prey, + That was caught up to visions at the dawn; + Sword of the spirit,--still it sheathes in rust, + And lips of prophecy are sealed with dust. + + High lies the better country, + The land of morning and perpetual spring; + But graciously the warder + Over its mountain-border + Leans to us, beckoning,--bids us, "Come up hither!" + And though we climb with step unfixed and slow, + From visioning heights of hope we look off thither, + And we must go. + + And we shall go! And we shall go! + We shall not always weep and wander so,-- + Not always in vain, + By merciful pain, + Be upcast from the hell we seek again! + How shall we, + Whom the stars draw so, and the uplifting sea? + Answer, thou Secret Heart! how shall it be, + With all His infinite promising in thee? + + Beloved! beloved! not cloud and fire alone + From bondage and the wilderness restore + And guide the wandering spirit to its own; + But all His elements, they go before: + Upon its way the seasons bring, + And hearten with foreshadowing + The resurrection-wonder, + What lands of death awake to sing + And germs of hope swell under; + And full and fine, and full and fine, + The day distils life's golden wine; + And night is Palace Beautiful, peace-chambered. + All things are ours; and life fills up of them + Such measure as we hold. + For ours beyond the gate, + The deep things, the untold, + We only wait. + + + + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +THE WILD HUNTSMAN. + + +The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. Without +attributing any great importance to the warning he had given him, Mr. +Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was becoming a +pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as good as many +others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after the first +few days. + +The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the back-yard of the Institute +was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about in +Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not easily +stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, +but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. +It soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful +shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at +three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; +some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and +that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other +words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, +as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, +however innocent he may be of them. + +In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this +time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the +population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for +want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the +Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he +can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's +version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, +as far as he could see the white of it. + +Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing +more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster +too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant +work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did +not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in +his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,--a robber, +say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; +long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with +the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he +could do as a marksman. + +The nature of the mark that Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from +an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially +abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some +practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to +render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet +way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was +very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; +rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's ears, +if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick satisfied himself +that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance +of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there happened to be anything +behind it, the glass would not materially alter the force or direction +of the bullet. + +About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want of +practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and regain +its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For his first +trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and after the hour +when the Rockland people were like to be stirring abroad. He was so far +established now that he could do much as he pleased without +exciting remark. + +The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, +had been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be remembered, +he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long strip of hide +with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been accustomed to playing +with such a thong from his boyhood, and had become expert in its use in +capturing wild cattle in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately, +there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in the neighborhood, to +become the subjects of his skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a +horse in a pasture, must serve his turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks +to aim at, at any rate. + +Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the +lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the +silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving +a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale +explosion,--is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm +the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest +with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost +naked _retiarius_ with his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin +in the other. Once get a net over a man's head, or a cord round his +neck, or, what is more frequently done nowadays, _bonnet_ him by +knocking his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his +opponent. Our soldiers who served against the Mexicans found this out +too well. Many a poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from +the plains, and fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him +in the fatal noose. + +But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might have +been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky mother +who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately along the +road, laying the dust, as she went, with thready streams from her +swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the windmill!" said +Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the lasso round his head as +he rode. The creature swerved to one side of the way, as the wild horse +and his rider came rushing down upon her, and presently turned and ran, +as only cows and--it wouldn't be safe to say it--can run. Just before he +passed,--at twenty or thirty feet from her,--the lasso shot from his +hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in an instant its loop was round her +horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as he galloped up to her side and +dexterously disengaged the lasso. "Now for a horse on the run!" + +He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at the +roadside. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove the +horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young animal enough, +and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew more and +more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, until the two horses +stretched themselves out in their longest strides. If the first feat +looked like play, the one he was now to attempt had a good deal the +appearance of real work. He touched the mustang with the spur, and in a +few fierce leaps found himself nearly abreast of the frightened animal +he was chasing. Once more he whirled the lasso round and round over his +head, and then shot it forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from +the loops against which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, +and in another instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. +The prairie horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the +captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and +the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble +and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a +thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was +enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet +snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and rode slowly +along towards the mansion-house. + +The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as he +now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the grand +mountain-screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern blasts, +rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high +towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square chimneys, and +bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared +gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings,--the beds of +flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in its centre +bearing a sun-dial on which the rays of the moon were idly shining, +another with a white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over all these +objects, harmonized with all their infinite details into one fair whole +by the moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed himself, looked +with admiring eyes. + +But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from a +poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of the +inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. Every day +this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up to +that place,--that usher's girltrap. Every day,--regularly now,--it used +to be different. Did she go only to get out of his, her cousin's, reach? +Was she not rather becoming more and more involved in the toils of this +plotting Yankee? + +If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in advance, +the chances are that in less than one minute he would have found himself +with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted horseman. +Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse +quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded towards the +house. He got to his bed without disturbing the family, but could not +sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of his mind that a deep +intrigue was going on which would end by bringing Elsie and the +schoolmaster into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With that +ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy, he tortured every +circumstance of the last few weeks so as to make it square with this +belief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed to a consideration +of every possible method by which the issue he feared might be avoided. + +Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these inward +colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be done then? +First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which should put a +complete and final check upon his projects and contrivances. The +particular accident which might interrupt his career must, evidently, be +determined by circumstances; but it must be of a nature to explain +itself without the necessity of any particular person's becoming +involved in the matter. It would be unpleasant to go into particulars; +but everybody knows well enough that men sometimes get in the way of a +stray bullet, and that young persons occasionally do violence to +themselves in various modes,--by fire-arms, suspension, and other +means,--in consequence of disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than +from other motives. There was still another kind of accident which might +serve his purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the +most natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his +nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, Uncle Dudley +should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, where would +he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication which he could +conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not help noticing--that +his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much +pleased with, that young woman from the school. What did that mean? Was +it possible that he was going to take a fancy to her? + +It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might +defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his +grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: sometimes at that +of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the +meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that +of the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that +of his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to +peril the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection. It was +a frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no +one single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the +fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If +it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one +person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make +that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that +a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered +the case. + +His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes arranging +plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, sometimes +getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of considering +what object he should select as the one most clearly in his way. On the +whole, there could be no doubt where the most threatening of all his +embarrassments lay. It was in the probable growing relation between +Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should prove, as it seemed likely, +that there was springing up a serious attachment tending to a union +between them, he knew what he should do, if he was not quite so sure how +he should do it. + +There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, +at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet +observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: +whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under +what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with +him might be reckoned on, in case it should be desirable. He could also +very probably learn some facts about Elsie: whether the young man was in +the habit of attending her on her way home from school; whether she +stayed about the school-room after the other girls had gone; and any +incidental matters of interest which might present themselves. + +He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A mad +gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a fancy to +him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in her talk, +for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of some of his +earlier friends, the _señoritas_,--all these were distractions, to be +sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in +longings for more dangerous excitements. The thought of getting a +knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he would be in his power at +any moment, was a happy one. + +For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, to +watch her until she got to the school-house. One day he saw Mr. Bernard +join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only once this +happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart from the +groups of girls who strolled out of the school-house yard in company. +Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. Could she +have stayed to meet the schoolmaster? + +If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have liked +to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding between +her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. But this was +beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content himself with +such cautious observations as could be made at a distance. With the aid +of a pocket-glass he could make out persons without the risk of being +observed himself. + +Mr. Silas Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off duty +or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. Sometimes Mr. +Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go out for a ramble +in the day-time; but more frequently it would be in the evening, after +the hour of "retiring," as bed-time was elegantly termed by the young +ladies of the Apollinean Institute. He would then not unfrequently walk +out alone in the common roads, or climb up the sides of The Mountain, +which seemed to be one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it was +impossible to follow him with the eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, +gnawing suspicion that somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster +might meet Elsie, whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this +he was not able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present +plans, and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk one +evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. Presently +a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a wooded bank, some +thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick Venner could see the +interior of the chamber, and watch the master as he sat at his desk, the +light falling strongly upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript +before him. Dick contemplated him very long in this attitude. The sense +of watching his every motion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was +delicious. How little the master was thinking what eyes were on him! + +Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he chose, +he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in a more +solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an evening or +two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he sat at his +desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be very little +difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, silence is always +preferable to noise, and there is a great difference in the marks left +by different casualties. Very likely nothing would come of all this +espionage; but, at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man you +want to have in your power is to learn his habits. + +Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful +and moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. It +was the working of her jealousy against that young school-girl to whom +the master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the heiress of +the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to exasperate her +irritable nature against him, and in this way to render her more +accessible to his own advances? It was difficult to influence her at +all. She endured his company without seeming to enjoy it. She watched +him with that strange look of hers, sometimes as if she were on her +guard against him, sometimes as if she would like to strike at him as in +that fit of childish passion. She ordered him about with a haughty +indifference which reminded him of his own way with the dark-eyed women +whom he had known so well of old. All this added a secret pleasure to +the other motives he had for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He +knew she brooded silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that +she fed on it, as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her +veins,--and that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself +was not likely the second time to be the object, or in some deadly +vengeance wrought secretly, against which he would keep a sharp +look-out, so far as he was concerned, she had no outlet for her +dangerous, smouldering passions. + +Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, there +is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to listen to +her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental,--then, +if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few heartfuls of wild blood +in her, and you have done her a wrong,--double-bolt the door which she +may enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,--look twice before you taste +of any cup whose draught the shadow of her hand may have darkened! + +But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives in +the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is tired, +she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of coffee +from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment. So, if she +can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her wickedness will run +off through her throat or the tips of her fingers. How many tragedies +find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades and strenuous +bravuras! How many murders are executed in double-quick time upon the +keys which stab the air with their dagger-strokes of sound! What would +our civilization be without the piano? Are not Erard and Broadwood and +Chickering the true humanizers of our time? Therefore do I love to hear +the all-pervading _tum tum_ jarring the walls of little parlors in +houses with double door-plates on their portals, looking out on streets +and courts which to know is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to +live, according to any true definition of living. Therefore complain I +not of modern degeneracy, when, even from the open window of the small +unlovely farm-house, tenanted by the hard-handed man of bovine flavors +and the flat-patterned woman of broken-down countenance, issue the same +familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira, but for these keys, which +throb away her wild impulses in harmless discords, would not have been +floating, dead, in the brown stream which runs through the meadows by +her father's door,--or living, with that other current which runs +beneath the gas-lights over the slimy pavement, choking with wretched +weeds that were once in spotless flower? + +Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner life +in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as common +articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be in action. +Watch her well by day and by night, Old Sophy! watch her well! or the +long line of her honored name may close in shame, and the stately +mansion of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till its roof is +buried in its cellar! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + + +ON HIS TRACKS. + + +"Abel!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?" + +Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will you" +did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of rounding +the corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the personal +independence of an American citizen. + +The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. His +face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the +Doctor's eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which looked +as if he had something to communicate. + +"Well?" said the Doctor. + +"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest happened +daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' the gate on +that queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very +slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. +He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn +to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a +pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be +all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' +raoun' the Institoot for, after folks is abed." + +"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor. + +"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be +pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' +want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me +like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits +ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know what +hurts ye." + +"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any +such weapon about him?" + +"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks kin' +o' dangerous. May-be he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't say that +he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raoun' jest 'z ef he +wuz spyin' somebody; 'n' somehaow I caan't help mistrustin' them +Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caa'n't keep the run o' this chap all the +time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown't the mansion-haouse +knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody." + +The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his private +detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in +the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from +the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. +He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a +shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the +schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had +cautioned Mr. Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt an interest in the +young man,--a student of his own profession, an intelligent and +ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been thrown by accident +into the companionship or the neighborhood of two person, one of whom he +knew to be dangerous, and the other he believed instinctively might be +capable of crime. + +The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of +seeing Old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen. +He began talking with her as a physician; he wanted to know how her +rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw though all that with her +little beady black eyes. It was something quite different he had come +for, and Old Sophy answered very briefly for her aches and ails. + +"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the Lord's +doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sh'n't be long roun' this kitchen. +It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it's our Elsie,--it's the baby, as we +use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen year ago, 'n' +her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where is she? Let me see +her!'--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run then,--'n' got the coral +necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, 'n' then showed her to her +mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, 'n' looked, 'n' then put out +her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the necklace,--'n' fell right back on +her piller, as white as though she was laid out to bury?" + +The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He had +never chosen to let Old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious +reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual fears and +prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it. + +"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief pause. + +The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply. + +The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the +glasses through which he now saw her. + +Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision. + +"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from +the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three +times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!" + +"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in +his tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a +certain tendency to belief in the superstition to which the +question refers. + +"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, as +if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it was +somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' +people,--like the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor +chil', 'n' take care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared she'll +never live to see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick." Poor +Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not unnaturally, +somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of the Second-Advent +preachers had been about, and circulated their predictions among the +kitchen-population of Rockland. This was the way in which it happened +that she mingled her fears in such a strange manner with their +doctrines. + +The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, but +it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in the +household different from common?" + +Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, when +she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her +infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of +observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather +looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor +was a mighty conjuror, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She +had relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the +Doctor was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them +through all their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She +had but one real object of affection in the world,--this child that she +had tended from infancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick +round her; how soon they would break upon her, and blight or destroy +her, no one could tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue of +terrors that might not come upon the household at any moment. Her own +wits had sharpened themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her +face had forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to +its features. + +"Doctor," Old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by night +and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked him. He +giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I know it make +him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he needn' feel as if I +didn' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as much as a member o' +the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody." + +Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to Mr. +Richard Venner might perhaps go a little farther than the Christian +limit she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather was in the +habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the last enemy he +had bagged, and that her grandmother's teeth were filed down to points, +so that they were as sharp as a shark's. + +"What is it that you have seen about Mr. Richard Venner that gives you +such a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor. + +"What I' seen 'bout Dick Venner?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell y' +what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that's what he wan's; 'n' +he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as I hate him! +He wan's to marry our Elsie, 'n' live here in the big house, 'n' have +nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch Massa Venner 'n' see how long +'t 'll take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die fas' 'nuff, help him some way +t' die fasser!--Come close up t' me, Doctor! I wan' t' tell you +somethin' I tol' th' minister t'other day. Th' minister, he come down +'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, +'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie,--but he didn' tell nobody what to +do to stop all what I been dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to +me, Doctor!" + +The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman. + +"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's long 's she lives! +Nobody mus'n' never live with Elsie but Ol' Sophy; 'n' Ol' Sophy won't +never die 's long 's Elsie's alive to be took care of. But I 's feared, +Doctor, I 's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. The' 's a +young gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of 'em tells +me,--'n' she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she talks about him +when she's asleep sometimes. She mus'n' never marry nobody, Doctor! If +she do, he die, certain!" + +"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the Doctor +said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from Dick." + +"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but Ol' Sophy. She no like any +other creatur' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' marry one +man cos she love him, she marry another man cos she hate him." + +"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it." + +"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said Old Sophy, with a flash +of strange intelligence in her eyes. + +The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could not +know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange +superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had +better follow Sophy's lead and find out what she meant. + +"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. "You +don't mean that she has any ugly thing about her, except--you +know--under the necklace?" + +The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her darling. + +"I didn' say she had nothin'--but jes' that--you know. My beauty have +anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever had a +shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't like no +other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh like other +women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as other women.--Do +you know that young gen'l'm'n up at the school, Doctor?" + +"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young man, +handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell me, +Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to fall in +love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?" + +"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a little to +the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all." + +"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she +would have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, if +anybody can." + +"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live wi' +Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but Ol' Sophy, +I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, if Dick +Venner die? He wan's to marry our Elsie so's to live in the big house +'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the chists full +o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes! That's what Dick wan's. An' he hates +Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marries Elsie, she'll make him +die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her 'n' hang her, or he'll +get mad with her 'n' choke her.--Oh, I know his chokin' tricks!--he don' +leave his keys roun' for nothin'!" + +"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that." + +So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his +chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it +to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of +inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather +thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, +which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at +least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search; but Old Sophy considered +that a game of life and death was going on in the household, and that +she was bound to look out for her darling. + +The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of information. +Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use this +mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was certainly +very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom of his trunk. +The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something about the _lasso_ and +the _lariat_ and the _bolas_, and had an indistinct idea that they had +been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or private revenge; but they +were essentially a huntsman's implements, after all, and it was not very +strange that this young man had brought one of them with him. Not +strange, perhaps, but worth noting. + +"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently. + +"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, he +never let nobody else have her. Oh, Dick's a dark man, Doctor! I know +him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunnin'. I think +he mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,--come in +softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I hear the +cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Venner, when he comes up +in his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean mischief to +somebody. I no like his looks these las' days.--Is that a very pooty +gen'l'm'n up at the school-house, Doctor?" + +"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?" + +"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus'n' never marry nobody,--but, +oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little how it +would ha' been, if the Lord hadn' been so hard on Elsie." + +She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left her +a moment to her thoughts. + +"And how does Mr. Dudley Venner take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little. + +"Oh, Massa Venner, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, as +Ol' Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, 'n' +set by her sometime when she 'sleep; I come to her in th' mornin' 'n' +help her put on her things."--Then, in a whisper,--"Doctor, Elsie lets +Ol' Sophy take off that necklace for her. What you think she do, 'f +anybody else tech it?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps." + +"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her hands, Doctor!"--The old woman's +significant pantomime must be guessed at. + +"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Venner thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry Elsie." + +"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout what +goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you know,--sort o' +giv' up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say 'Yes, yes.' Dick +always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. One time I thought Massa +Venner b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to Elsie; but now he don' seem to +take much notice;--he kin' o' stupid-like 'bout sech things. It's +trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Venner bright man naterally,--'n' he's got a +great heap o' books. I don' think Massa Venner never been jes' heself +sence Elsie's born. He done all he know how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a +great deal. You men-folks don' know nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' +'f you knowed all the young gals that ever lived, y' wouldn' know +nothin' 'bout our Elsie." + +"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. Venner +has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has any notion +that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels safe to have +him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him." + +"Lor' bless you, Doctor, Massa Venner no more idee 'f any mischief 'bout +Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long wi' +us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' ol' +family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby,--y' +never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care for +nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. The +fus' year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the window +'n' look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the baby's neck +'n' say, '_It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it?_' 'n' then go down in the study +'n' walk 'n' walk, 'n' then kneel down 'n' pray. Doctor, there was two +places in the old carpet that was all threadbare, where his knees had +worn 'em. An sometimes,--you remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up +into The Mountain 'n' be gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he +could find up there.--Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them +days!--An' by-'n'-by he grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, +'n' 't las' he got's quiet 's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I +think he's got religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's +goin' on, 'n' I don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' +happens;--for the' 's somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day +doesn' come to stop it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my +poor Elsie, my baby that the Lord hasn' took care of like all his +other childer." + +The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal about +them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her own. Let +her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a look-out +elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know at once. +Send up one of the men-servants, and he would come down at a +moment's warning. + +There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the Doctor +was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He rode +straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had a brief +conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his personal +interests. + +That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place of +his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night Mr. +Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back among +the fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a dozen +of it. + + + + +A PLEA FOR FREEDOM FROM SPEECH AND FIGURES +OF SPEECH-MAKERS. + + +I observe, Messieurs of the "Atlantic," that your articles are commonly +written in the imperial style; but I must beg allowance to use the first +person singular. I cannot, like old Weller, spell myself with a We. Ours +is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the +worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal +pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. +Other tongues have, or pretend, a greater modesty. + +I. + +What a noble letter it is! In it every reader sees himself as in a +glass. As for me, without my I-s, I should be as poorly off as the great +mole of Hadrian, which, being the biggest, must be also, by parity of +reason, the blindest in the world. When I was in college, I confess I +always liked those passages best in the choruses of the Greek drama +which were well sprinkled with _ai ai_, they were so grandly simple. +The force of great men is generally to be found in their intense +individuality,--in other words, it is all in their I. The merit of this +essay will be similar. + +What I was going to say is this. + +My mind has been much exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, +which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun +to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and +Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human +habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind. We had hitherto got on very +well in Chesumpscot, having caught a trick of silence, perhaps from the +fish which we cured, _more medicorum_, by laying them out. But this +summer some misguided young men among us got up a lecture-association. +Of course it led to a general quarrel; for every pastor in the town +wished to have the censorship of the list of lecturers. A certain number +of the original projectors, however, took the matter wholly into their +own hands, raised a subscription to pay expenses, and resolved to call +their lectures "The Universal Brotherhood Course,"--for no other reason, +that I can divine, but that they had set the whole village by the ears. +They invited that distinguished young apostle of Reform, Mr. Philip +Vandal, to deliver the opening lecture. He has just done so, and, from +what I have heard about his discourse, it would have been fitter as the +introductory to a nunnery of Kilkenny cats than to anything like +universal brotherhood. He opened our lyceum as if it had been an oyster, +without any regard for the feelings of those inside. He pitched into the +world in general, and all his neighbors past and present in particular. +Even the babe unborn did not escape some unsavory epithets in the way of +vaticination. I sat down, meaning to write you an essay on "The Right of +Private Judgment as distinguished from the Right of Public +Vituperation"; but I forbear. It may be that I do not understand the +nature of philanthropy. + +Why, here is Philip Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that +he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of +them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is +worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (_a +knurly_) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway +once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's shop. I like dealers in +out-of-the-way things,--traders in bigotry and virtue are too +common,--and so I went in. The gem of the collection was a terrier,--a +perfect beauty, uglier than philanthropy itself, and hairier, as a +Cockney would say, than the 'ole British hairystocracy. "A'n't he a +stunner?" said my disrespectable friend, the master of the shop. "Ah, +you should see him worry a rat! He does it like a puffic Christian!" +Since then, the world has been divided for me into Christians and +perfect Christians; and I find so many of the latter species in +proportion to the former, that I begin to pity the rats. They (the rats) +have at least one virtue,--they are not eloquent. + +It is, I think, a universally recognized truth of natural history, that +a young lady is sure to fall in love with a young man for whom she feels +at first an unconquerable aversion; and it must be on the same principle +that the first symptoms of love for our neighbor almost always manifest +themselves in a violent disgust at the world in general, on the part of +the apostles of that gospel. They give every token of hating their +neighbors consumedly; _argal_, they are going to be madly enamored of +them. Or, perhaps, this is the manner in which Universal Brotherhood +shows itself in people who wilfully subject themselves to infection as a +prophylactic. In the natural way we might find the disease inconvenient +and even expensive; but thus vaccinated with virus from the udders +(whatever they may be) that yield the (butter-)milk of human kindness, +the inconvenience is slight, and we are able still to go about our +ordinary business of detesting our brethren as usual. It only shows that +the milder type of the disease has penetrated the system, which will +thus be enabled to out-Jenneral its more dangerous congener. Before +long we shall have physicians of our ailing social system writing to the +"Weekly Brandreth's Pill" somewhat on this wise:--"I have a very marked +and hopeful case in Pequawgus Four Corners. Miss Hepzibah Tarbell, +daughter of that arch-enemy of his kind, Deacon Joash T., attended only +one of my lectures. In a day or two the symptoms of eruption were most +encouraging. She has already quarrelled with all her family,--accusing +her father of bigamy, her uncle Benoni of polytheism, her brother Zeno +C. of aneurism, and her sister Eudoxy Trithemia of the variation of the +magnetic needle. If ever hopes of seeing a perfect case of Primitive +Christian were well-founded, I think we may entertain them now." + +What I chiefly object to in the general denunciation sort of reformers +is that they make no allowance for character and temperament. They wish +to repeal universal laws, and to patch our natural skins for us, as if +they always wanted mending. That while they talk so much of the godlike +nature of man, they should so forget the human natures of men! The +Flathead Indian squeezes the child's skull between two boards till it +shapes itself into a kind of gambrel-roof against the rain,--the +readiest way, perhaps, of uniforming a tribe that wear no clothes. But +does he alter the inside of the head? Not a hair's-breadth. You remember +the striking old gnomic poem that tells how Aaron, in a moment of +fanatical zeal against that member by which mankind are so readily led +into mischief, proposes a rhinotomic sacrifice to Moses? What is the +answer of the experienced lawgiver? + + "Says Moses to Aaron, + ''Tis the fashion to wear 'em!'" + +Shall we advise the Tadpole to get his tail cut off, as a badge of the +reptile nature in him, and to achieve the higher sphere of the Croakers +at a single hop? Why, it is all he steers by; without it, he would be as +helpless as a compass under the flare of Northern Lights; and he no +doubt regards it as a mark of blood, the proof of his kinship with the +preadamite family of the Saurians. Shall we send missionaries to the +Bear to warn him against raw chestnuts, because they are sometimes so +discomforting to our human intestines, which are so like his own? One +sermon from the colic were worth the whole American Board. + +Moreover, as an author, I protest in the name of universal Grub Street +against a unanimity in goodness. Not to mention that a Quaker world, all +faded out to an autumnal drab, would be a little tedious,--what should +we do for the villain of our tragedy or novel? No rascals, no +literature. You have your choice. Were we weak enough to consent to a +sudden homogeneousness in virtue, many industrious persons would be +thrown out of employment. The wife and mother, for example, with as +indeterminate a number of children as the Martyr Rogers, who visits me +monthly,--what claim would she have upon me, were not her husband +forever taking to drink, or the penitentiary, or Spiritualism? The +pusillanimous lapse of her lord into morality would not only take the +very ground of her invention from under her feet, but would rob her and +him of an income that sustains them both in blissful independence of the +curse of Adam. But do not let us be disheartened. Nature is strong; she +is persistent; she completes her syllogism after we have long been +feeding the roots of her grasses, and has her own way in spite of us. +Some ancestral Cromwellian trooper leaps to life again in Nathaniel +Greene, and makes a general of him, to confute five generations of +Broadbrims. The Puritans were good in their way, and we enjoy them +highly as a preterite phenomenon: but they were _not_ good at cakes and +ale, and that is one reason why they are a preterite phenomenon. + +I suppose we are all willing to let a public censor like P.V. run amuck +whenever he likes,--so it be not down our street. I confess to a good +deal of tolerance in this respect, and, when I live in Number 21, have +plenty of stoicism to spare for the griefs of the dwellers in No. 23. +Indeed, I agreed with our young Cato heartily in what he said about +Statues. We must have an Act for the Suppression, either of Great Men, +or else of Sculptors. I have not quite made up my mind which are the +greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of +both. They used to be _rare_, (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett,) +but nowadays they are overdone. I am half-inclined to think that the +sculptors club together to write folks up during their lives in the +newspapers, quieting their consciences with the hope of some day making +them look so mean in bronze or marble as to make all square again. Or do +we really have so many? Can't they help growing twelve feet high in this +new soil, any more than our maize? I suspect that Posterity will not +thank us for the hereditary disease of Carrara we are entailing on him, +and will try some heroic remedy, perhaps lithotripsy. + +Nor was I troubled by what Mr. Vandal said about the late Benjamin +Webster. I am not a Boston man, and have, therefore, the privilege of +thinking for myself. Nor do I object to his claiming for women the right +to make books and pictures and (shall I say it?) statues,--only this +last becomes a grave matter, if we are to have statues of all the great +women, too! To be sure, there will not be the trousers-difficulty,--at +least, not at present; what we may come to is none of my affair. I even +go beyond him in my opinions on what is called the Woman Question. In +the gift of speech, they have always had the advantage of us; and though +the jealousy of the other sex have deprived us of the orations of +Xantippe, yet even Demosthenes does not seem to have produced greater +effects, if we may take the word of Socrates for it,--as I, for one, +very gladly do. + +No,--what I complain of is not the lecturer's opinions, but the +eloquence with which he expressed them. He does not like statues better +than I do; but is it possible that he fails to see that the one nuisance +leads directly to the other, and that we set up three images of Talkers +for one to any kind of man who was useful in his generation? Let him +beware, or he will himself be petrified after death. Boston seems to be +specially unfortunate. She has more statues and more speakers than any +other city on this continent. I have with my own eyes seen a book called +"The Hundred Boston Orators." This would seem to give her a fairer title +to be called the _tire_ than the _hub_ of creation. What with the +speeches of her great men while they are alive, and those of her +surviving great men about those aforesaid after they are dead, and those +we look forward to from her _ditto ditto_ yet to be upon her _ditto +ditto_ now in being, and those of her paulopost _ditto ditto_ upon her +_ditto ditto_ yet to be, and those--But I am getting into the house +that Jack built. And yet I remember once visiting the Massachusetts +State-House and being struck with the Pythagorean fish hung on high in +the Representatives' Chamber, the emblem of a silence too sacred, as +would seem, to be observed except on Sundays. Eloquent Philip Vandal, I +appeal to you as a man and a brother, let us two form (not an +Antediluvian, for there are plenty, but) an Antidiluvian Society against +the flood of milk-and-water that threatens the land. Let us adopt as our +creed these two propositions:-- + +I. _Tongues were given us to be held._ + +II. _Dumbness sets the brute below the man: Silence elevates the man +above the brute._ + +Every one of those hundred orators is to me a more fearful thought than +that of a hundred men gathering samphire. And when we take into account +how large a portion of them (if the present mania hold) are likely to be +commemorated in stone or some even more durable material, the conception +is positively stunning. Let us settle all scores by subscribing to a +colossal statue of the late Town-Crier in bell-metal, with the +inscription, "VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL," as a comprehensive tribute to +oratorical powers in general. _He_, at least, never betrayed his +clients. As it is, there is no end to it. We are to set up Horatius Vir +in effigy for inventing the Normal Schoolmaster, and by-and-by we shall +be called on to do the same ill-turn for Elihu Mulciber for getting +uselessly learned (as if any man had ideas enough for twenty languages!) +without any schoolmaster at all. We are the victims of a droll +antithesis. Daniel would not give in to Nebuchadnezzar's taste in +statuary, and we are called on to fall down and worship an image of +Daniel which the Assyrian monarch would have gone to grass again sooner +than have it in his back-parlor. I do not think lions are agreeable, +especially the shaved-poodle variety one is so apt to encounter;--I met +one once at an evening party. But I would be thrown into a den of them +rather than sleep in the same room with that statue. Posterity will +think we cut pretty figures indeed in the monumental line! Perhaps there +is a gleam of hope and a symptom of convalescence in the fact that the +Prince of Wales, during his late visit, got off without a single speech. +The cheerful hospitalities of Mount Auburn were offered to him, as to +all distinguished strangers, but nothing more melancholy. In his case I +doubt the expediency of the omission. Had we set a score or two of +orators on him and his suite, it would have given them a more +intimidating notion of the offensive powers of the country than West +Point and all the Navy-Yards put together. + +In the name of our common humanity, consider, too, what shifts our +friends in the sculpin line (as we should call them in Chesumpscot) are +put to for originality of design, and what the country has to pay for +it. The Clark Mills (that turns out equestrian statues as the Stark +Mills do calico-patterns) has pocketed fifty thousand dollars for making +a very dead bronze horse stand on his hind-legs. For twenty-five cents I +have seen a man at the circus do something more wonderful,--make a very +living bay horse dance a redowa round the amphitheatre on his (it occurs +to me that _hind-legs_ is indelicate) posterior extremities to the +wayward music of an out-of-town (_Scotice_, out-o'-toon) band. Now, I +will make a handsome offer to the public. I propose for twenty-five +thousand dollars to suppress my design for an equestrian statue of a +distinguished general officer as he _would have_ appeared at the Battle +of Buena Vista. This monument is intended as a weathercock to crown the +new dome of the Capitol at Washington. By this happy contrivance, the +horse will be freed from the degrading necessity of touching the earth +at all,--thus distancing Mr. Mills by two feet in the race for +originality. The pivot is to be placed so far behind the middle of the +horse, that the statue, like its original, will always indicate which +way the wind blows by going along with it. The inferior animal I have +resolved to model from a spirited saw-horse in my own collection. In +this way I shall combine two striking advantages. The advocates of the +Ideal in Art cannot fail to be pleased with a charger which embodies, as +it were, merely the abstract notion or quality, Horse, and the attention +of the spectator will not be distracted from the principal figure. The +material to be pure brass. I have also in progress an allegorical group +commemorative of Governor Wise. This, like-Wise, represents only a +potentiality. I have chosen, as worthy of commemoration, the moment when +and the method by which the Governor meant to seize the Treasury at +Washington. His Excellency is modelled in the act of making one of his +speeches. Before him a despairing reporter kills himself by falling on +his own steel pen; a broken telegraph-wire hints at the weight of the +thoughts to which it has found itself inadequate; while the Army and +Navy of the United States are conjointly typified in a horse-marine who +flies headlong with his hands pressed convulsively over his ears. I +think I shall be able to have this ready for exhibition by the time Mr. +Wise is nominated for the Presidency,--certainly before he is elected. +The material to be plaster, made of the shells of those oysters with +which Virginia shall have paid her public debt. It may be objected, that +plaster is not durable enough for verisimilitude, since bronze itself +could hardly be expected to outlast one of the Governor's speeches. But +it must be remembered that his mere effigy cannot, like its prototype, +have the pleasure of hearing itself talk; so that to the mind of the +spectator the oratorical despotism is tempered with some reasonable hope +of silence. This design, also, is intended only _in terrorem_, and will +be suppressed for an adequate consideration. + +I find one comfort, however, in the very hideousness of our statues. The +fear of what the sculptors will do for them after they are gone may +deter those who are careful of their memories from talking themselves +into greatness. It is plain that Mr. Caleb Cushing has begun to feel a +wholesome dread of this posthumous retribution. I cannot in any other +way account for that nightmare of the solitary horseman on the edge of +the horizon, in his Hartford Speech. His imagination is infected with +the terrible consciousness, that Mr. Mills, as the younger man, will, in +the course of Nature, survive him, and will be left loose to seek new +victims of his nefarious designs. Formerly the punishment of the wooden +horse was a degradation inflicted on private soldiers only; but Mr. +Mills (whose genius could make even Pegasus look wooden, in whatever +material) flies at higher game, and will be content with nothing short +of a general. Mr. Cushing advises extreme measures. He counsels us to +sell our real estate and stocks, and to leave a country where no man's +reputation with posterity is safe, being merely as clay in the hands of +the sculptor. To a mind undisturbed by the terror natural in one whose +military reputation insures his cutting and running, (I mean, of course, +in marble and bronze,) the question becomes an interesting one,--To +whom, in case of a general exodus, shall we sell? The statues will have +the land all to themselves,--until the Aztecs, perhaps, repeopling their +ancient heritage, shall pay divine honors to these images, whose +ugliness will revive the traditions of the classic period of Mexican +Art. For my own part, I never look at one of them now without thinking +of at least one human sacrifice. + +I doubt the feasibility of Mr. Cushing's proposal, and yet something +ought to be done. We must put up with what we have already, I suppose, +and let Mr. Webster stand threatening to blow us all up with his pistol +pointed at the elongated keg of gunpowder on which his left hand +rests,--no bad type of the great man's state of mind after the +nomination of General Taylor, or of what a country member would call a +penal statue. But do we reflect that Vermont is half marble, and that +Lake Superior can send us bronze enough for regiments of statues? I go +back to my first plan of a prohibitory enactment. I had even gone so far +as to make a rough draught of an Act for the Better Observance of the +Second Commandment; but it occurred to me that convictions under it +would be doubtful, from the difficulty of satisfying a jury that our +graven images did really present a likeness to any of the objects +enumerated in the divine ordinance. Perhaps a double-barrelled statute +might be contrived that would meet both the oratorical and the +monumental difficulty. Let a law be passed that all speeches delivered +more for the benefit of the orator than that of the audience, and all +eulogistic ones of whatever description, be pronounced in the chapel of +the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and all statues be set up within the grounds +of the Institution for the Blind. Let the penalty for infringement in +the one case be to read the last President's Message, and in the other +to look at the Webster statue one hour a day, for a term not so long as +to violate the spirit of the law forbidding cruel and unusual +punishments. + +Perhaps it is too much to expect of our legislators that they should +pass so self-denying an ordinance. They might, perhaps, make all oratory +but their own penal, and then (who knows?) the reports of their debates +might be read by the few unhappy persons who were demoniacally possessed +by a passion for that kind of thing, as girls are sometimes said to be +by an appetite for slate-pencils. _Vita brevis, lingua longa_. I protest +that among law-givers I respect Numa, who declared, that, of all the +Camenae, Tacita was most worthy of reverence. The ancient Greeks also +(though they left too much oratory behind them) had some good notions, +especially if we consider that they had not, like modern Europe, the +advantage of communication with America. Now the Greeks had a Muse of +Beginning, and the wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how +hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more +excellent Muse of Leaving-off. The Spartans, I suspect, found her out +and kept her selfishly to themselves. She were indeed a goddess to be +worshipped, a true Sister of Charity among that loquacious sisterhood! + +Endlessness is the order of the day. I ask you to compare Plutarch's +lives of demigods and heroes with our modern biographies of deminoughts +and zeroes. Those will appear but tailors and ninth-parts of men in +comparison with these, every one of whom would seem to have had nine +lives, like a cat, to justify such prolixity. Yet the evils of print are +as dust in the balance to those of speech. + +We were doing very well in Chesumpscot, but the Lyceum has ruined all. +There are now two debating-clubs, seminaries of multiloquence. A few of +us old-fashioned fellows have got up an opposition club and called it +"The Jolly Oysters." No member is allowed to open his mouth except at +high-tide by the calendar. We have biennial festivals on the evening of +election-day, when the constituency avenges itself in some small measure +on its Representative elect by sending a baker's dozen of orators to +congratulate him. + +But I am falling into the very vice I condemn,--like Carlyle, who has +talked a quarter of a century in praise of holding your tongue. And yet +something should be done about it. Even when we get one orator safely +under-ground, there are ten to pronounce his eulogy, and twenty to do it +over again when the meeting is held about the inevitable statue. I go to +listen: we all go: we are under a spell. 'Tis true, I find a casual +refuge in sleep; for Drummond of Hawthornden was wrong when he called +Sleep the child of Silence. Speech begets her as often. But there is no +sure refuge save in Death; and when my life is closed untimely, let +there be written on my headstone, with impartial application to these +Black Brunswickers mounted on the high horse of oratory and to our +equestrian statues,-- + +_Os sublime_ did it! + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita_. Vol. I, Containing, +I. _Opus Tertium_,--II. _Opus Minus_,--III. _Compendium Philosophiae_. +Edited by J.S. BREWER, M.A., Professor of English Literature, King's +College, London, and Reader at the Rolls. Published by the Authority of +the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction +of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and +Roberts. 1859. 8vo. pp. c., 573. + +Sir John Romilly has shown good judgment in including the unpublished +works of Roger Bacon in the series of "Chronicles and Memorials of Great +Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," now in course of +publication under his direction. They are in a true sense important +memorials of the period at which they were written, and, though but +incidentally illustrating the events of the time, they are of great +value in indicating the condition of thought and learning as well as the +modes of mental discipline and acquisition during the thirteenth century. + +The memory of Roger Bacon has received but scant justice. Although long +since recognized as one of the chief lights of England during the Middle +Ages, the clinging mist of popular tradition has obscured his real +brightness and distorted its proportions, while even among scholars he +has been more known by reputation than by actual acquaintance with his +writings. His principal work, his "Opus Majus," was published for the +first time in London in 1733, in folio, and afterwards at Venice in +1750, in the same form. Down to the publication of the volume before us, +it was the only one of his writings of much importance which had been +printed complete, if indeed it is to be called complete,--the Seventh +Part having been omitted by the editor, Dr. Jebb, and never having since +been published. + +The facts known concerning Roger Bacon's life are few, and are so +intermingled with tradition that it is difficult wholly to separate them +from it. Born of a good family at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, near the +beginning of the thirteenth century, he was placed in early youth at +Oxford, whence, after completing his studies in grammar and logic, "he +proceeded to Paris," says Anthony Wood, "according to the fashion +prevalent among English scholars of those times, especially among the +members of the University of Oxford." Here, under the famous masters of +the day, he devoted himself to study for some years, and made such +progress that he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity. Returning to +Oxford, he seems soon to have entered into the Franciscan Order, for the +sake of securing a freedom from worldly cares, that he might the more +exclusively give himself to his favorite pursuits. At various times he +lectured at the University. He spent some later years out of England, +probably again in Paris. His life was embittered by the suspicions felt +in regard to his studies by the brethren of his order, and by their +opposition, which proceeded to such lengths that it is said he was cast +into prison, where, according to one report, he died wretchedly. However +this may have been, his death took place before the beginning of the +fourteenth century. The scientific and experimental studies which had +brought him into ill-favor with his own order, and had excited the +suspicion against him of dealing in magic and forbidden arts, seem to +have sown the seed of the popular traditions which at once took root +around his name. Friar Bacon soon became, and indeed has remained almost +to the present day, a half-mythical character. To the imagination of the +common people, he was a great necromancer; he had had dealings with the +Evil One, who had revealed many of the secrets of Nature to him; he had +made a head of brass that could speak and foretell future events; and to +him were attributed other not less wonderful inventions, which seem to +have formed a common stock for popular legends of this sort during the +Middle Ages, and to have been ascribed indiscriminately to one +philosopher or another in various countries and in various times.[9] The +references in our early literature to Friar Bacon, as one who had had +familiarity with spirits and been a master in magic arts, are so +numerous as to show that the belief in these stories was wide-spread, +and that the real character of the learned Friar was quite given over to +oblivion. But time slowly brings about its revenges; and the man whom +his ignorant and stupid fellows thought fit to hamper and imprison, and +whom popular credulity looked upon with that half-horror and +half-admiration with which those were regarded who were supposed to have +put their souls in pawn for the sake of tasting the forbidden fruit, is +now recognized not only as one of the most profound and clearest +thinkers of his time, but as the very first among its experimental +philosophers, and as a prophet of truths which, then neglected and +despised, have since been adopted as axioms in the progress of science. +"The precursor of Galileo," says M. Hauréau, in his work on Scholastic +Philosophy, "he learned before him how rash it is to offend the +prejudices of the multitude, and to desire to give lessons to the +ignorant." + +The range of Roger Bacon's studies was encyclopedic, comprehending all +the branches of learning then open to scholars. Brucker, in speaking of +him in his History of Philosophy, has no words strong enough to express +his admiration for his abilities and learning. "Seculi sui indolem +multum superavit," "vir summus, tantaque occultioris philosophiae +cognitione et experientia nobilis, ut merito Doctoris Mirabilis titulum +reportaverit."[10] The logical and metaphysical studies, in the +intricate subtilties of which most of the schoolmen of his time involved +themselves, presented less attraction to Bacon than the pursuits of +physical science and the investigation of Nature. His genius, displaying +the practical bent of his English mind, turning with weariness from the +endless verbal discussions of the Nominalists and Realists, and +recognizing the impossibility of solving the questions which divided the +schools of Europe into two hostile camps, led him to the study of +branches of knowledge that were held in little repute. He recognized the +place of mathematics as the basis of exact science, and proceeded to the +investigation of the facts and laws of optics, mechanics, chemistry, and +astronomy. But he did not limit himself to positive science; he was at +the same time a student of languages and of language, of grammar and of +music. He was versed not less in the arts of the _Trivium_ than in the +sciences of the Quadrivium.[11] + +But in rejecting the method of study then in vogue, and in opposing the +study of facts to that of questions which by their abstruseness fatigued +the intellect, which were of more worth in sharpening the wit than in +extending the limits of knowledge, and which led rather to vain +contentions than to settled conclusions,--in thus turning from the +investigation of abstract metaphysics to the study of Nature, Roger +Bacon went so far before his age as to condemn himself to solitude, to +misappreciation, and to posthumous neglect. Unlike men of far narrower +minds, but more conformed to the spirit of the times, he founded no +school, and left no disciples to carry out the system which he had +advanced, and which was one day to have its triumph. At the end of the +thirteenth century the scholastic method was far from having run its +career. The minds of men were occupied with problems which it alone +seemed to be able to resolve, and they would not abandon it at the will +of the first innovator. The questions in dispute were embittered by +personal feeling and party animosities. Franciscans and Dominicans were +divided by points of logic not less than by the rules of their +orders.[12] Ignorance and passion alike gave ardor to discussion, and it +was vain to attempt to convince the heated partisans on one side or the +other, that the truths they sought were beyond the reach of human +faculties, and that their dialectics and metaphysics served to bewilder +more than to enlighten the intellect. The disciples of subtile +speculatists like Aquinas, or of fervent mystics like Bonaventura, were +not likely to recognize the worth and importance of the slow processes +of experimental philosophy. + +The qualities of natural things, the limits of intellectual powers, the +relations of man to the universe, the conditions of matter and spirit, +the laws of thought, were too imperfectly understood for any man to +attain to a comprehensive and correct view of the sources and methods of +study and discovery of the truth. Bacon shared in what may he called, +without a sneer, the childishnesses of his time, childishnesses often +combined with mature powers and profound thought. No age is fully +conscious of its own intellectual disproportions; and what now seem mere +puerilities in the works of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were perhaps +frequently the result of as laborious effort and as patient study as +what we still prize in them for its manly vigor and permanent worth. In +a later age, the Centuries of the "Sylva Sylvarum" afford a curious +comment on the Aphorisms of the "Novum Organum." + +The "Opus Majus" of Bacon was undertaken in answer to a demand of Pope +Clement IV. in 1266, and was intended to contain a review of the whole +range of science, as then understood, with the exception of logic. +Clement had apparently become personally acquainted with Bacon, at the +time when, as legate of the preceding Pope, he had been sent to England +on an ineffectual mission to compose the differences between Henry III. +and his barons, and he appears to have formed a just opinion of the +genius and learning of the philosopher. + +The task to which Bacon had been set by the Papal mandate was rapidly +accomplished, in spite of difficulties which might have overcome a less +resolute spirit; but the work extended to such great length in his +hands, that he seems to have felt a not unnatural fear that Clement, +burdened with the innumerable cares of the Pontificate, would not find +leisure for its perusal, much less for the study which some part of it +demanded. With this fear, fearful also that portions of his work might +be deficient in clearness, and dreading lest it might be lost on its way +to Rome, he proceeded to compose a second treatise, called the "Opus +Minus," to serve as an abstract and specimen of his greater work, and to +embrace some additions to its matter. Unfortunately, but a fragment of +this second work has been preserved, and this fragment is for the first +time published in the volume just issued under the direction of the +Master of the Rolls. But the "Opus Minus" was scarcely completed before +he undertook a third work, to serve as an introduction and preamble to +both the preceding. This has been handed down to us complete, and this, +too, is for the first time printed in the volume before us. We take the +account of it given by Professor Brewer, the editor, in his +introduction. + + "Inferior to its predecessors in the importance + of its scientific details and the illustration + it supplies of Bacon's philosophy, it is + more interesting than either, for the insight + it affords of his labors, and of the numerous + obstacles he had to contend with in the execution + of his work. The first twenty chapters + detail various anecdotes of Bacon's personal + history, his opinions on the state of + education, the impediments thrown in his + way by the ignorance, the prejudices, the + contempt, the carelessness, the indifference + of his contemporaries. From the twentieth + chapter to the close of the volume he pursues + the thread of the Opus Majus, supplying what + he had there omitted, correcting and explaining + what had been less clearly or correctly + expressed in that or in the Opus Minus. In + Chapter LII. he apologizes for diverging from + the strict line he had originally marked out, + by inserting in the ten preceding chapters his + opinions on three abstruse subjects, Vacuum, + Motion, and Space, mainly in regard to their + spiritual significance. 'As these questions,' + he says,' are very perplexing and difficult, I + thought I would record what I had to say + about them in some one of my works. In the + Opus Majus and Opus Minus I had not studied + them sufficiently to prevail on myself to + commit my thoughts about them to writing; + and I was glad to omit them, owing to the + length of those works, and because I was + much hurried in their composition.' From the + fifty-second chapter to the close of the volume + he adheres to his subject without further digression, + but with so much vigor of thought + and freshness of observations, that, like the + Opus Minus, the Opus Tertium may be fairly + considered an independent work."--pp. + xliv-xlv.[13] + +The details which Bacon gives of his personal history are of special +interest as throwing light upon the habits of life of a scholar in the +thirteenth century. Their autobiographic charm is increased by their +novelty, for they give a view of ways of life of which but few +particulars have been handed down. + +Excusing himself for the delay which had occurred, after the reception +of the Pope's letter, before the transmission of the writings he had +desired, Bacon says that he was strictly prohibited by a rule of his +Order from communicating to others any writing made by one of its +members, under penalty of loss of the book, and a diet for many days of +bread and water. Moreover, a fair copy could not be made, supposing that +he succeeded in writing, except by scribes outside of the Order; and +they might transcribe either for themselves or others, and through their +dishonesty it very often happened that books were divulged at Paris. + +"Then other far greater causes of delay occurred, on account of which I +was often ready to despair; and a hundred times I thought to give up the +work I had undertaken; and, had it not been for reverence for the Vicar +of the only Saviour, and [regard to] the profit to the world to be +secured through him alone, I would not have proceeded, against these +hindrances, with this affair, for all those who are in the Church of +Christ, however much they might have prayed and urged me. The first +hindrance was from those who were set over me, to whom you had written +nothing in my favor, and who, since I could not reveal your secret +[commission] to them, being bound not to do so by your command of +secrecy, urged me with unutterable violence, and with other means, to +obey their will. But I resisted, on account of the bond of your precept, +which obliged me to your work, in spite of every mandate of my +superiors.... + +"But I met also with another hindrance, which was enough to put a stop +to the whole matter, and this was the want of [means to meet] the +expense. For I was obliged to pay out in this business more than sixty +livres of Paris,[14] the account and reckoning of which I will set forth +in their place hereafter. I do not wonder, indeed, that you did not +think of these expenses, because, sitting at the top of the world, you +have to think of so great and so many things that no one can estimate +the cares of your mind. But the messengers who carried your letters were +careless in not making mention to you of these expenses; and they were +unwilling to expend a single penny, even though I told them that I would +write to you an account of the expenses, and that to every one of them +should be returned what was his. I truly have no money, as you know, nor +can I have it, nor consequently can I borrow, since I have nothing +wherewith to repay. I sent then to my rich brother, in my country, who, +belonging to the party of the king, was exiled with my mother and my +brothers and the whole family, and oftentimes being taken by the enemy +redeemed himself with money, so that thus being ruined and +impoverished, he could not assist me, nor even to this day have I had an +answer from him. + +"Considering, then, the reverence due to you, and the nature of your +command, I solicited many and great people, the faces of some of whom +you know well, but not their minds; and I told them that a certain +affair of yours must he attended to by me in France, (but I did not +disclose to them what it was,) the performance of which required a large +sum of money. But how often I was deemed a cheat, how often repulsed, +how often put off with empty hope, how often confused in myself, I +cannot express. Even my friends did not believe me, because I could not +explain to them the affair; and hence I could not advance by this way. +In distress, therefore, beyond what can be imagined, I compelled +serving-men and poor to expend all that they had, to sell many things, +and to pawn others, often at usury; and I promised them that I would +write to you every part of the expenses, and would in good faith obtain +from you payment in full. And yet, on account of the poverty of these +persons, I many times gave up the work, and many times despaired and +neglected to proceed; and indeed, if I had known that you would not +attend to the settling of these accounts, I would not for the whole +world have gone on,--nay, rather, I would have gone to prison. Nor could +I send special messengers to you for the needed sum, because I had no +means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing +the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on +account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of +expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by +ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all +these things, so great a delay has occurred in this matter."[15] + +There is a touching simplicity in this account of the trials by which he +was beset, and it rises to dignity in connection with a sentence which +immediately follows, in which he says, the thought of "the advantage of +the world excited me, and the revival of knowledge, which now for many +ages has lain dead, vehemently urged me forward." Motives such as these +were truly needed to enable him to make head against such difficulties. + +The work which he accomplished, remarkable as it is from its intrinsic +qualities, is also surprising from the rapidity with which it was +performed, in spite of the distractions and obstacles that attended it. +It would seem that in less than two years from the date of Clement's +letter, the three works composed in compliance with its demand were +despatched to the Pope. Bacon's diligence must have been as great as his +learning. In speaking, in another part of the "Opus Tertium," of the +insufficiency of the common modes of instruction, he gives incidentally +an account of his own devotion to study. "I have labored much," he says, +"on the sciences and languages; it is now forty years since I first +learned the alphabet, and I have always been studious; except two years +of these forty, I have been always engaged in study; and I have expended +much, [in learning,] as others generally do; but yet I am sure that +within a quarter of a year, or half a year, I could teach orally, to a +man eager and confident to learn, all that I know of the powers of the +sciences and languages; provided only that I had previously composed a +written compend. And yet it is known that no one else has worked so hard +or on so many sciences and tongues; for men used to wonder formerly that +I kept my life on account of my excessive labor, and ever since I have +been as studious as I was then, but I have not worked so hard, because, +through my practice in knowledge, it was not needful."[16] Again he +says, that in the twenty years in which he had specially labored in the +study of wisdom, neglecting the notions of the crowd, he had spent more +than two thousand pounds [livres] in the acquisition of secret books, +and for various experiments, instruments, tables, and other things, as +well as in seeking the friendship of learned men, and in instructing +assistants in languages, figures, the use of instruments and tables, +and many other things. But yet, though he had examined everything that +was necessary for the construction of a preliminary work to serve as a +guide to the wisdom of philosophy, though he knew how it was to be done, +with what aids, and what were the hindrances to it, still he could not +proceed with it, owing to the want of means. The cost of employing +proper persons in the work, the rarity and costliness of books, the +expense of instruments and of experiments, the need of infinite +parchment and many scribes for rough copies, all put it beyond his power +to accomplish. This was his excuse for the imperfection of the treatise +which he had sent to the Pope, and this was a work worthy to be +sustained by Papal aid.[17] + +The enumeration by Bacon of the trials and difficulties of a scholar's +life at a time when the means of communicating knowledge were difficult, +when books were rare and to be obtained only at great cost, when the +knowledge of the ancient languages was most imperfect, and many of the +most precious works of ancient philosophy were not to be obtained or +were to be found only in imperfect and erroneous translations, depicts a +condition of things in vivid contrast to the present facilities for the +communication and acquisition of learning, and enables us in some degree +to estimate the drawbacks under which scholars prosecuted their studies +before the invention of printing. That with such impediments they were +able to effect so much is wonderful; and their claim on the gratitude +and respect of their successors is heightened by the arduous nature of +the difficulties with which they were forced to contend. The value of +their work receives a high estimate, when we consider the scanty means +with which it was performed. + +Complaining of the want of books, Bacon says,--"The books on philosophy +by Aristotle and Avicenna, by Seneca and Tully and others, cannot be had +except at great cost, both because the chief of them are not translated +into Latin, and because of others not a copy is to be found in public +schools of learning or elsewhere. For instance, the most excellent books +of Tully De Republica are nowhere to be found, so far as I can hear, and +I have been eager in the search for them in various parts of the world +and with various agents. It is the same with many other of his books. +The books of Seneca also, the flowers of which I have copied out for +your Beatitude, I was never able to find till about the time of your +mandate, although I had been diligent in seeking for them for twenty +years and more."[18] Again, speaking of the corruption of translations, +so that they are often unintelligible, as is especially the case with +the books of Aristotle, he says that "there are not four Latins [that +is, Western scholars] who know the grammar of the Hebrews, the Greeks, +and the Arabians; for I am well acquainted with them, and have made +diligent inquiry both here and beyond the sea, and have labored much in +these things. There are many, indeed, who can speak Greek and Arabic and +Hebrew, but scarcely any who know the principles of the grammar so as to +teach it, for I have tried very many."[19] + +In his treatise entitled "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," which is +printed in this volume for the first time, he adds in relation to this +subject,--"Teachers are not wanting, because there are Jews everywhere, +and their tongue is the same in substance with the Arabic and the +Chaldean, though they differ in mode.... Nor would it be much, for the +sake of the great advantage of learning Greek, to go to Italy, where the +clergy and the people in many places are purely Greek; moreover, bishops +and archbishops and rich men and elders might send thither for books, +and for one or for more persons who know Greek, as Lord Robert, the +sainted Bishop of Lincoln,[20] did indeed do,--and some of those [whom +he brought over] still survive in England."[21] The ignorance of the +most noted clerks and lecturers of his day is over and over again the +subject of Bacon's indignant remonstrance. They were utterly unable to +correct the mistakes with which the translations of ancient works were +full. "The text is in great part horribly corrupt in the copy of the +Vulgate at Paris, ...and as many readers as there are, so many +correctors, or rather corruptors, ...for every reader changes the text +according to his fancy."[22] Even those who professed to translate new +works of ancient learning were generally wholly unfit for the task. +Hermann the German knew nothing of science, and little of Arabic, from +which he professed to translate; but when he was in Spain, he kept +Saracens with him who did the main part of the translations that he +claimed. In like manner, Michael Scot asserted that he had made many +translations; but the truth was, that a certain Jew named Andrew worked +more than he upon them.[23] William Fleming was, however, the most +ignorant and most presuming of all.[24] "Certain I am that it were +better for the Latins that the wisdom of Aristotle had not been +translated, than to have it thus perverted and obscured, ...so that the +more men study it the less they know, as I have experienced with all who +have stuck to these books. Wherefore my Lord Robert of blessed memory +altogether neglected them, and proceeded by his own experiments, and +with other means, until he knew the things concerning which Aristotle +treats a hundred thousand times better than he could ever have learned +them from those perverse translations. And if I had power over these +translations of Aristotle, I would have every copy of them burned; for +to study them is only a loss of time and a cause of error and a +multiplication of ignorance beyond telling. And since the labors of +Aristotle are the foundation of all knowledge, no one can estimate the +injury done by means of these bad translations."[25] + +Bacon had occasion for lamenting not only the character of the +translations in use, but also the fact that many of the most important +works of the ancients were not translated at all, and hence lay out of +the reach of all but the rare scholars, like himself and his friend +Grostête, who were able, through their acquaintance with the languages +in which they were written, to make use of them, provided manuscripts +could be found for reading. "We have few useful works on philosophy in +Latin. Aristotle composed a thousand volumes, as we read in his Life, +and of these we have but three of any notable size, namely,--on Logic, +Natural History, and Metaphysics; so that all the other scientific works +that he composed are wanting to the Latins, except some tractates and +small little books, and of these but very few. Of his Logic two of the +best books are deficient, which Hermann had in Arabic, but did not +venture to translate. One of them, indeed, he did translate, or caused +to be translated, but so ill that the translation is of no sort of value +and has never come into use. Aristotle wrote fifty excellent books about +Animals, as Pliny says in the eighth book of his Natural History, and I +have seen them in Greek, and of these the Latins have only nineteen +wretchedly imperfect little books. Of his Metaphysics the Latins read +only the ten books which they have, while there are many more; and of +these ten which they read, many chapters are wanting in the translation, +and almost infinite lines. Indeed, the Latins have nothing worthy; and +therefore it is necessary that they should know the languages, for the +sake of translating those things that are deficient and needful. For, +moreover, of the works on secret sciences, in which the secrets and +marvels of Nature are explored, they have little except fragments here +and there, which scarcely suffice to excite the very wisest to study and +experiment and to inquire by themselves after those things which are +lacking to the dignity of wisdom; while the crowd of students are not +moved to any worthy undertaking, and grow so languid and asinine over +these ill translations, that they lose utterly their time and study and +expense. They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not +care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly +multitude."[26] + +These passages may serve to show something of the nature of those +external hindrances to knowledge with which Bacon himself had had to +strive, which he overcame, and which he set himself with all his force +to break down, that they might no longer obstruct the path of study. +What scholar, what lover of learning, can now picture to himself such +efforts without emotion,--without an almost oppressive sense of the +contrast between the wealth of his own opportunities and the penury of +the earlier scholar? On the shelves within reach of his hand lie the +accumulated riches of time. Compare our libraries, with their crowded +volumes of ancient and modern learning, with the bare cell of the +solitary Friar, in which, in a single small cupboard, are laid away a +few imperfect manuscripts, precious as a king's ransom, which it had +been the labor of years to collect. This very volume of his works, a +noble monument of patient labor, of careful investigation, of deep +thought, costs us but a trivial sum; while its author, in his poverty, +was scarcely able, without begging, to pay for the parchment upon which +he wrote it, as, uncheered by the anticipation that centuries after his +death men would prize the works he painfully accomplished, he leaned +against his empty desk, half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset +him. All honor to him! honor to the schoolmen of the Middle Ages! to the +men who kept the traditions of wisdom alive, who trimmed the wick of the +lamp of learning when its flame was flickering, and who, when its light +grew dim and seemed to be dying out, supplied it with oil hardly +squeezed by their own hands, drop by drop, from the scanty olives which +they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days +learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who +should be worthy to be put into comparison with the philosopher of the +thirteenth century? + +The general scheme of Bacon's system of philosophy was at once simple +and comprehensive. The scope of his thought had a breadth uncommon in +his or in any time. In his view, the object of all philosophy and human +learning was to enable men to attain to the wisdom of God; and to this +end it was to be subservient absolutely, and relatively so far as +regarded the Church, the government of the state, the conversion of +infidels, and the repression of those who could not be converted. All +wisdom was included in the Sacred Scriptures, if properly understood and +explained. "I believe," said he, "that the perfection of philosophy is +to raise it to the state of a Christian law." Wisdom was the gift of +God, and as such it included the knowledge of all things in heaven and +earth, the knowledge of God himself, of the teachings of Christ, the +beauty of virtue, the honesty of laws, the eternal life of glory and of +punishment, the resurrection of the dead, and all things else.[27] + +To this end all special sciences were ordained. All these, properly +speaking, were to be called speculative; and though they each might be +divided into two parts, the practical and the speculative, yet one +alone, the most noble and best of all, in respect to which there was no +comparison with the others, was in its own nature practical: this was +the science of morals, or moral philosophy. All the works of Art and +Nature are subservient to morals, and are of value only as they promote +it. They are as nothing without it; as the whole wisdom of philosophy is +as nothing without the wisdom of the Christian faith. This science of +morals has six principal divisions. The first of these is theological, +treating of the relations of man to God and to spiritual things; the +second is political, treating of public laws and the government of +states; the third is ethical, treating of virtue and vice; the fourth +treats of the revolutions of religious sects, and of the proofs of the +Christian faith. + +"This is the best part of all philosophy." Experimental science and the +knowledge of languages come into use here. The fifth division is +hortatory, or of morals as applied to duty, and embraces the art of +rhetoric and other subsidiary arts. The sixth and final division treats +of the relations of morals to the execution of justice.[28] Under one +or other of these heads all special sciences and every branch of +learning are included. + +Such, then, being the object and end of all learning, it is to be +considered in what manner and by what methods study is to be pursued, to +secure the attainment of truth. And here occurs one of the most +remarkable features of Bacon's system. It is in his distinct statement +of the prime importance of experiment as the only test of certainty in +the sciences. "However strong arguments may be, they do not give +certainty, apart from positive experience of a conclusion." "It is the +prerogative of experiment to test the noble conclusions of all sciences +which are drawn from arguments." All science is ancillary to it.[29] And +of all branches of learning, two are of chief importance: languages are +the first gate of wisdom; mathematics the second.[30] By means of +foreign tongues we gain the wisdom which men have collected in past +times and other countries; and without them the sciences are not to be +pursued, for the requisite books are wanting in the Latin tongue. Even +theology must fail without a knowledge of the original texts of the +Sacred Writings and of their earliest expositors. Mathematics are of +scarcely less importance; "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know +any other physical science,--what is more, cannot discover his own +ignorance or find its proper remedies." "The sciences cannot be known by +logical and sophistical arguments, such as are commonly used, but only +by mathematical demonstrations."[31] But this view of the essential +importance of these two studies did not prevent Bacon from rising to the +height from which he beheld the mutual importance and relations of all +knowledge. We do not know where to find a clearer statement of the +connection of the sciences than in the following words:--"All sciences +are connected, and support each other with mutual aid, as parts of the +same whole, of which each performs its work, not for itself alone, but +for the others as well: as the eye directs the whole body, and the foot +supports the whole; so that any part of knowledge taken from the rest is +like an eye torn out or a foot cut off."[32] + +Such, then, in brief, appears to have been Bacon's general system of +philosophy. He has nowhere presented it in a compact form; and his style +of writing is often so corrupt, and his use of terms so inexact, that +any exposition of his views, exhibiting them in a methodical +arrangement, is liable to the charge of possessing a definiteness of +statement beyond that which his opinions had assumed in his own mind. +Still, the view that has now been given of his philosophy corresponds as +nearly as may be with the indications afforded by his works. The details +of his system present many points of peculiar interest. He was not +merely a theorist, with speculative views of a character far in advance +of those of the mass of contemporary schoolmen, but a practical +investigator as well, who by his experiments and discoveries pushed +forward the limits of knowledge, and a sound scholar who saw and +displayed to others the true means by which progress in learning was to +be secured. In this latter respect, no parts of his writings are more +remarkable than those in which he urges the importance of philological +and linguistic studies. His remarks on comparative grammar, on the +relations of languages, on the necessity of the study of original texts, +are distinguished by good sense, by extensive and (for the time) exact +scholarship, and by a breadth of view unparalleled, so far as we are +aware, by any other writer of his age. The treatise on the Greek +Grammar--which occupies a large portion of the incomplete "Compendium +Studii Philosophiae," and which is broken off in the middle by the +mutilation of the manuscript--contains, in addition to many curious +remarks illustrative of the learning of the period, much matter of +permanent interest to the student of language. The passages which we +have quoted in regard to the defects of the translations of Greek +authors show to how great a degree the study of Greek and other ancient +tongues had been neglected. Most of the scholars of the day contented +themselves with collecting the Greek words which they found interpreted +in the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Origen, Martianus Capella, +Boëthius, and a few other later Latin authors; and were satisfied to use +these interpretations without investigation of their exactness, or +without understanding their meaning. Hugo of Saint Victor, (Dante's "Ugo +di Sanvittore è qui con elli,") one of the most illustrious of Bacon's +predecessors, translates, for instance, _mechanica_ by _adulterina_, as +if it came from the Latin _moecha_, and derives _economica_ from +_oequus_, showing that he, like most other Western scholars, was +ignorant even of the Greek letters.[33] Michael Scot, in respect to +whose translations Bacon speaks with merited contempt, exhibits the +grossest ignorance, in his version from the Arabic of Aristotle's +History of Animals, for example, a passage in which Aristotle speaks of +taming the wildest animals, and says, "Beneficio enim mitescunt, veluti +crocodilorum genus afficitur erga sacerdotem a quo enratur ut alantur," +("They become mild with kind treatment, as crocodiles toward the priest +who provides them with food,") is thus unintelligibly rendered by him: +"Genus autem karoluoz et hirdon habet pacem lehhium et domesticatur cum +illo, quoniam cogitat de suo cibo." [34] Such a medley makes it certain +that he knew neither Greek nor Arabic, and was willing to compound a +third language, as obscure to his readers as the original was to him. +Bacon points out many instances of this kind; and it is against such +errors--errors so destructive to all learning--that he inveighs with the +full force of invective, and protests with irresistible arguments. His +acquirements in Greek and in Hebrew prove that he had devoted long labor +to the study of these languages, and that he understood them far better +than many scholars who made more pretence of learning. Nowhere are the +defects of the scholarship of the Middle Ages more pointedly and ably +exhibited than in what he has said of them. + +But, although his knowledge in this field was of uncommon quality and +amount, it does not seem to have surpassed his acquisitions in science. +"I have attempted," he says in a striking passage, "with great +diligence, to attain certainty as to what is needful to be known +concerning the processes of alchemy and natural philosophy and +medicine.... And what I have written of the roots [of these sciences] +is, in my judgment, worth far more than all that the other natural +philosophers now alive suppose themselves to know; for in vain, without +these roots, do they seek for branches, flowers, and fruit. And here I +am boastful in words, but not in my soul; for I say this because I +grieve for the infinite error that now exists, and that I may urge you +[the Pope] to a consideration of the truth."[35] Again he says, in +regard to his treatise "De Perspectiva," or On Optics,--"Why should I +conceal the truth? I assert that there is no one among the Latin +scholars who could accomplish, in the space of a year, this work; no, +nor even in ten years."[36] In mathematics, in chemistry, in optics, in +mechanics, he was, if not superior, at least equal, to the best of his +contemporaries. His confidence in his own powers was the just result of +self-knowledge and self-respect. Natural genius, and the accumulations +of forty years of laborious study pursued with a method superior to that +which guided the studies of others, had set him at the head of the +learned men of his time; and he was great enough to know and to claim +his place. He had the self-devotion of enthusiasm, and its ready, but +dignified boldness, based upon the secure foundation of truth. + +In spite of the very imperfect style in which he wrote, and the usually +clumsy and often careless construction of his sentences, his works +contain now and then noble thoughts expressed with simplicity and force. +"Natura est instrumentum Divinae operationis," might be taken as the +motto for his whole system of natural science. In speaking of the value +of words, he says,--"Sed considerare debemus quod verba habent maximam +potestatem, et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta sunt +per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo +maxime delectatur." In the "Opus Tertium," at the point where he begins +to give an abstract of his "Opus Majus," he uses words which remind one +of the famous "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit." He +says,--"Cogitavi quod intellectus humanus habet magnam debilitationem ex +se.... Et ideo volui excludere errorum corde hominis impossible est +ipsum videre veritatem." This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's +"errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post +alios, si mens sibi permittatur." Such citations of passages remarkable +for thought or for expression might be indefinitely extended, but we +have space for only one more, in which the Friar attacks the vices of +the Roman court with an energy that brings to mind the invectives of the +greatest of his contemporaries. "Curia Romana, quae solebat et debet +regi sapientia Dei, nunc depravatur.... Laceratur enim illa sedes sacra +fraudibus et dolis injustorum. Pent justitia; pax omnis violatur; +infinita scandala suscitantur. Mores enim sequuntur ibidem +perversissimi; regnat superbia, ardet avaritia, invidia corrodit +singulos, luxuria diffamat totam illam curiam, gula in omnibus +dominatur." It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger +Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be +driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed +tightly within. + +There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to +discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with +him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the +most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of +tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation +to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to +discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The +popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in +two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and +on the Nullity of Magic,"[37] in one of which he describes some of its +qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its composition +under an enigma.[38] He had made experiments with Greek fire and the +magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power; +and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that +magnified and diminished. It was no wonder that a man who knew and +employed such wonderful things, who was known, too, to have sought for +artificial gold, should gain the reputation of a wizard, and that his +books should be looked upon with suspicion. As he himself says,--"Many +books are esteemed magic, which are not so, but contain the dignity of +knowledge." And he adds,--"For, as it is unworthy and unlawful for a +wise man to deal with magic, so it is superfluous and unnecessary."[39] + +There is a passage in this treatise "On the Nullity of Magic" of +remarkable character, as exhibiting the achievements, or, if not the +actual achievements, the things esteemed possible by the inventors of +the thirteenth century. There is in it a seeming mixture of fancy and of +fact, of childish credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of +mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the +progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after +Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by +what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and +inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's +truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken his dreams for facts. As it +stands, it is one of the most curious existing illustrations of the +state of physical science in the Middle Ages. It runs as follows:--"I +will now, in the first place, speak of some of the wonderful works of +Art and Nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and methods of +them, in which there is nothing magical, so that it may be seen how +inferior and worthless all magic power is, in comparison with these +works. And first, according to the fashion and rule of Art alone. Thus, +machines can be made for navigation without men to row them; so that +ships of the largest size, whether on rivers or the sea, can be carried +forward, under the guidance of a single man, at greater speed than if +they were full of men [rowers]. In like manner, a car can be made which +will move, without the aid of any animal, with incalculable impetus; +such as we suppose the scythed chariots to have been which were +anciently used in battle. Also, machines for flying can be made, so that +a man may sit in the middle of the machine, turning an engine, by which +wings artificially disposed are made to beat the air after the manner of +a bird in flight. Also, an instrument, small in size, for raising and +depressing almost infinite weights, than which nothing on occasion is +more useful: for, with an instrument of three fingers in height, and of +the same width, and of smaller bulk, a man might deliver himself and his +companions from all danger of prison, and could rise or descend. Also, +an instrument might be easily made by which one man could draw to +himself a thousand men by force and against their will, and in like +manner draw other things. Instruments can be made for walking in the sea +or in rivers, even at the bottom, without bodily risk: for Alexander the +Great made use of this to see the secrets of the sea, as the Ethical +Astronomer relates. These things were made in ancient times, and are +made in our times, as is certain; except, perhaps, the machine for +flying, which I have not seen, nor have I known any one who had seen +it, but I know a wise man who thought to accomplish this device. And +almost an infinite number of such things can be made; as bridges across +rivers without piers or any supports, and machines and unheard-of +engines." Bacon goes on to speak of other wonders of Nature and Art, to +prove, that, to produce marvellous effects, it is not necessary to +aspire to the knowledge of magic, and ends this division of his subject +with words becoming a philosopher:--"Yet wise men are now ignorant of +many things which the common crowd of students [_vulgus studentium_] +will know in future times."[40] + +It is much to be regretted that Roger Bacon does not appear to have +executed the second and more important part of his design, namely, "to +assign the causes and methods" of these wonderful works of Art and +Nature. Possibly he was unable to do so to his own satisfaction; +possibly he may upon further reflection have refrained from doing so, +deeming them mysteries not to be communicated to the vulgar;--"for he +who divulges mysteries diminishes the majesty of things; wherefore +Aristotle says that he should be the breaker of the heavenly seal, were +he to divulge the secret things of wisdom."[41] However this may have +been, we may safely doubt whether the inventions which he reports were +in fact the result of sound scientific knowledge, whether they had +indeed any real existence, or whether they were only the half-realized +and imperfect creations of the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming +of things to come. + +The matters of interest in the volume before us are by no means +exhausted, but we can proceed no farther in the examination of them, and +must refer those readers who desire to know more of its contents to the +volume itself. We can assure them that they will find it full of vivid +illustrations of the character of Bacon's time,--of the thoughts of men +at an epoch of which less is commonly known than of periods more +distant, but less connected by intellectual sympathy and moral relations +with our own. But the chief interest of Bacon's works lies in their +exhibition to us of himself, a man foremost in his own time in all +knowledge, endowed by Nature with a genius of peculiar force and +clearness of intuition, with a resolute energy that yielded to no +obstacles, with a combination so remarkable of the speculative and the +practical intellect as to place him in the ranks of the chief +philosophers to whom the progress of the world in learning and in +thought is due. They show him exposed to the trials which the men who +are in advance of their contemporaries are in every age called to meet, +and bearing these trials with a noble confidence in the final prevalence +of the truth,--using all his powers for the advantage of the world, and +regarding all science and learning of value only as they led to +acquaintance with the wisdom of God and the establishment of Christian +virtue. He himself gives us a picture of a scholar of his times, which +we may receive as a not unworthy portrait of himself. "He does not care +for discourses and disputes of words, but he pursues the works of +wisdom, and in them he finds rest. And what others dim-sighted strive to +see, like bats in twilight, he beholds in its full splendor, because he +is the master of experiments; and thus he knows natural things, and the +truths of medicine and alchemy, and the things of heaven as well as +those below. Nay, he is ashamed, if any common man, or old wife, or +soldier, or rustic in the country knows anything of which he is +ignorant. Wherefore he has searched out all the effects of the fusing of +metals, and whatever is effected with gold and silver and other metals +and all minerals; and whatever pertains to warfare and arms and the +chase he knows; and he has examined all that pertains to agriculture, +and the measuring of lands, and the labors of husbandmen; and he has +even considered the practices and the fortune-telling of old women, and +their songs, and all sorts of magic arts, and also the tricks and +devices of jugglers; so that nothing which ought to be known may lie hid +from him, and that he may as far as possible know how to reject all that +is false and magical. And he, as he is above price, so does he not value +himself at his worth. For, if he wished to dwell with kings and princes, +easily could he find those who would honor and enrich him; or, if he +would display at Paris what he knows through the works of wisdom, the +whole world would follow him. But, because in either of these ways he +would be impeded in the great pursuits of experimental philosophy, in +which he chiefly delights, he neglects all honor and wealth, though he +might, when he wished, enrich himself by his knowledge." + + + * * * * * + + + +_Popular Music of the Olden Time_. A Collection of Ancient Songs, +Ballads, and Dance-Tunes, Illustrative of the National Music of England. +With Short Introductions to the Different Reigns, and Notices of the +Airs from Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Also, a +Short Account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappel, F.S.A. The whole of the +Airs harmonized by G. A. McFarren. 2 vols. pp. 384, 439. London: Cramer, +Beale, & Chappell. New York: Webb & Allen. + +In tracing the history of the English nation, no line of investigation +is more interesting, or shows more clearly the progress of civilization, +than the study of its early poetry and music. Sung alike in the royal +palaces and in the cottages and highways of the nation, the ballads and +songs reflect most accurately the manners and customs, and not a little +of the history of the people; while, as indicating the progress of +intellectual culture, the successive changes in language, and the steady +advance of the science of music, and of its handmaid, poetry, they +possess a value peculiarly their own. + +The industry and learning of Percy, Warton, and Ritson have rendered a +thorough acquaintance with early English poetry comparatively easy; +while in the work whose comprehensive title heads this article the +research of Chappell presents to us all that is valuable of the "Popular +Music of the Olden Time," enriched by interesting incidents and +historical facts which render the volumes equally interesting to the +general reader and to the student in music. Chappell published his +collection of "National English Airs" about twenty years ago. Since that +time, he tells us in his preface, the increase of material has been so +great, that it has been advisable to rewrite the entire work, and to +change the title, so that the present edition has all the freshness of a +new publication, and contains more than one hundred and fifty +additional airs. + +The opening chapters are devoted to a concise historical account of +English minstrelsy, from the earliest Saxon times to its gradual +extinction in the reigns of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth; and while +presenting in a condensed form all that is valuable in Percy and others, +the author has interwoven in the narrative much curious and interesting +matter derived from his own careful studies. Much of romantic interest +clusters around the history of the minstrels of England. They are +generally supposed to have been the successors of the ancient bards, who +from the earliest times were held in the highest veneration by nearly +all the people of Europe, whether of Celtic or Gothic origin. According +to Percy, "Their skill was considered as something divine; their persons +were deemed sacred; their attendance was solicited by kings; and they +were everywhere loaded with honors and rewards." Our Anglo-Saxon +ancestors, on their migration into Britain, retained their veneration +for poetry and song, and minstrels continued in high repute, until their +hold upon the people gradually yielded to the steady advance of +civilization, the influence of the printing-press, and the consequent +diffusion of knowledge. It is to be borne in mind that the name, +minstrel, was applied equally to those who sang, and accompanied their +voices with the harp, or some other instrument, and to those who were +skilled in instrumental music only. The harp was the favorite and indeed +the national instrument of the Britons, and its use has been traced as +far back as the first invasion of the country by the Saxons. By the laws +of Wales, no one could pretend to the character of a freeman or +gentleman, who did not possess or could not play upon a harp. Its use +was forbidden to slaves; and a harp could not be seized for debt, as the +simple fact of a person's being without one would reduce him to an +equality with a slave. Other instruments, however, were in use by the +early Anglo-Saxons, such as the Psaltery, the Fiddle, and the Pipe. The +minstrels, clad in a costume of their own, and singing to their quaint +tunes the exploits of past heroes or the simple love-songs of the times, +were the favorites of royalty, and often, and perhaps usually, some of +the better class held stations at court; and under the reigns of Henry +I. and II., Richard I., and John, minstrelsy flourished greatly, and the +services of the minstrels were often rated higher than those of the +clergy. These musicians seem to have had easy access to all places and +persons, and often received valuable grants from the king, until, in the +reign of Edward II., (1315,) such privileges were claimed by them, that +a royal edict became necessary to prevent impositions and abuses. + +In the fourteenth century music was an almost universal accomplishment, +and we learn from Chaucer, in whose poetry much can be learned of the +music of his time, that country-squires could sing and play the lute, +and even "songes make and well indite." From the same source it appears +that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady +was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion +to her proficiency in this art. In those days the bass-viol +(_viol-de-gamba_) was a popular instrument, and was played upon by +ladies,--a practice which in these modern times would be considered a +violation of female propriety, and even then some thought it "an +unmannerly instrument for a woman." In Elizabeth's time vocal music was +held in the highest estimation, and to sing well was a necessary +accomplishment for ladies and gentlemen. A writer of 1602 says to the +ladies, "It shall be your first and finest praise to sing the note of +every new fashion at first sight." That some of the fair sex may have +carried their musical practice too far, like many who have lived since +then, is perhaps indicated in some verses of that date which run in the +following strain:-- + + "This is all that women do: + Sit and answer them that woo; + Deck themselves in new attire, + To entangle fresh desire; + After dinner sing and play, + Or, dancing, pass the time away." + +To many readers one of the most interesting features of Chappell's work +will be the presentation of the original airs to which were sung the +ballads familiar to us from childhood, learned from our English and +Scotch ancestors, or later in life from Percy's "Reliques" and other +sources; and the musician will detect, in even the earliest +compositions, a character and substance, a beauty of cadence and +rhythmic ideality, which render in comparison much of our modern +song-music tamer, if possible, than it now seems. Here are found the +original airs of "Agincourt," "All in the Downs," "Barbara Allen," "The +Barley-Mow," "Cease, rude Boreas," "Derry Down," "Frog he would a-wooing +go," "One Friday morn when we set sail," "Chanson Roland," "Chevy +Chace," and scores of others which have rung in our ears from +nursery-days. + +The ballad-mongers took a wide range in their writings, and almost every +subject seems to have called for their rhymes. There is a curious little +song, dating back to 1601, entitled "O mother, a Hoop," in which the +value of hoop-skirts is set forth by a fair damsel in terms that would +delight a modern belle. It commences thus:-- + + "What a fine thing have I seen to-day! + O mother, a Hoop! + I must have one; you cannot say Nay; + O mother, a Hoop!" + +Another stanza shows the practical usefulness of the hoop:-- + + "Pray, hear me, dear mother, what I have been taught: + Nine men and nine women o'erset in a boat; + The men were all drowned, but the women did float, + And by help of their hoops they all safely got out." + +The fashion for hoops was revived in 1711, in which year was published +in England "A Panegyrick upon the Late, but most Admirable Invention of +the Hoop-Pettycoat." A few years later, (1726,) in New England, a +three-penny pamphlet was issued with the title, "Hoop Petticoats +Arraigned and Condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God," by which +it would seem that our worthy ancestors did not approve of the fashion. +In 1728 we find _hoop-skirts_ and _negro girls_ and other "chattels" +advertised for sale in the same shop! + +The celebrated song, "Tobacco is an Indian weed," is traced to George +Withers, of the time of James I. Perhaps no song has been more +frequently "reset"; but the original version, as is generally the case, +is the best. + +One of the most satisfactory features of Chappell's work is the +thoroughness with which he traces the origin of tunes, and his acute +discrimination and candid judgment. As an instance of this may be +mentioned his article on "God save the Queen"; and wherever we turn, we +find the same evidence of honest investigation. So far as is possible, +he has arranged his airs and his topics chronologically, and presented a +complete picture of the condition of poetry and music during the reigns +of the successive monarchs of England. The musician will find these +volumes invaluable in the pursuit of his studies, the general reader +will be interested in the well-drawn descriptions of men, manners, and +customs, and the antiquary will pore over the pages with a keen delight. + +The work is illustrated with several specimens of the early style of +writing music, the first being an illuminated engraving and fac-simile +of the song, "Sumer is icumen in,"--the earliest secular composition, in +parts, known to exist in any country, its origin being traced back to +1250. It should have been mentioned before this that the very difficult +task of reducing the old songs to modern characters and requirements, +and harmonizing them, has been most admirably done by McFarren, who has +thus made intelligible and available what would otherwise be valuable +only as curiosities. + +1. _Folk-Songs_. Selected and edited by John Williamson Palmer, M.D. +Illustrated with Original Designs. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861. +Small folio. pp. xxiii., 466. + +2. _Loves and Heroines of the Poets_. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. +New York: Derby & Jackson. 1861. Quarto, pp. xviii., 480. + +3. _A Forest Hymn_. By William Cullen Bryant. With Illustrations of John +A. Hows. New York: W. A. Townsend & Co. 1861. Small quarto, pp. 32. + +We have no great liking for illustrated books. Poems, to be sure, often +lend themselves readily to the pencil; but, in proportion as they stand +in need of pictures, they fall short of being poetry. We have never yet +seen any attempts to help Shakspeare in this way that were not as +crutches to an Indian runner. To illustrate poetry truly great in itself +is like illuminating to show off a torchlight-procession. We doubt if +even Michel Angelo's copy of Dante was so great a loss as has sometimes +been thought. We have seen missals and other manuscripts that were truly +_illuminated_,-- + + "laughing leaves + That Franco of Bologna's pencil limned "; + +but the line of those artists ended with Frà Angelico, whose works are +only larger illuminations in fresco and on panel. In those days some +precious volume became the Laura of a poor monk, who lavished on it all +the poetry of his nature, all the unsatisfied longing of a lifetime. +Shut out from the world, his single poem or book of saintly legends was +the window through which he looked back on real life, and he stained its +panes with every brightest hue of fancy and tender half-tint of reverie. +There was, indeed, a chance of success, when the artist worked for the +love of it, gave his whole manhood to a single volume, and mixed his +life with his pigments. But to please yourself is a different thing from +pleasing Tom, Dick, and Harry, which is the problem to be worked out by +whoever makes illustrations to be multiplied and sold by thousands. In +Dr. Palmer's "Folk-Songs," if we understand his preface rightly, the +artists have done their work for love, and it is accordingly much better +done than usual. The engravings make a part of the page, and the +designs, with few exceptions, are happy. Numerous fac-similes of +handwriting are added for the lovers of autographs; and in point of +printing, it is beyond a question the handsomest and most tasteful +volume ever produced in America. The Riverside Press may fairly take +rank now with the classic names in the history of the art. But it is for +the judgment shown in the choice of the poems that the book deserves its +chief commendation. Our readers do not need to be told who Dr. Palmer +is, or that one who knows how to write so well himself is likely to know +what good writing is in others. We have never seen so good and choice a +_florilegium_. The width of its range and its catholicity may be +estimated by its including William Blake and Dibdin, Bishop King and Dr. +Maginn. It would be hard to find the person who would not meet here a +favorite poem. We can speak from our own knowledge of the length of +labor and the loving care that have been devoted to it, and the result +is a gift-book unique in its way and suited to all seasons and all +tastes. Nor has the binding (an art in which America is far behind-hand) +been forgotten. The same taste makes itself felt here, and Matthews of +New York has seconded it with his admirable workmanship. + +In Mr. Stoddard's volume we have a poet selecting such poems as +illustrate the loves of the poets. It is a happy thought happily +realized. With the exception of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso, the choice +is made from English poets, and comes down to our own time. It is a book +for lovers, and he must be exacting who cannot find his mistress +somewhere between the covers. The selection from the poets of the +Elizabethan and Jacobian periods is particularly full; and this is as it +should be; for at no time was our language more equally removed from +conventionalism and commonplace, or so fitted to refine strength of +passion with recondite thought and airy courtliness of phrase. The book +is one likely to teach as well as to please; for, though everybody knows +how to fall in love, few know how to love. It is a mirror of womanly +loveliness and manly devotion. Mr. Stoddard has done his work with the +instinct of a poet, and we cordially commend his truly precious volume +both to those + + "who love a coral lip + And a rosy cheek admire," + +and to those who + + "Interassured of the mind, + Are careless, eyes, lips, hands, to miss"; + +for both likings will find satisfaction here. The season of gifts comes +round oftener for lovers than for less favored mortals, and by means of +this book they may press some two hundred poets into their service to +thread for the "inexpressive she" all the beads of Love's rosary. The +volume is a quarto sumptuous in printing and binding. Of the plates we +cannot speak so warmly. + +The third book on our list deserves very great praise. Bryant's noble +"Forest Hymn" winds like a river through edging and overhanging +greenery. Frequently the designs are rather ornaments to the page than +illustrations of the poem, and in this we think the artist is to be +commended. There is no Birket Foster-ism in the groups of trees, but +honest drawing from Nature, and American Nature. The volume, we think, +marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, +and may challenge comparison with that of any other country. Many of the +drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the +same time. + +_The Works of Lord Bacon_, etc., etc. Vols. XI. and XII. Boston: Brown & +Taggard. 1860. + +We have already spoken of the peculiar merits which make the edition of +Messrs. Heath and Spedding by far the best that exists of Lord Bacon's +Works. It only remains to say, that the American reprint has not only +the advantage of some additional notes contributed by Mr. Spedding, but +that it is more convenient in form, and a much more beautiful specimen +of printing than the English. A better edition could not be desired. The +two volumes thus far published are chiefly filled with the "Life of +Henry VII." and the "Essays"; and readers who are more familiar with +these (as most are) than with the philosophical works will see at once +how much the editors have done in the way of illustration and +correction. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Some time after, the Bey of Tunis ordered Eaton to send his +ship, the Gloria, with despatches to the United States. Eaton sent her +to Leghorn, and sold her at a loss. "The flag of the United States," he +wrote, "has never been seen floating in the service of a Barbary pirate +under my agency."] + +[Footnote 2: The Administration was saturated with this petty parsimony, +as may be seen in an extract from a letter written by Madison to Eaton, +announcing the approach of Dale and his ships:--"The present moment is +peculiarly favorable for the experiment, not only as it is a provision +against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with +all the rest of the world, _and as the force employed would, if at home, +be at nearly the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners_." +Linkum Fidelius has given the Jeffersonian plan of making war in +two lines:-- + + "We'll blow the villains all sky-high, + But do it with e-co-no-my."] + +[Footnote 3: About this time came Meli-Meli, Ambassador from Tunis, in +search of an indemnity and the frigate.] + +[Footnote 4: Massachusetts gave him ten thousand acres, to be selected +by him or by his heirs, in any of the unappropriated land of the +Commonwealth in the District of Maine. Act Passed March 3d, 1806] + +[Footnote 5: He remained in Sicily until 1809, when he was offered the +Beyship of Derne by his brother. He accepted it; two years later, fresh +troubles drove him again into exile. He died in great poverty at Cairo. +Jusuf reigned until 1832, and abdicated in favor of a son. A grandson of +Jusuf took up arms against the new Pacha. The intervention of the Sultan +was asked; a corps of Turkish troops entered Tripoli, drove out both +Pachas, and reannexed the Regency to the Porte.] + +[Footnote 6: The scene of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated retreat from the +British. A place of frequent resort for Federal editors in those days.] + +[Footnote 7: In attempting to describe my own sensations, I labor under +the disadvantage of speaking mostly to those who have never experienced +anything of the kind. Hence, what would he perfectly clear to myself, +and to those who have passed through a similar experience, may be +unintelligible to the former class. The Spiritualists excuse the +crudities which their Plato, St. Paul, and Shakspeare utter, by +ascribing them to the imperfection of human language; and I may claim +the same allowance in setting forth mental conditions of which the mind +itself can grasp no complete idea, seeing that its most important +faculties are paralyzed during the existence of those conditions.] + +[Footnote 8: The recent experiments in Hypnotism, in France, show that a +very similar psychological condition accompanies the trance produced by +gazing fixedly upon a bright object held near the eyes. I have no doubt, +in fact, that it belongs to every abnormal state of the mind.] + +[Footnote 9: See _The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon containing the +Wonderful Things that he did in his Life, also the Manner of his Death; +with the Lives and Deaths of the Conjurors Bungye and Vandermast_. +Reprinted in Thom's _Early English Romances_.] + +[Footnote 10: _Historia Crit. Phil_. Period. II. Pars II. +Liber II. Cap. iii. Section 23.] + +[Footnote 11: A barbarous distich gives the relations of these two +famous divisions of knowledge in the Middle Ages:-- + + "_Gramm_ loquitur, _Dia_ verba docet, _Rhet_ verba colorat, + _Mus_ canit, _Ar_ numerat, _Geo_ ponderat, _Ast_ colit astra."] + +[Footnote 12: See Hauréau, _De la Philosophie Scolastique_, II. 284-5.] + +[Footnote 13: Mr. Brewer has in most respects performed his work as +editor in a satisfactory manner. The many difficulties attending the +deciphering of the text of ill-written manuscripts and the correction of +the mistakes of ignorant scribes have been in great part overcome by his +patience and skill. Some passages of the text, however, require further +revision. The Introduction is valuable for its account of existing +manuscripts, but its analysis of Bacon's opinions is unsatisfactory. Nor +are the translations given in it always so accurate as they should be. +The analyses of the chapters in side-notes to the text are sometimes +imperfect, and do not sufficiently represent the current of Bacon's +thought; and the volume stands in great need of a thorough Index. This +omission is hardly to be excused, and ought at once to be supplied in a +separate publication.] + +[Footnote 14: This sum was a large one. It appears that the necessaries +of life were cheap and luxuries dear at Paris during the thirteenth +century. Thus, we are told, in the year 1226, a house sold for forty-six +livres; another with a garden, near St. Eustache, sold for two hundred +livres. This sum was thought large, being estimated as equal to 16,400 +francs at present. Sixty livres were then about five thousand francs, or +a thousand dollars. Lodgings at this period varied from 5 to 17 livres +the year. An ox was worth 1 livre 10 sols; a sheep, 6 sols 3 deniers. +Bacon must at some period of his life have possessed money, for we find +him speaking of having expended two thousand livres in the pursuit of +learning. If the comparative value assumed be correct, this sum +represented between $30,000 and $40,000 of our currency.] + +[Footnote 15: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. iii. pp. 15-17.] + +[Footnote 16: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xx. p. 65.] + +[Footnote 17: _Opus Tertium_. Capp. xvi., xvii. Roger Bacon's urgency to +the Pope to promote the works for the advancement of knowledge which +were too great for private efforts bears a striking resemblance to the +words addressed for the same end by his great successor, Lord Bacon, to +James I. "Et ideo patet," says the Bacon of the thirteenth century, +"quod scripta, principalia de sapientia philosophiae non possunt fieri +ab uno homine, nec a pluribus, nisi manus praelatorum et principum +juvent sapientes cum magna virtute." "Horum quos enumeravimus omnium +defectuum remedia," says the Bacon of the seventeenth century, +"...opera sunt vere basilica; erga quae privati alicujus conatus et +industria fere sic se habent ut Mercurius in bivio, qui digito potest in +viam intendere, pedem inferre non potest."--_De Aug. Scient_. Lib. II. +_Ad Regem Suum_. + +A still more remarkable parallelism is to be found in the following +passages. "Nam facile est dicere, fiant scripture completae de +scientiis, sed nunquam fuerunt apud Latinos aliquae condignae, nec +fient, nisi aliud consilium habeatur. Et nullus sufficeret ad hoc, nisi +dominus papa, vel imperator, aut aliquis rex magnificus, sicut est +dominus rex Franciae. Aristoteles quidem, auctoritate et auxiliis regum, +et maxime Alexandri, fecit in Graeco quae voluit, et multis millibus +hominum usus est in experientia scientiarum, et expensis copiosis, sicut +historiae narrant." (_Opus Tertium_, Cap. viii.) Compare with this the +following passage from the part of the _De Augmentis_ already +cited:--"Et exploratoribus ac speculatoribus Naturae satisfaciendum de +expensis suis; alias de quamplurimis scitu dignissimis nunquam fiemus +certiores. Si enim Alexander magnam vim pecuniae suppeditavit +Aristoteli, qua conduceret venatores, aucupes, piscatores et alios, quo +instructior accederet ad conscribendam historiam animalium; certe majus +quiddam debetur iis, qui non in saltibus naturae pererrant, sed in +labyrinthis artium viam sibi aperiunt." + +Other similar parallelisms of expression on this topic are to be found +in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in +the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have +been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these +two great philosophers borrowed his famous doctrine of "Idols" from the +classification of the four chief hindrances to knowledge by his +predecessor. But the supposition wants foundation, and there is no +reason to suppose that Lord Bacon was acquainted with the works of the +Friar. The Rev. Charles Forster, in his _Mahometanism Unveiled_, a work +of some learning, but more extravagance, after speaking of Roger Bacon +as "strictly and properly an experimentalist of the Saracenic school," +goes indeed so far as to assert that he "was the undoubted, though +unowned, original when his great namesake drew the materials of his +famous experimental system." (Vol. II. pp. 312-317.) But the +resemblances in their systems, although striking in some particulars, +are on the whole not too great to be regarded simply as the results of +corresponding genius, and of a common sense of the insufficiency of the +prevalent methods of scholastic philosophy for the discovery of truth +and the advancement of knowledge. "The same sanguine and sometimes rash +confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for +experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning +pervade both works," the _Opus Majus_ and the _Novum Organum_.--Hallam, +_Europe during the Middle Ages_, III. 431. See also Hallam, _Literature +of Europe_, I. 113; and Mr. Ellis's Preface to the _Novum Organum_, p. +90, in the first volume of the admirable edition of the _Works of Lord +Bacon_ now in course of publication.] + +[Footnote 18: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xv. pp. 55, 56.] + +[Footnote 19: _Id_. Cap. x. p. 33.] + +[Footnote 20: The famous Grostête,--who died in 1253. "Vir in Latino et +Graeco peritissimus," says Matthew Paris.] + +[Footnote 21: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. vi.] + +[Footnote 22: _Opus Minus_, p. 330.] + +[Footnote 23: This was Michael Scot the Wizard, who would seem to have +deserved the place that Dante assigned to him in the _Inferno_, if not +from his practice of forbidden arts, at least from his corruption of +ancient learning in his so-called translations. Strange that he, of all +the Schoolmen, should have been honored by being commemorated by the +greatest poet of Italy and the greatest of his own land! In the Notes to +the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, his kinsman quotes the following lines +concerning him from Satchell's poem on _The Right Honorable Name +of Scott_:-- + + "His writing pen did seem to me to be + Of hardened metal like steel or acumie; + The volume of [his book] did seem so large to me + As the Book of Martyrs and Turks Historie."] + +[Footnote 24: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 472.] + +[Footnote 25: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 469.] + +[Footnote 26: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 473.] + +[Footnote 27: _Opus Tertium_, Cap. xxiv. pp. 80-82.] + +[Footnote 28: _Opus Tertium_. Capp. xiv., xv., pp. 48-53.] + +[Footnote 29: _Id_. Cap. xiii. pp. 43-44.] + +[Footnote 30: _Id_. Cap. xxviii. p. 102.] + +[Footnote 31: _Opus Majus_. pp. 57, 64.] + +[Footnote 32: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. iv. p. 18.] + +[Footnote 33: See Hauréau: _Nouvel Examen de l'Édition des Oeuvres de +Hugues de Saint-Victor._ Paris, 1869. p. 52.] + +[Footnote 34: Jourdain: _Recherches sur les Traductions Latines +d'Aristote_. Paris, 1819. p. 373.] + +[Footnote 35: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xii. p. 42.] + +[Footnote 36: _Id. Cap. ii. p. 14.] + +[Footnote 37: Reprinted in the Appendix to the volume edited by +Professor Brewer. A translation of this treatise was printed at London +as early as 1597; and a second version, "faithfully translated out of +Dr. Dee's own copy by T. M.," appeared in 1659.] + +[Footnote 38: "Sed tamen sal petræ LURU VOPO VIR CAN UTRIET sulphuris; +et sic facies tonitruum et coruscationem, si scias artificium. Videas +tamen utrum loquar ænigmate aut secundum veritatem." (p. 551.) One is +tempted to read the last two words of the dark phrase as phonographic +English, or, translating the _vir_, to find the meaning to be, "O man! +you can try it."] + +[Footnote 39: This expression is similar in substance to the closing +sentences of Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse at Montpellier on the Powder +of Sympathy, in 1657. "Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and +faint-heartedness, or rather, a gross weakness of the Understanding, to +pretend any effects of charm or magick herein, or to confine all the +actions of Nature to the grossness of our Senses, when we have not +sufficiently consider'd nor examined the true causes and principles +whereon 'tis fitting we should ground our judgment: we need not have +recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties. + +"'Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.'"] + +[Footnote 40: _Nullity of Magic_, pp. 532-542.] + +[Footnote 41: _Comp. Stud. Phil._ p. 416.] + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Poems. By Sarah Gould. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 32mo. Blue and gold. +pp. 180. 75 cts. + +Miss Gilbert's Career. An American Story. By J.G. Holland. New York. +Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. 476. $1.25. + +Curiosities of Natural History. Second Series. By Francis T. Buckland, +M.A. New York. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a> + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 5, 2004 [eBook #11465] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, NO. 38, DECEMBER, 1860*** +</pre> +<br> +<br> +<center><b>E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Sheila Vogtmann,<br> + and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</b></center> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<br> +<br> +<p>THE</p> + +<p>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</p> + +<p>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</p> + +<p>VOL. VI.--DECEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVIII.</p> +<br><br><br> +<h2>THE UNITED STATES AND THE BARBARY STATES.</h2> +<br><br> +<p>Speak of the relations between the United States and the Barbary +Regencies at the beginning of the century, and most of our countrymen +will understand the War with Tripoli. Ask them about that Yankee crusade +against the Infidel, and you will find their knowledge of it limited to +Preble's attack. On this bright spot in the story the American mind is +fixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twenty +years. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes the +shape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to pay +tribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle in +the maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patriotic +delusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha was +simply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason; +but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to.</p> + +<p>The burning of the Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are much +too fine a subject for rhetorical pyrotechnics to have escaped lecturers +and orators of the Fourth-of-July school. We have all heard, time and +again, how Preble, Decatur, Trippe, and Somers cannonaded, sabred, and +blew up these pirates. We have seen, in perorations glowing with pink +fire, the Genius of America, in full naval uniform, sword in hand, +standing upon a quarter-deck, his foot upon the neck of a turbaned Turk, +while over all waves the flag of Freedom.</p> + +<p>The Moorish sketch is probably different. In it, Brother Jonathan must +appear with his liberty-cap in one hand and a bag of dollars in the +other, bowing humbly before a well-whiskered Mussulman, whose shawl is +stuck full of poniards and pistols. The smooth-faced unbeliever begs +that his little ships may be permitted to sail up and down this coast +unmolested, and promises to give these and other dollars, if his +Highness, the Pacha, will only command his men to keep the peace on the +high-seas. This picture is not so generally exhibited here; but it is +quite as correct as the other, and as true to the period.</p> + +<p>The year after Preble's recall, another New-England man, William Eaton, +led an army of nine Americans from Egypt to Derne, the easternmost +province of Tripoli,--a march of five hundred miles over the Desert. He +took the capital town by storm, and would have conquered the whole +Regency, if he had been supplied with men and money from our fleet. +"Certainly," says Pascal Paoli Peek, a non-commissioned officer of +marines, one of the nine, "certainly it was one of the most +extraordinary expeditions ever set on foot." Whoever reads the story +will be of the same opinion as this marine with the wonderful name. +Never was the war carried into Africa with a force so small and with +completer success. Yet Eaton has not had the luck of fame. He was nearly +forgotten, in spite of a well-written Life by President Felton, in +Sparks's Collection, until a short time since; when he was placed before +the public in a somewhat melodramatic attitude, by an article in a New +York pictorial monthly. It is not easy to explain this neglect. We know +that our Temple of Fame is a small building as yet, and that it has a +great many inhabitants,--so many, indeed, that worthy heroes may easily +be overlooked by visitors who do not consult the catalogue. But a man +who has added a brilliant page to the <i>Gesta Dei per Novanglos</i> deserves +a conspicuous niche. A brief sketch of his doings in Africa will give a +good view of the position of the United States in Barbary, in the first +years of the Republic.</p> + +<p>Sixty years ago, civilized Europe not only tolerated the robbery, the +murder, and the carrying into captivity of her own people, but actually +recognized this triple atrocity as a privilege inherent to certain +persons of Turkish descent and Mahometan religion inhabiting the +northern coast of Africa. England or France might have put them down by +a word long before; but, as the corsairs chiefly ravaged the defenceless +coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, the two great powers had no +particular interest in crushing them. And there was always some jealous +calculation of advantage, some pitiful project of turning them to future +account, which prevented decisive action on the part of either nation. +Then the wars which followed the French Revolution kept Europe busy at +home and gave the Barbary sailors the opportunity of following their +calling for a few years longer with impunity. The English, with large +fleets and naval stations in the Mediterranean, had nothing to fear from +them, and were, probably, not much displeased with the contributions +levied upon the commerce of other nations. Barbary piracy was a +protective tax in favor of British bottoms. French merchantmen kept at +home. Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland tried to outbid one another +for the favor of the Dey, Bey, and Pacha, and were robbed and enslaved +whenever it suited the interests of their Highnesses. The Portuguese +kept out of the Mediterranean, and protected their coast by guarding the +Straits of Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>Not long before the French Revolution, a new flag in their waters had +attracted the greedy eyes of the Barbarians. When they learned that it +belonged to a nation thousands of miles away, once a colony of England, +but now no longer under her protection, they blessed Allah and the +Prophet for sending these fish to their nets; and many Americans were +made to taste the delights of the Patriarchal Institution in the +dockyards of Algiers. As soon as the Federal Government was fairly +established, Washington recommended to Congress to build a fleet for the +protection of citizens in the Mediterranean. But the young nation needed +at first all its strength to keep itself upright at home; and the +opposition party professed a theory, that it would be safer and cheaper +for the United States to give up ships altogether, and to get other +people to carry for them. Consequently the plan of negotiating was +resorted to. Agents were sent to Algiers to ransom the captives and to +obtain a treaty by presents and the payment of a fixed tribute. Such a +treaty was made in the summer of 1796. In March of the succeeding year, +the Dey showed so much ill-temper at the backwardness of our payments, +that Joel Barlow, the American Commissioner, thought it necessary to +soothe his Highness by the promise of a frigate to be built and equipped +in the United States. Thus, with Christian meekness, we furnished the +Mussulman with a rod for our own backs. These arrangements cost the +United States about a million of dollars, all expenses included.</p> + +<p>Having pacified Algiers, Mr. Barlow turned his attention to Tunis. +Instead of visiting the Bey in person, he appointed a European merchant, +named Famin, residing in Tunis, agent to negotiate a treaty for the +United States. Of Famin Mr. Barlow knew nothing, but considered his +French birth and the recommendation of the French Consul for Algiers +sufficient proofs of his qualifications. Besides attending to his own +trade, Monsieur Famin was in the habit of doing a little business for +the Bey, and took care to make the treaty conform to the wishes of his +powerful partner. The United States were to pay for the friendship and +forbearance of Tunis one hundred and seven thousand dollars in money, +jewels, and naval stores. Tunisian cargoes were to be admitted into +American ports on payment of three per cent; the same duty to be levied +at Tunis on American shipments. If the Bey saluted an American +man-of-war, he was to receive a barrel of powder for every gun fired. +And he reserved the right of taking any American ship that might be in +his harbor into his service to carry despatches or a cargo to any port +in the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>When the treaty reached the United States, the Senate refused to ratify +it. President Adams appointed Eaton, formerly a captain in the army, +Consul for Tunis, with directions to present objections to the articles +on the tariff, salutes, and impressment of vessels. Mr. Cathcart, Consul +for Tripoli, was joined with him in the commission. They sailed in the +United States brig Sophia, in December, 1798, and convoyed the ship Hero +laden with naval stores, an armed brig, and two armed schooners. These +vessels they delivered to the Dey of Algiers "for arrearages of +stipulation and present dues." The offerings of his Transatlantic +tributaries were pleasing to the Dey. He admitted the Consuls to an +audience. After their shoes had been taken en off at the door of the +presence-chamber, they were allowed to advance and kiss his hand. This +ceremony over, the Sophia sailed for Tunis.</p> + +<p>Here the envoys found a more difficult task before them. The Bey had +heard of the ships and cargoes left at Algiers, and asked at once, Where +were all the good things promised to him by Famin? The Consuls presented +President Adam's letter of polite excuses, addressed to the Prince of +Tunis, "the well-guarded city, the abode of felicity." The Bey read it, +and repeated his question,--"Why has the Prince of America not sent the +hundred and seven thousand dollars?" The Consuls endeavored to explain +the dependence of their Bey on his Grand Council, the Senate, which +august body objected to certain stipulations in Famin's treaty. If his +Highness of Tunis would consent to strike out or modify these articles, +the Senate would ratify the treaty, and the President would send the +money as soon as possible. But the Bey was not to be talked over; he +refused to be led away from the main question,--"Where are the money, +the regalia, the naval stores?" He could take but one view of the case: +he had been trifled with; the Prince of America was not in earnest.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Famin, who found himself turned out of office by the +Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises +were insincere, and any expectations built upon them likely to +prove delusive.</p> + +<p>After some weeks spent in stormy negotiations, this modification of the +articles was agreed upon. The duty might be three or three hundred per +cent., if the Consuls wished it, but it should be reciprocal. The Bey +refused to give up the powder: fifteen barrels of powder, he said, might +get him a prize worth a hundred thousand dollars; but salutes were not +to be fired, unless demanded by the Consul on the part of the United +States. The Bey also persisted in his intention of pressing American +vessels into his service; but he waived this claim in the case of +national ships, and promised not to take merchantmen, if he could +possibly do without them.</p> + +<p>Convinced that no better terms could be obtained, Cathcart sailed for +Tripoli, to encounter fresh troubles, leaving Eaton alone to bear the +greediness and insolence of Tunis. The Bey and his staff were legitimate +descendants of the two daughters of the horse-leech; their daily cry +was, "Give! give!" The Bey told Eaton to get him a frigate like the one +built for the Algerines.</p> + +<p>"You will find I am as much to be feared as they. Your good faith I do +not doubt," he added, with a sneer, "but your presents have been +insignificant."</p> + +<p>"But your Highness, only a short time since, received fifty thousand +dollars from the United States."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but fifty thousand dollars are nothing, and you have since altered +the treaty; a new present is necessary; this is the custom."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," chorused the staff; "and it is also customary to make +presents to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary every time the +articles are changed, and also upon the arrival of a new Consul."</p> + +<p>To carry out this doctrine, the Admiral sent for a gold-headed cane, a +gold watch, and twelve pieces of cloth. The Prime Minister wanted a +double-barreled gun and a gold chain. The Aga of the Port said he would +be satisfied with some thing in the jewelry-line, simple, but rich. +Officials of low rank came in person to ask for coffee and sugar. Even +his Highness condescended to levy small contributions. Hearing that +Eaton had a Grecian mirror in his house, he requested that it might be +sent to decorate the cabin of his yacht.</p> + +<p>As month after month passed, and no tribute-ship arrived, the Bey's +threats grew louder and more frequent. At last he gave orders to fit out +his cruisers. Eaton sent letters of warning to the Consuls at Leghorn +and Gibraltar, and prepared to strike his flag. At the last moment the +Hero sailed into port, laden with naval stores such as never before had +been seen in Tunis. The Bey was softened. "It is well," he said; "this +looks a Lotte more like truth; but the guns, the powder, and the jewels +are not on board."</p> + +<p>A letter from Secretary Pickering instructed Eaton to try to divert the +Bey's mind from the jewels; but if that were impossible, to order them +in England, where they could be bought more cheaply; and to excuse the +delay by saying "that the President felt a confidence, that, on further +reflection upon all circumstances in relation to the United States, the +Bey would relinquish this claim, and therefore did not give orders to +provide the present." As the jewels had been repeatedly promised by the +United States, this weak attempt to avoid giving them was quite +consistent with the shabby national position we had taken In the +Mediterranean. It met with the success it deserved. The Bey was much too +shrewd a fellow, especially in the matter of presents, to be imposed +upon by any such Yankee pretences. The jewels were ordered in London, +and, as compensation for this new delay, the demand for a frigate was +renewed. After nearly two years of anxiety, Eaton could write home that +the prospects of peace were good.</p> + +<p>His despatches had not passed the Straits when the Pacha of Tripoli sent +for Consul Cathcart, and swore by "Allah and the head of his son," that, +unless the President would give him two hundred and fifty thousand +dollars for a new treaty, and an annual subsidy of twenty thousand, he +would declare war against the United States.</p> + +<p>These two years of petty humiliations had exasperated Eaton's bold and +fiery temper. He found some relief in horse-whipping Monsieur Famin, who +had been unceasing in his quiet annoyances, and in writing to the +Government at home despatches of a most undiplomatic warmth and +earnestness. From the first, he had advised the use of force. "If you +would have a free commerce in those seas, you must defend it. It is +useless to buy a peace. The more you give, the more the Turks will ask +for. Tribute is considered an evidence of your weakness; and contempt +stimulates cupidity. <i>Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange</i>. What are +you afraid of? The naval strength of the Regencies amounts to nothing. +If, instead of sending a sloop with presents to Tunis, you will consign +to me a transport with a thousand trusty marines, well officered, under +convoy of a forty-four-gun frigate, I pledge myself to surprise Porto +Farina and destroy the Bey's arsenal. As to Tripoli, two frigates and +four gun-boats would bring the Pacha to terms. But if you yield to his +new demands, you must make provision to pay Tunis double the amount, and +Algiers in proportion. Then, consider how shameful is your position, if +you submit. 'Tributary to the pitiful sand-bank of Tripoli?' says the +world; and the answer is affirmative, without a blush. Habit reconciles +mankind to everything, even humiliation, and custom veils disgrace. But +what would the world say, if Rhode Island should arm two old +merchantmen, put an Irish renegade into one and a Methodist preacher in +another, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Seignior? The +idea is ridiculous; but it is exactly as consistent as that Tripoli +should say to the American nation,--'Give me tribute, or tremble under +the chastisement of my navy!'"</p> + +<p>This was sharp language for a Consul to hold to a Secretary of State; +but it was as meekly borne as the other indignities which came +from Barbary.</p> + +<p>An occurrence in Algiers completes the picture of "Americans in the +Mediterranean" in the year 1800. In October, the United States ship +Washington, Captain Bainbridge, lay in that port, about to sail for +home. The Dey sent for Consul O'Brien, and laid this alternative before +him: either the Washington should take the Algerine Ambassador to +Constantinople, or he, the Dey, would no longer hold to his friendship +with the United States. O'Brien expostulated warmly, but in vain. He +thought it his duty to submit. The Ambassador, his suite, amounting to +two hundred persons, their luggage and stores, horses, sheep, and horned +cattle, and their presents to the Sultan, of lions, tigers, and +antelopes, were sent on board. The Algerine flag was hoisted at the +main, saluted with seven guns, and the United States ship Washington +weighed anchor for Constantinople.</p> + +<p>Eaton's rage boiled over when he heard of this freak of the Dey. He +wrote to O'Brien,--"I frankly own, I would have lost the peace, and been +myself impaled, rather than have yielded this concession. Will nothing +rouse my country?"<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p> + +<p>When the news reached America, Mr. Jefferson was President. He was not +roused. He regretted the affair; but hoped that time, and a more correct +estimate of interest, would produce justice in the Dey's mind; and he +seemed to believe that the majesty of pure reason, more potent than the +music of Orpheus, +<br><br> + "Dictas ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones,"<br> +<br> +would soften piratical Turks. Mr. Madison's despatch to O'Brien on the +subject is written in this spirit. "The sending to Constantinople the +national ship-of-war, the George Washington, by force, under the +Algerine flag, and for such a purpose, has deeply affected the +sensibility, not only of the President, but of the people of the United +States. Whatever temporary effects it may have had favorable to our +interest, the indignity is of so serious a nature, <i>that it is not +impossible that it may be deemed necessary, on a fit occasion, to revive +the question.</i> Viewing it in this light, the President wishes that +nothing may be said or done by you that may unnecessarily preclude the +competent authority from animadverting on that transaction in any way +that a vindication of the national honor may be thought to prescribe."</p> + +<p>Times have changed since then, and our national spirit with them. The +Secretary's Quaker-like protest offers a ludicrous contrast to the +wolf-to-lamb swagger of our modern diplomacy. What faithful Democrat of +1801 would have believed that the day would come of the Kostza affair, +of the African right-of-search quarrel, the Greytown bombardment, and +the seizure of Miramon's steamers?</p> + +<p>It is clear that our President and people were in no danger of being led +into acts of undue violence by "deeply affected sensibility" or the +"vindication of the national honor," when a violent blow aimed by the +Pacha of Tripoli at their Mediterranean trade roused them to a show of +self-defence. Early in May he declared war against the United States, +although Consul Cathcart offered him ten thousand dollars to leave the +American flag-staff up for a short time longer. Even then, if Mr. +Jefferson could have consulted no one but himself, not a ship would have +sailed from these shores. But the merchants were too powerful for him; +they insisted upon protection in the Mediterranean. A squadron of three +frigates and a sloop under Commodore Dale was fitted out and despatched +to Gibraltar; and the nations of the earth were duly notified by our +diplomatic agents of our intentions, that they might not be alarmed by +this armada.</p> + +<p>In June of this year a fire broke out in the palace at Tunis, and fifty +thousand stand of arms were destroyed. The Bey sent for Eaton; he had +apportioned his loss among his friends, and it fell to the United States +to furnish ten thousand stand without delay.</p> + +<p>"It is only the other day," said Eaton, "that you asked for eighty +twenty-four pounders. At this rate, when are our payments to have +an end?"</p> + +<p>"Never," was the answer. "The claims we make are such as we receive from +all friendly nations, every two or three years; and you, like other +Christians, will be obliged to conform to it."</p> + +<p>Eaton refused to state the claim to his Government. The Bey said, Very +well, he would write himself; and threatened to turn Eaton out of +the Regency.</p> + +<p>At this juncture Commodore Dale arrived at Gibraltar. The Bey paid us +the compliment of believing that he had not been sent so far for +nothing, and allowed Eaton a few months' respite.</p> + +<p>Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale's hands were +tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of +dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be +accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by +active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure<a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on +this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young +sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep +the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, +captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed +and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on +board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found +it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate +distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according +to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having +gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season +with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all.</p> + +<p>There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public +or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might. +Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis +perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had +measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no +reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his +tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but +did not mollify him.</p> + +<p>"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you +sent to the Dey of Algiers."</p> + +<p>Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we +would fight rather than yield to such extortion.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe. "We find it all puff; we +see how you carry on the war with Tripoli."</p> + +<p>"But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just +received these valuable jewels?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a +year. You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you +settled the treaty. We have waited all this time, but you have made us +no consideration for this forbearance. Nor have we as yet received any +evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, +notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an +expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us. His Excellency, my +master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take +with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of +friendship."</p> + +<p>Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the +President, if he wanted a frigate. For his part, he would never transmit +so outrageous a demand. "Then," retorted the Bey, "I will send you home, +and the letter with you."</p> + +<p>The letter was composed by the dragoman and forwarded to the United +States, but Eaton was allowed to remain.</p> + +<p>Disgusted with the shameful position of our affairs in the +Mediterranean, Eaton requested Mr. Madison to recall him, unless more +active operations against the enemy should be resolved upon. "I can no +longer talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a +grimace of contempt and ridicule ... The operations of our squadron this +season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as +well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates +with ------ in command ... If further concessions are to be made here, I +desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our +presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his +avarice to new demands."</p> + +<p>The display of latent force by the United States fleet, from which our +Government had expected so much, increased the insolence of the Bey of +Tunis to such a point that Eaton was obliged to withdraw from his post, +and a new war seemed inevitable. The Americans had declared Tripoli +blockaded; but, as their ships were seldom on the coast, little +attention was paid to them. It happened, however, that a Tunisian +vessel, bound for Tripoli, was captured when attempting to enter the +harbor, and declared a prize. Shortly after, Commodore Morris anchored +off Tunis and landed to visit the Consul. The Bey, who held the correct +doctrine on the subject of paper blockades, pronounced the seizure +illegal and demanded restitution. During his stay on shore, the +Commodore had several interviews with the Bey's commercial agent in +relation to this prize question. The behavior of that official was so +offensive that the Commodore determined to go on board his ship without +making the usual farewell visit at Court. As he was stepping into his +boat from the mole, he was arrested by the commercial agent for a debt +of twenty-two thousand dollars, borrowed by Eaton to assist Hamet +Caramanli in his expedition against Tripoli. Eaton remonstrated +indignantly. He alone was responsible for the debt; he had given +abundant security, and was willing to pay handsomely for further +forbearance. In vain; the agent would take nothing but the money. Eaton +hurried to the palace to ask the Bey if this arrest was by his order. +The Bey declined to answer or to interfere. There was no help for it; +the Commodore was caught. To obtain permission to embark, he was obliged +to get the money from the French Consul-General, and to promise +restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at +liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to +protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the +flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him +again to quit his court,--this time peremptorily,--adding, that the +United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial +to Barbary interests."</p> + +<p>Eaton arrived in Boston on the 5th of May, 1803. The same season Preble +sailed into the Mediterranean, with the Constitution, "a bunch of pine +boards," as she was then called in derision, poorly fitted out, and +half-manned; and with three other vessels in no better condition. But +here, at last, was a captain whom no cautious or hesitating instructions +could prevent from doing the work set before him to the best of his +ability. Sword in hand, he maintained the principle of "Death before +tribute," so often and so unmeaningly toasted at home; and it was not +his fault, if he did not establish it. At all events, he restored the +credit of our flag in the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>When the news reached home of the burning of the Philadelphia, of the +attack of the fireships, and of the bombardment of Tripoli, the blood of +the nation was up. Arch-democratic scruples as to the expediency, +economy, or constitutionality of public armed ships were thenceforth +utterly disregarded. Since then, it has never been a question whether +the United States should have a navy or not. To Preble fairly belongs +the credit of establishing it upon a permanent footing, and of heading +the roll of daring and skilful officers the memory of whose gallantry +pervades the service and renders it more effective than its ships +and its guns.</p> + +<p>The Administration yielded to the popular feeling, and attempted to +claim for themselves the credit of these feats of arms, which they had +neither expected nor desired. A new fleet was fitted out, comprising our +whole navy except five ships. Here again the cloven foot became visible. +Preble, who had proved himself a captain of whom any nation might be +proud, was superseded by Commodore Barron, on a question of seniority +etiquette, which might have been easily settled, had the Government so +wished it.</p> + +<p>Eaton had spent a year at home, urging upon the authorities, whenever +the settlement of his accounts took him to Washington, more effective +measures against Tripoli,--and particularly an alliance with Hamet +Caramanli, the Ex-Pacha, who had been driven from his throne by his +brother Jusuf, a much more able man. In spite of his bitter flings at +their do-nothing policy, the Administration sent him out in the fleet, +commissioned as General Agent for the Barbary Regencies, with the +understanding that he was to join Hamet and assist him in an attack upon +Derne. His instructions were vague and verbal; he had not even a letter +to our proposed ally. Eaton was aware of his precarious position; but +the hazardous adventure suited his enterprising spirit, and he +determined to proceed in it. "If successful, for the public,--if +unsuccessful, for myself," he wrote to a friend, quoting from his +classical reminiscences; "but any personal risk," he added, with a +rhetorical flourish, "is better than the humiliation of treating with a +wretched pirate for the ransom of men who are the rightful heirs +of freedom."</p> + +<p>He sailed in the John Adams, in June, 1804. The President, Congress, +Essex, and Constellation were in company. On the 5th of September the +fleet anchored at Malta. In a few weeks the plan of the expedition was +settled, and the necessary arrangements made, with the consent and under +the supervision of Barron. Eaton then went on board the United States +brig Argus, Captain Isaac Hull, detached specially on this service by +the Commodore, and sailed for Alexandria, to hunt up Hamet and to +replace him upon a throne.</p> + +<p>On the 8th of December, Eaton and his little party, Lieutenant Blake, +Midshipmen Mann and Danielson, of the navy, and Lieutenant O'Bannon of +the marines, arrived in Cairo. Here they learned that Hamet had taken +service with the rebel Mamlouk Beys and was in command of an Arab force +in Upper Egypt. A letter from Preble to Sir Alexander Ball insured the +Americans the hearty good wishes of the English. They were lodged in the +English house, and passed for United States naval officers on a +pleasure-trip. In this character they were presented to the Viceroy by +Dr. Mendrici, his physician, who had known Eaton intimately in Tunis, +and was much interested in this enterprise. The recommendation of the +Doctor obtained a private audience for Eaton. He laid his plans frankly +before his Highness, who listened favorably, assured him of his +approval, and ordered couriers to be sent to Hamet, bearing a letter of +amnesty and permission to depart from Egypt.</p> + +<p>The messengers returned with an answer. The Ex-Pacha was unwilling to +trust himself within the grasp of the Viceroy; he preferred a meeting at +a place near Lake Fayoum, (Maeris,) on the borders of the Desert, about +one hundred and ninety miles from the coast. Regardless of the danger of +travelling in this region of robbery and civil war, Eaton set off at +once, accompanied by Blake, Mann, and a small escort. After a ride of +seventy miles, they fell in with a detachment of Turkish cavalry, who +arrested them for English spies. This accident they owed to the zeal of +the French Consul, M. Drouette, who, having heard that they were on good +terms with the English, thought it the duty of a French official to +throw obstacles in their way. Luckily the Turkish commandant proved to +be a reasonable man. He listened to their story and sent off a courier +to bring Hamet to them. The Pacha soon arrived. He expressed an entire +willingness to be reinstated upon his throne by the Americans, and to do +what he could for himself with his followers and friendly Arab tribes in +the province of Derne. In case of success, he offered brilliant +advantages to the United States. A convention was drawn up in this +sense, signed by him as legitimate Pacha of Tripoli, and by Eaton, as +agent for the United States.</p> + +<p>The original plan was to proceed to Derne in the Argus; but the Turkish +Governor of Alexandria refused to permit so large a force to embark at +that port; and Hamet himself showed a strong disinclination to venture +within the walls of the enemy. The only course left was to march over +the Desert. Eaton adopted it with his usual vigor. The Pacha and his men +were directed to encamp at the English cut, between Aboukir Bay and Lake +Mareotis. Provisions were bought, men enlisted, camels hired, and a few +Arabs collected together by large promises and small gifts. The party, +complete, consisted of the Americans already mentioned, Farquhar, an +Englishman, Pascal Paoli Peck, whose name we take pleasure in writing +again, with six men of his corps, twenty-five artillery-men of all +nations, principally Levanters, and thirty-eight Greeks. The followers +of the Pacha, hired Arabs, camel-drivers, servants, and vagabonds, made +up their number to about four hundred.</p> + +<p>On the 8th of March, 1805, Eaton advanced into the Desert westward, +towards the famous land of Cyrene, like Aryandes the Persian, and Amrou, +general of the Caliph Omar. The little army marched along slowly, "on +sands and shores and desert wildernesses," past ruins of huge +buildings,--relics of three civilizations that had died out,--mostly +mere stones to Eaton, whose mind was too preoccupied by his wild +enterprise to speculate much on what others had done there before him. +Want of water, scarcity of provisions, the lazy dilatoriness of the +Arabs, who had never heard of the American axiom, "Time is money," gave +him enough to think of. But worse than these were the daily outbreaks of +the ill-feeling which always exists between Mussulman and Christian. The +Arabs would not believe that Christians could be true friends to +Mussulmans. They were not satisfied with Eaton's explanations of the +similarity between the doctrines of Islam and of American, but tried +again and again to make him repeat the soul-saving formula, "<i>Allah +Allah Mohammed ben Allah</i>", and thus at once prove his sincerity and +escape hell. The Pacha himself, an irresolute, weak man, could not quite +understand why these infidels should have come from beyond the seas to +place him upon a throne. A suspicion lurked in his heart that their real +object was to deliver him to his brother as the price of a peace, and +any occurrence out of the daily routine of the march brought this +unpleasant fancy uppermost in his thoughts. On one point the Mahometan +mind of every class dwelt alway,--"How could Allah permit these dogs, +who followed the religion of the Devil, to possess such admirable +riches?" The Arabs tried hard to obtain a share of them. They yelped +about the Americans for money, food, arms, and powder. Even the brass +buttons of the infidels excited their cupidity.</p> + +<p>Eaton's patience, remarkable in a man of his irascible temper, many +promises, and a few threats, kept the Crescent and the Cross moving on +together in comparative peace until the 8th of April. On that day and +outbreak of ill-temper occurred so violent that the two parties nearly +came to blows. Turks were drawn up on one side, headed by +Hamet,--Americans on the other, with the Greeks and Levanters. Swords +were brandished and muskets pointed, and much abuse discharged. Nothing +but the good sense of one of the Pacha's officers and Eaton's cool +determination prevented the expedition from destroying itself on +the spot.</p> + +<p>Peace was at last restored, and kept until the 15th, when the army +reached the Gulf of Bomba. In this bay, known to the ancients as the +Gulf of Plataea, it is said that the Greeks landed who founded the +colony of Cyrene. Eaton had written to Captain Hull to meet him here +with the Argus, and, relying upon her stores, had made this the place of +fulfilment of many promises. Unfortunately, no Argus was to be seen. Sea +and shore were as silent and deserted as when Battus the Dorian first +saw the port from his penteconters, six hundred years or more before +Christ. A violent tumult arose. The Arabs reproached the Americans +bitterly for the imposture, and declared their intention of deserting +the cause immediately. Luckily, before these wild allies had departed, a +sail appeared upon the horizon; they were persuaded to wait a short time +longer. It was the Argus. Hull had seen the smoke of their fires and +stood in. He anchored before dark; provisions were sent on shore; and +plenty in the camp restored quiet and discipline.</p> + +<p>On the 23d they resumed their march, and on the 25th, at two in the +afternoon, encamped upon a hill overlooking the town of Derne. Deserters +came in with the information that two-thirds of the inhabitants were in +favor of Hamet; but that Hassan Bey, the Governor, with eight hundred +fighting-men, was determined to defend the place; Jusuf had sent fifteen +hundred men to his assistance, who were within three days' march. +Hamet's Arabs seized upon this opportunity to be alarmed. It became +necessary to promise the chiefs two thousand dollars before they would +consent to take courage again.</p> + +<p>Eaton reconnoitred the town. He ascertained that a ten-inch howitzer on +the terrace of the Governor's house was all he had to fear in the way of +artillery. There were eight nine-pounders mounted on a bastion looking +seaward, but useless against a land-attack. Breastworks had been thrown +up, and the walls of houses loopholed for musketry.</p> + +<p>The next day, Eaton summoned Hassan to surrender the place to his +legitimate sovereign, and offered to secure him his present position in +case of immediate submission.. The flag was sent back with the answer, +"My head or yours!" and the Bey followed up this Oriental message by +offering six thousand dollars for Eaton's head, and double the sum, if +he were brought in alive.</p> + +<p>At six o'clock on the morning of the 27th, the Argus, Nautilus, and +Hornet stood in, and, anchoring within a hundred yards of the battery, +silenced it in three-quarters of an hour. At the same time the town was +attacked on one side by Hamet, and on the other by the Americans. A hot +fire of musketry was kept up by the garrison. The Greek artillery-men +shot away the rammer of their only field-piece, after a few discharges, +rendering the gun useless. Finding that a number of his small party were +falling, Eaton ordered a charge, and led it. Dashing through a volley of +bullets, the Christians took the battery in flank, carried it, planted +the American flag, and turned the guns upon the town. Hamet soon cut his +way to the Bey's palace, and drove him to sanctuary to escape being +taken prisoner. After a lively engagement of two hours and a half, the +allies had complete possession of the town. Fourteen of the Christians +had been killed or wounded, three of them American marines. Eaton +himself received a musket-ball in his wrist.</p> + +<p>The Ex-Pacha had scarcely established himself in his new conquest before +Jusuf's army appeared upon the hills near the town. Hassan Bey succeeded +in escaping from sanctuary, and took the command. After several +fruitless attempts to buy over the rebel Arabs, the Bey, on the 13th of +May, made a sudden attack upon the quarter of the town held by Hamet's +forces, and drove all before him as far as the Governor's house; but a +few volleys from the nine-pounders sent him and his troops back at full +speed. Hamet's cavalry pursued, and cut down a great many of them. This +severe lesson made the Bey cautious. Henceforward he kept his men in the +hills, and contented himself with occasional skirmishing-parties.</p> + +<p>After this affair numerous Arabs of rank came over, and things looked +well for the cause of the legitimate Pacha. Eaton already fancied +himself marching into Tripoli under the American flag, and releasing +with his own hands the crew of the Philadelphia. He wrote to Barron of +his success, and asked for supplies of provisions, money, and men. A few +more dollars, a detachment of marines, and the fight was won. His answer +was a letter from the Commodore, informing him, "that the reigning Pacha +of Tripoli has lately made overtures of peace, which the Consul-General, +Colonel Lear, has determined to meet, viewing the present moment +propitious to such a step." With the letter came another from Lear, +ordering Eaton to evacuate Derne. Eaton sent back an indignant +remonstrance, and continued to hold the town. But on the 11th of June +the Constellation came in, bringing the news of the conclusion of peace, +and of the release of the captives, upon payment of sixty thousand +dollars. Colonel Lear wrote, that, by an article of the treaty, Hamet's +wife and children would be restored to him, on condition of his leaving +the Regency. No other provision was made for him.</p> + +<p>When the Ex-Pacha (Ex for the third time) heard that thenceforth he must +depend upon his own resources, he requested that he might be taken off +in the Constellation, as his life would not be safe when his adherents +discovered that his American friends had betrayed him, Eaton took every +precaution to keep the embarkation a secret, and succeeded in getting +all his men safely on board the frigate. He then, the last of the party, +stepped into a small boat, and had just time to save his distance, when +the shore was crowded with the shrieking Arabs. Finding the Christians +out of their reach, they fell upon their tents and horses, and swept +away everything of value.</p> + +<p>It was a rapid change of scene. Six hours before, the little American +party held Derne triumphantly against all comers from Jusuf's dominions, +and Hamet had prospects of a kingdom. Now he was a beggar, on his way to +Malta, to subsist there for a time on a small allowance from the United +States. Even his wife and children were not to be restored to him; for, +in a secret stipulation with the Pacha, Lear had waived for four years +the execution of that article of the treaty. The poor fellow had been +taken up as a convenience, and was dropped when no longer wanted. But he +was only an African Turk, and, although not black, was probably dark +enough in complexion to weaken his claims upon the good feeling and the +good faith of the United States.</p> + +<p>Eaton arrived at home in November of the same year,<a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> disgusted with +the officers, civil and naval, who had cut short his successful +campaign, and had disregarded, as of no importance, the engagements he +had contracted with his Turkish ally. His report to the Secretary of the +Navy expressed in the most direct language his opinion of the treaty and +his contempt for the reasons assigned by Lear and Barron for their +sudden action. The enthusiastic welcome he received from his countrymen +encouraged his dissatisfaction. The American people decreed him a +triumph after their fashion,--public dinners, addresses of +congratulation, the title of Hero of Derne. He had shown just the +qualities mankind admire,--boldness, tenacity, and dashing courage. Few +could be found who did not regret that Preble had not been there to help +him onward to Tripoli and to a peace without payments. And as Eaton was +not the man to carry on a war, even of words, without throwing his whole +soul into the conflict, he proclaimed to all hearers that the Government +was guilty of duplicity and meanness, and that Lear was a compound of +envy, treachery, and ignorance.</p> + +<p>But this violence of language recoiled upon himself,-- +<br><br> + "And so much injured more his side,<br> + The stronger arguments he applied."<br> +<br> +The Administration steadily upheld Lear; and good Democrats, who saw +every measure refracted through the dense medium of party-spirit, of +course defended their leaders, and took fire at Eaton's overbearing +manner and insulting intolerance of their opinions. Thus, although the +general sentiment of the country was strongly in his favor, at +Washington he made many enemies. A resolution was introduced into the +House of Representatives to present him with a medal, or with a sword; +it was violently opposed by John Randolph and others, postponed from +time to time, and never passed. Eaton received neither promotion, nor +pecuniary compensation, nor an empty vote of thanks. He had even great +delay and difficulty in obtaining the settlement of his accounts<a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> and +the repayment of the money advanced by him.</p> + +<p>Disappointment, debt, and hard drinking soon brought Eaton's life to a +close. He died in obscurity in 1811. Among his papers was found a list +of officers who composed a Court Martial held in Ohio by General St. +Clair in 1793. As time passed, he had noted in the margin of the paper +the fate of each man. All were either "Dead" or "Damned by brandy." His +friends might have completed the melancholy roll by writing under his +name the same epitaph.</p> + +<p>However wrong Eaton may have been in manners and in morals, he seems to +have been right in complaining of the treatment he received from the +Administration. The organs of the Government asserted that Eaton had +exceeded his instructions, and had undertaken projects the end of which +could not be foreseen,--that the Administration had never authorized +any specific engagement with Hamet, an inefficient person, and not at +all the man he was supposed to be,--and that the alliance with him was +much too expensive and dangerous to justify its further prosecution. +Unfortunately for this view of the case, the dealings of the United +States with Hamet dated back to the beginning of the war with Tripoli. A +diversion in his favor was no new project, but had been considered for +more than three years. Eaton and Cathcart had recommended it in 1801, +and Government approved of the plan. In 1802, when Jusuf Pacha offered +Hamet the Beyship of Benghazi and Derne, to break up these negotiations, +the United States Consuls promised him Jusuf's throne, if he would +refuse the offer, and threatened, if he accepted it, to treat him as an +enemy, and to send a frigate to prevent him from landing at Derne. +Later, when the Bey of Tunis showed some inclination to surrender Hamet +to his brother, the Consuls furnished him with the means of escape to +Malta. In 1803, he crossed over to Derne in an English brig, hoping to +receive assistance from the American fleet; but Commodore Morris left +him to his own resources; he was unable to hold his ground, and fled to +Egypt. All this was so well known at home, that members of the +Opposition in Congress jokingly accused the Administration of +undertaking to decide constitutional questions for the people +of Tripoli.</p> + +<p>Before the news of this flight into Egypt reached the United States, +Eaton had been instructed by the President to take command of an +expedition on the coast of Barbary in connection with Hamet. It had been +determined to furnish a few pieces of field-artillery, a thousand stand +of arms, and forty thousand dollars as a loan to the Pretender. But when +the President heard of Hamet's reverses, he withheld the supplies, and +sent Eaton out as "General Agent for the several Barbary States," +without special instructions. The Secretary of the Navy wrote at the +same time to Commodore Barron:--"With respect to the Ex-Bashaw of +Tripoli, we have no objection to your availing yourself of his +cooperation with you against Tripoli, if you shall, upon a full view of +the subject, after your arrival upon the station, consider his +cooperation expedient. The subject is committed entirely to your +discretion. In such an event, you will, it is believed, find Mr. Eaton +extremely useful to you."</p> + +<p>After Commodore Barron had reached his station, he did consider the +"coöperation" expedient; and ordered Hull in the Argus to Alexandria +with Eaton in search of Hamet, "the legitimate sovereign of the reigning +Bashaw of Tripoli." If Eaton succeeded in finding the Pacha, Hull was to +carry him and his suite to Derne, "or such other place as may be +determined the most proper for coöperating with the naval force under my +command against the common enemy ... You may assure the Bashaw of the +support of my squadron at Benghazi or Derne, and that I will take the +most effectual measures with the forces under my command for cooperating +with him against the usurper his brother, and for reëstablishing him in +the Regency of Tripoli. Arrangements to this effect with him are +confided to the discretion with which Mr. Eaton is vested by the +Government."</p> + +<p>It would seem from these extracts that Eaton derived full authority from +Barron to act in this matter, independently of his commission as +"General Agent." We do not perceive that he exceeded a reasonable +discretion in the "arrangements" made with Hamet. After so many +disappointments, the refugee could not be expected to leave a +comfortable situation and to risk his head without some definite +agreement as to the future; and the convention made with him by Eaton +did not go beyond what Hamet had a right to demand, or the instructions +of the Commodore,--even in Article II., which was afterward particularly +objected to by the Government. It ran thus:--</p> + +<p>"The Government of the United States shall use their utmost exertions, +so far as comports with their own honor and interest, their subsisting +treaties, and the acknowledged law of nations, to reëstablish the said +Hamet Bashaw in the possession of his sovereignty of Tripoli against the +pretensions of Joseph Bashaw," etc.</p> + +<p>We should add, that Hamet, to satisfy himself of the truth of Eaton's +representations, sent one of his followers to Barron, who confirmed the +treaty; and that the Commodore, when he received Eaton's despatch, +announcing his departure from Aboukir, wrote back a warm approval of his +energy, and notified him that the Argus and the Nautilus would be sent +immediately to Bomba with the necessary stores and seven thousand +dollars in money. Barron added,--"You may depend upon the most active +and vigorous support from the squadron, as soon as the season and our +arrangements will permit us to appear in force before the +enemy's walls."</p> + +<p>So much for Eaton's authority to pledge the faith of the United States. +As to the question of expense: the whole cost of the expedition, up to +the evacuation of Derne, was thirty-nine thousand dollars. Eaton +asserted, and we see no reason to doubt his accuracy, that thirty +thousand more would have carried the American flag triumphantly into +Tripoli. Lear paid sixty thousand for peace.</p> + +<p>Hamet was set on shore at Syracuse with thirty followers. Two hundred +dollars a month were allowed him for the support of himself and of them, +until particular directions should be received from the United States +concerning him. He wrote more than once to the President for relief, +resting his claims upon Eaton's convention and the letter of the +Secretary of State read to him by Consul Cathcart in 1802. In this +letter, the Secretary declared, that, in case of the failure of the +combined attack upon Derne, it would be proper for our Government "to +restore him to the situation from, which he was drawn, or to make some +other convenient arrangement that may be more eligible to him." Hamet +asked that at least the President would restore to him his wife and +family, according to the treaty, and send them all back to Egypt. "I +cannot suppose," he wrote, "that the engagements of an American agent +would be disputed by his Government, ... or that a gentleman has pledged +towards me the honor of his country on purpose to deceive me."</p> + +<p>Eaton presented these petitions to the President and to the public, and +insisted so warmly upon the harsh treatment his ally had received from +the United States, that two thousand four hundred dollars were sent to +him in 1806, and again, in 1807, Davis, Consul for Tripoli, was directed +to insist upon the release of the wife and children. They were delivered +up by Jusuf in 1807, and taken to Syracuse in an American sloop-of-war. +Here ended the relations of the United States with Hamet Caramanli.<a name="FNanchor5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p> + +<p>Throughout this whole African chapter, the darling economy of the +Administration was a penny-wise policy which resulted in the usual +failure. Already in 1802, Mr. Gallatin reported that two millions and a +half, in round numbers, had been paid in tribute and presents. The +expense of fitting out the four squadrons is estimated by Mr. Sabine at +three millions and a half. The tribute extorted after 1802 and the cost +of keeping the ships in the Mediterranean amount at the lowest estimate +to two millions more. Most of this large sum might have been saved by +giving an adequate force and full powers to Commodore Dale, who had +served under Paul Jones, and knew how to manage such matters.</p> + +<p>Unluckily for their fame, the Administration was equally parsimonious in +national spirit and pluck, and did their utmost to protect themselves +against the extravagance of such reckless fellows as Preble, Decatur, +and Eaton. In the spring of 1803, while Preble was fitting out his +squadron, Mr. Simpson, Consul at Tangier, was instructed to buy the +good-will of the Emperor of Morocco. He disobeyed his instructions, and +the Emperor withdrew his demands when he saw the American ships. About +the same time, the Secretary of State wrote to Consul Cathcart in +relation to Tripoli:--</p> + +<p>"It is thought best that you should not be tied down to a refusal of +presents, whether to be included in the peace, or to be made from time +to time during its continuance,--especially as in the latter case the +title to the presents will be a motive to its continuance,--to admit +that the Bashaw shall receive in the first instance, including the +consular present, the sum of $20,000, and at the rate afterwards of +$8,000 or $10,000 a year ... The presents, whatever the amount or +purpose of them, (except the consular present, which, as usual, may +consist of jewelry, cloth, etc.,) must be made in money and not in +stores, to be biennial rather than annual; <i>and the arrangement of the +presents is to form no part of the public treaty, if a private promise +and understanding can be substituted.</i>"</p> + +<p>After notifying Cathcart of his appointment to Tunis, the Secretary +directs him to evade the thirty-six-gun frigate, and to offer the Bey +ten thousand dollars a year for peace, to be arranged in the same +underhand way.</p> + +<p>Tripoli refused the money; it was not enough. The Bey of Tunis rejected +both the offer and the Consul. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson that he +considered some of Cathcart's expressions insulting, and that he +insisted upon the thirty-six-gun frigate. Mr. Jefferson answered on the +27th of January, 1804, after he knew of the insult to Morris and of the +expulsion of Eaton. Beginning with watery generalities about "mutual +friendships and the interests arising out of them," he regretted that +there should be any misconception of his motives on the part of the Bey. +"Such being our regard for you, it is with peculiar concern I learn from +your letter that Mr. Cathcart, whom I had chosen from a confidence in +his integrity, experience, and good dispositions, has so conducted +himself as to incur your displeasure. In doing this, be assured he has +gone against the letter and spirit of his instructions, which were, that +his deportment should be such as to make known my esteem and respect for +your character both personal and public, and to cultivate your +friendship by all the attentions and services he could render.... In +selecting another character to take the place of Mr. Cathcart, I shall +take care to fix on one who, I hope, will better fulfil the duties of +respect and esteem for you, and who, in so doing only, will be the +faithful representative and organ of our earnest desire that the peace +and friendship so happily subsisting between the two countries may be +firm and permanent."</p> + +<p>Most people will agree with Eaton, that "the spirit which dictated this +answer betrays more the inspiration of Carter's Mountain<a name="FNanchor6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> than of +Bunker Hill."</p> + +<p>Lear, who was appointed Consul-General in 1803, was authorized by his +instructions to pay twenty thousand dollars down and ten thousand a year +for peace, and a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars a man +for ransom.</p> + +<p>When Barron's squadron anchored at Malta, Consul O'Brien came on board +to say that he had offered, by authority, eight thousand dollars a year +to Tunis, instead of the frigate, and one hundred and ten thousand to +Tripoli for peace and the ransom of the crew of the Philadelphia, and +that both propositions had been rejected.</p> + +<p>Finally, after fitting out this fourth squadron, at an expense of one +million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and with Eaton in +possession of Derne, the Administration paid sixty thousand dollars for +peace and ransom, when Preble, ten months previously, could have +obtained both for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thus they +spent two millions to save ninety thousand, and left the principle of +tribute precisely where it was before.</p> + +<p>What makes this business still more remarkable is, that the +Administration knew from the reports of our consuls and from the +experience of our captains that the force of the pirates was +insignificant, and that they were wretched sailors and poor shots. +Sterret took a Tripolitan cruiser of fourteen guns after an engagement +of thirty minutes; he killed or wounded fifty of her crew, and did not +lose a man, nor suffer any material damage in his hull or rigging. There +was no one killed on the American side when Decatur burned the +Philadelphia. The Constitution was under the fire of the Tripolitan +batteries for two hours without losing a man, and was equally fortunate +when she ran in a second time and lay within musket-shot of the mole, +exposed to the fire of the enemy for three-quarters of an hour. These +Tripolitan batteries mounted one hundred and fifteen guns. Three years +later, Captain Ichabod Sheffield, of the schooner Mary Ann, furnished in +person an example of the superiority of the Yankee over the Turk. Consul +Lear had just given forty-eight thousand dollars to the Dey of Algiers, +in full payment of tribute "up to date." Nevertheless, the Mary Ann, of +and from New York to Leghorn, was seized in the Straits of Gibraltar by +an Algerine corsair. A prize-crew of nine Turks was sent on board; the +captain, two men, and a boy left in her to do the work; she was ordered +to Algiers; and the pirate sailed away. Having no instructions from +Washington, Sheffield and his men determined to strike a blow for +liberty, and fixed upon their plan. Algiers was in sight, when Sheffield +hurled the "grains" overboard, and cried that he had struck a fish. Four +Turks, who were on deck, ran to the side to look over. Instantly the +Americans threw three of them into the sea. The others, hearing the +noise, hurried upon deck. In a hand-to-hand fight which followed two +more were killed with handspikes, and the remaining four were +overpowered and sent adrift in a small boat. Sheffield made his way, +rejoicing, to Naples. When the Dey heard how his subjects had been +handled, he threatened to put Lear in irons and to declare war. It cost +the United States sixteen thousand dollars to appease his wrath.</p> + +<p>The cruise of the Americans against Tripoli differed little, except in +the inferiority of their force, from numerous attacks made by European +nations upon the Regencies. Venice, England, France, had repeatedly +chastised the pirates in times past. In 1799, the Portuguese, with one +seventy-four-gun ship, took two Tripolitan cruisers, and forced the +Pacha to pay them eleven thousand dollars. In 1801, not long before our +expedition, the French Admiral Gaunthomme over-hauled two Tunisian +corsairs in chase of some Neapolitan vessels. He threw all their guns +overboard, and bade them beware how they provoked the wrath of the First +Consul by plundering his allies. But all of them left, as we did, the +principle of piracy or payments as they found it. At last this evil was +treated in a manner more creditable to civilization. In 1812, the +Algerines captured an American vessel, and made slaves of the crew. +After the peace with England, in 1815, Decatur, in the Guerrière, sailed +into the Mediterranean, and captured off Cape de Gat, in twenty-five +minutes, an Algerine frigate of forty-six guns and four hundred men. On +board the Guerrière, four were wounded, and no one killed. Two days +later, off Cape Palos, he took a brig of twenty-two guns and one hundred +and eighty men. He then sailed into the harbor of Algiers with his +prizes, and offered peace, which was accepted. The Dey released the +American prisoners, relinquished all claims to tribute in future, and +promised never again to enslave an American. Decatur, on our part, +surrendered his prizes, and agreed to consular presents,--a mitigated +form of tribute, similar in principle, but, at least, with another +name. From Algiers he went to Tunis, and demanded satisfaction of that +Regency for having permitted a British man-of-war to retake in their +port two prizes to Americans in the late war with England. The Bey +submitted, and paid forty-six thousand dollars. He next appeared before +Tripoli, where he compelled the Pacha to pay twenty-six thousand +dollars, and to surrender ten captives, as an indemnity for some +breaches of international law. In fifty-four days he brought all Barbary +to submission. It is true, that, the next spring, the Dey of Algiers +declared this treaty null, and fell back upon the time-honored system of +annual tribute. But it was too late. Before it became necessary for +Decatur to pay him another visit, Lord Exmouth avenged the massacre of +the Neapolitan fishermen at Bona by completely destroying the fleet and +forts of Algiers, in a bombardment of seven hours. Christian prisoners +of every nation were liberated in all the Regencies, and the +slave-system, as applied to white men, finally abolished.</p> + +<p>Preble, Eaton, and Decatur are our three distinguished African officers. +As Barron's squadron did not fire a shot into Tripoli, indeed never +showed itself before that port, to Eaton alone belongs the credit of +bringing the Pacha to terms which the American Commissioner was willing +to accept. The attack upon Derne was the feat of arms of the fourth +year, and finished the war.</p> + +<p>Ours is not a new reading of the earlier relations of the United States +with the Barbary powers. The story can be found in the Collection of +State Papers, and more easily in the excellent little books of Messrs. +Sabine and Felton. But a "popular version" despises documents. Under the +pressure of melodrama, history will drift into Napoleon's "fable agreed +upon"; and if it be true, as Emerson says, that "no anchor, no cable, no +fence, avail to keep a fact a fact," it is not at all likely that a +paper in a monthly magazine will do it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<br><br><br> +<h2>SUNSHINE.</h2> +<br> +<p>I have always worked in the carpet-factories. My father and mother +worked there before me and my sisters, as long as they lived. My sisters +died first;--the one, I think, out of deep sorrow; the other from +too much joy.</p> + +<p>My older sister worked hard, knew nothing else but work, never thought +of anything else, nor found any joy in work, scarcely in the earnings +that came from it. Perhaps she pined for want of more air, shut up in +the rooms all day, not caring to find it in walking or in the fields, or +even in books. Household-work awaited her daily after the factory-work, +and a dark, strange religion oppressed and did not sustain her, Sundays. +So we scarcely wondered when she died. It seemed, indeed, as if she had +died long ago,--as if the life had silently passed away from her, +leaving behind a working body that was glad at last to find a rest it +had never known before.</p> + +<p>My other sister was far different. Very much younger, not even a shadow +of the death that had gone before weighed heavily upon her. Everybody +loved her, and her warm, flashing spirit that came out in her sunny +smile. She died in a season of joy, in the first flush of summer. She +died, as the June flowers died, after their happy summer-day of life.</p> + +<p>At last I was left alone, to plod the same way, every night and +morning,--out with the sunrise from the skirts of the town, over the +bridge across the stream that fell into our great river which has +worked for us so long, to the tall, grim factory-building where my work +awaited me, and home again at night. I lived on in the house we all of +us had lived in. At first it was alone in the wood. But the town crept +out to meet it, and soon but little woodland was left around it. "Gloomy +Robert" they called me, as I walked back and forth upon the same track, +seldom lifting my head to greet friend or stranger. Though I walked over +well-known ground, my thoughts were wandering in strange romances. My +evening-readings furnished the land I lived in,--seldom this Western +home, but the East, from Homer's time to the days of Haroun Alraschid. I +was so faithful at my work that my responsibilities were each year +increased; and though my brain lived in dreams, I had sufficient use of +it for my little needs each day. I never forgot to answer the wants of +the greedy machines while I was within sound of them; but away from them +I forgot all external sight and sound. I can remember in my boyhood once +I was waked from my reveries. I was walking beneath a high stone-wall, +with my eyes and head bent down as usual, when I was roused by a shower +of rose-buds that fell over my shoulders and folded arms. I heard +laughter, and looked up to see a childish face with sunny, golden curls +tumbling over it; and a surprised voice cried out, "Gloomy Robert is +looking up!" The picture of the face hung in my memory long after, with +the sound of the happy voice, as though it came out of another world. +But it remained only a picture, and I never asked myself whether that +sunny face ever made any home happy, nor did I ever listen for that +voice again from behind the high stone-wall.</p> + +<p>Many years of my life passed away. There were changes in the factories. +The machines grew more like human beings, and we men could act more like +machines. There were fewer of us needed; but I still held my place, and +my steadiness gave me a position.</p> + +<p>One day, in the end of May, I was walking early in the morning towards +the factories, as usual, when suddenly there fell across my path a +glowing beam of sunshine that lighted up the grass before me. I stopped +to see how the green blades danced in its light, how the sunshine fell +down the sloping, bank across the stream below. Whirring insects seemed +to be suddenly born in its beam. The stream flowed more gayly, the +flowers on its brim were richer in color. A voice startled me. It was +only that of one of my fellow-workmen, as he shouted, "Look at Gloomy +Robert!--there's a sunbeam in his way, and he stumbles over it!" It was +really so. I had stumbled over a beam of sunlight. I had never observed +the sunshine before. Now, what life it gave, as it gleamed under the +trees! I kept on my way, but the thought of it followed me all up the +weary stairs into the high room where the great machines were standing +silently. Suddenly, after my work began, through a high narrow window +poured a strip of sunshine. It fell across the colored threads which +were weaving diligently their work. This day the work was of an +unusually artistic nature. We have our own artists in the mills, artists +who must work under severe limitations. Within a certain space their +fancy revels, and then its lines are suddenly cut short. Nature scatters +her flowers as she pleases over the field, does not measure her groups +to see that they stand symmetrically, nor count her several daisies that +they may be sure to repeat themselves in regular order. But our artist +must fit his stems to certain angles so that their lines may be +continuous, constantly repeating themselves, the same group recurring, +yet in a hidden monotony.</p> + +<p>My pattern of to-day had always pleased me, for we had woven many yards +of it before,--the machines and I. There were rich green leaves and +flowers, gay flowers that shone in light and hid themselves in shade, +and I had always admired their grace and coloring. To-day they had +seemed to me cold and dusky. All my ideas that I had gained from +conventional carpet-flowers, which, woven almost beneath my hand, had +seemed to rival Nature's, all these ideas had been suddenly swept away. +My eyes had opened upon real flowers waving in real sunshine; and my +head grew heavy at the sound of the clanking machine weaving out yards +of unsunned flowers. If only that sunshine, I thought, would light up +these green leaves, put a glow on these brilliant flowers, instead of +this poor coloring which tries to look like sunshine, we might rival +Nature. But the moment I was so thinking, the rays of sunlight I have +spoken of fell on the gay threads. They seemed, before my eyes, to seize +upon the poor yellow fibres which were trying to imitate their own glow, +and, winding themselves round them, I saw the shuttle gather these rays +of sunlight into the meshes of its work. I was to stand there till noon. +So, long before I left, the gleam of sunshine had left the narrow window +and was hidden from the rest of the long room by the gray stone-walls of +another building which rose up outside. But as long as they lingered +over the machine that I was watching, I saw, as though human fingers +were placing them there, rays of sunlight woven in among the green +leaves and brilliant flowers.</p> + +<p>After that gleam had gone, my work grew dark and dreary, and, for the +first time, my walls seemed to me like prison-walls. I longed for the +end of my day's work, and rejoiced that the sun had not yet set when I +was free again. I was free to go out across the meadows, up the hills, +to catch the last rays of sunset. Then coming home, I stooped to pick +the flowers which grew by the wayside in the waning light.</p> + +<p>All that June which followed, I passed my leisure hours and leisure days +in the open air, in the woods. I chased the sunshine from the fields in +under the deep trees, where it only flickered through the leaves. I +hunted for flowers, too, beginning with the gay ones which shone with +color. I wondered how it was they could drink in so much of the sun's +glow. Then I fell to studying all the science of color and all the +theories which are woven about it. I plunged into books of chemistry, to +try to find out how it was that certain flowers should choose certain +colors out from the full beam of light. After the long days, I sat late +into the night, studying all that books could tell me. I collected +prisms, and tried, in scattering the rays, to learn the properties of +each several pencil of light. I grew very wise and learned, but never +came nearer the secret I was searching for,--why it was that the Violet, +lying so near the Dandelion, should choose and find such a different +dress to wear. It was not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at +first. My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups. The +Saint-John's-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower. I trained +the vines which had been drooping round our old house,--the gray +time-worn house; the "natural-colored house," the neighbors called it. I +thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be +scarlet, as I trained up the brilliant scarlet trumpet-flower which my +sister had planted long ago.</p> + +<p>So the summer passed away. My companions and neighbors did not wonder +much, that, after studying so many books, I should begin to study +flowers and botany. And November came. My occupation was not yet taken +away, for Golden-Rod and the Asters gleamed along the dusty roadside, +and still underneath the Maples there lay a sunny glow from the yellow +leaves not yet withered beneath them.</p> + +<p>One day I received a summons from our overseer, Mr. Clarkson, to visit +him in the evening. I went, a little disturbed, lest he might have some +complaint to make of the engrossing nature of my present occupations. +This I was almost led to believe, from the way in which he began to +speak to me. His perorations, to be sure, were apt to be far wide of his +subject; and this time, as usual, I could allow him two or three +minutes' talk before it became necessary for me to give him my +attention.</p> + +<p>At last it came out. I was wanted to go up to Boston about a marvellous +piece of carpet which had appeared from our mills. It had lain in the +warehouse some time, had at last been taken to Boston, and a large +portion of it had been sold, the pattern being a favorite one. But +suddenly there had been a change. In opening one of the rolls and +spreading it broadly in the show-room of Messrs. Gobelin's warehouse, it +had appeared the most wonderful carpet that ever was known. A real +sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and +dance among them as on a broad meadow. It shed a radiance which paled +the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high +windows. It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had +been obliged to ask a high price of admission for the many that flocked +to see it. They had eagerly examined the other rolls of carpeting, in +the hope of finding a repetition of the wonder, and were inclined at one +time to believe that this magical effect was owing to a new method of +lighting their apartments. But it was only in this beautiful pattern and +through a certain portion of it that this wonderful appearance was +shown. Some weeks ago they had sent to our agent to ask if he knew the +origin of this wonderful tapestry. He had consulted with the designer of +the pattern, who had first claimed the discovery of the combination of +colors by which such an effect was produced, but he could not account +for its not appearing throughout the whole work. My master had then +examined some of the workmen, and learned, in the midst of his +inquiries, what had been my late occupations and studies.</p> + +<p>"If," he continued, "I had been inclined to apply any of my discoveries +to the work which I superintended, he was willing, and his partners were +willing, to forgive any interference of that sort, of mine, in affairs +which were strictly their own, as long as the discoveries seemed of so +astonishing a nature."</p> + +<p>I am not able to give all our conversation. I could only say to my +employer, that this was no act of mine, though I felt very sure that the +sunshine which astonished them in Messrs. Gobelin's carpet-store was the +very sunbeam that shone through the window of the factory on the 27th of +May, that summer. When he asked me what chemical preparation could +insure a repetition of the same wonderful effect, I could only say, +that, if sunlight were let in upon all the machines, through all the +windows of the establishment, a similar effect might be produced. He +stared at me. Our large and substantial mill was overshadowed by the +high stone-walls of the rival company. It had taken a large amount of +capital to raise our own walls; it would take a still larger to induce +our neighbors to remove theirs. So we parted,--my employer evidently +thinking that I was keeping something behind, waiting to make my profit +on a discovery so interesting to him. He called me back to tell me, +that, after working so long under his employ, he hoped I should never be +induced by higher wages or other proffers to leave for any rival +establishment.</p> + +<p>I was not left long in quiet. I received a summons to Boston. Mr. +Stuart, the millionnaire, had bought the wonderful carpet at an immense +price. He had visited our agent himself, had invited the designer to +dinner, and now would not be satisfied until I had made him a visit +in Boston.</p> + +<p>I went to his house. I passed up through broad stairways, and over +carpets such as I had never trod nor woven. I should have liked to +linger and satisfy my eyes with looking at the walls decorated with +paintings, and at the statuary, which seemed to beckon to me like moving +figures. But I passed on to the room where Mr. Stuart and his friends +awaited me. Here the first thing that struck me was the glowing carpet +across which I must tread. It was lying in an oval saloon, which had +been built, they told me, for the carpet itself. The light was admitted +only from the ceiling, which was so decorated that no clear sunlight +could penetrate it; but down below the sunbeams lay flickering in the +meadow of leaves, and shed a warm glow over the whole room.</p> + +<p>But my eyes directly took in many things besides the flowery ground +beneath me. At one end of the room stood a colossal bust of Juno, +smiling grandly and imperturbably, as if she were looking out from the +great far-away past. I think this would have held my looks and my +attention completely, but that Mr. Stuart must introduce me to his +friends. So I turned my glance away; but it was drawn directly towards a +picture which hung before me,--a face that drove away all recollection +of the colossal goddess. The golden hair was parted over a broad brow; +from the gentle, dreamy eyes there came a soft, penetrating glance, and +a vagueness as of fancy rested over the whole face. I scarcely heard a +word that was spoken to me as I looked upon this new charm, and I could +hardly find answers for the questions that surrounded me.</p> + +<p>But I was again roused from my dreamy wonderment by a real form that +floated in and sent away all visions of imagination. "My daughter," said +Mr. Stuart, and I looked up into the same dreamy eyes which had been +winning me in the picture. But these looked far beyond me, over me, +perhaps, or through me,--I could scarcely say which,--and the mouth +below them bent into a welcoming smile. While she greeted the other +guests, I had an opportunity to watch the stately grace of Mr. Stuart's +daughter, who played the part of hostess as one long accustomed to it.</p> + +<p>"A queen!" I had exclaimed to myself, as she entered the room, "and my +Juno!"</p> + +<p>The gentlemen to whom I had been introduced had been summoned earlier, +as in a learned committee, discussing the properties of the new +discovery. After the entrance of the ladies, I was requested to lead +Miss Stuart to dinner, and sat by her side through the clanging of +dishes and a similar clangor of the table-talk of tongues.</p> + +<p>"Speaking of light," said the Professor, turning to me, "why cannot you +bring, by your unknown chemical ways, some real sunlight into our rooms, +in preference to this metallic gas-light?"</p> + +<p>I turned to the windows, before which the servant had just drawn the +heavy, curtains still closer, to shut out the gleams of a glowing sunset +which had ventured to penetrate between its folds.</p> + +<p>"I see your answer," said Miss Stuart. "You wonder, as I do, why a +little piece of artificial sunlight should astonish us so much more than +the cheap sunlight of every day which the children play in on +the Common."</p> + +<p>"I think your method, Mr. Desmond," said the Chemist, "must be some +power you have found of concentrating all the rays of a pencil of light, +disposing in some way of their heating power. I should like to know if +this is a fluid agent or some solid substance."</p> + +<p>"I should like to see," interrupted another gentleman, "the anvil where +Mr. Desmond forges his beams. Could not we get up a party, Miss Stuart, +an evening-party, to see a little bit of sunlight struck out,--on a +moonshiny night, too?"</p> + +<p>"In my lectures on chemistry," began Mr. Jasper. He was interrupted by +Mr. Stuart.</p> + +<p>"You will have to write your lectures over again. Mr. Desmond has +introduced such new ideas upon chemistry that he will give you a chance +for a new course."</p> + +<p>"You forget," said the Chemist, "that the laws of science are the same +and immutable. My lectures, having once been written, are written. I +only see that Mr. Desmond has developed theories which I have myself +laid down. As our friend the Artist will tell us, sunlight is sunlight, +wherever you find it, whether you catch it on a carpet or on a +lady's face."</p> + +<p>"But I am quite ashamed," said Miss Stuart, "that we ladies so seldom +have the sunlight on our faces. I think we might agree to Mr. Green's +proposal to go out somewhere and see where the sunbeams really are +made. We shut them out with our curtains, and turn night into a +make-believe day."</p> + +<p>"But the sun is so trying!" put in Miss Lester. "Just think how much +more becoming candle-light is! There is not one of my dresses which +would stand a broad sunbeam."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Mr. Stuart, "that, when Mr. Desmond has perfected his +studies, we shall be able to roof over the whole of Boston with our +woven sunlight by day and gas-light by night, quite independent of fogs +and uncertain east-winds."</p> + +<p>So much of the dinner-conversation dwelt upon what was supposed to be +interesting to me, and a part of my profession. It was laggingly done; +for presently the talk fell into an easier flow,--a wonder about Mrs. +This, and speculation concerning Mr. That. Mr. Blank had gone to Europe +with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four +elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind. I +was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who +was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day. +In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her +personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her manner +of life, all were pulled to pieces, and discussed, dissected, and +classified, in the same way as I would handle one of the Composite.</p> + +<p>Miss Stuart spoke but little. She fluttered gayly over the livelier +conversation, but seemed glad to fall back into a sort of wearied +repose, where she appeared to be living in a higher atmosphere than the +rest of us. This air of repose the others seemed to be trying to reach, +when they got no farther than dulness; and some of the gentlemen, I +thought, made too great efforts in their attempts to appear bored. +Especially one of them exerted himself greatly to gape so often in the +face of a lady with whom he was striving to keep up an appearance of +conversation, that the exertion itself must have wearied him.</p> + +<p>After the ladies had left, the Chemist seated himself by me, that he +might, as he openly said, get out of me the secret of my sunshine. The +more I disowned the sunshine, the more he felt sure that I possessed +some secret clue to it. I need not say, that, in all my talk with these +gentlemen, I had constantly tried to show that I could claim no +influence in setting the sun's rays among the green carpeted leaves.</p> + +<p>I was urged to stay many days in Boston, was treated kindly, and invited +here and there. I grew to feel almost at home at Mr. Stuart's. He was +pleased to wonder at the education which I had given myself, as he +called it. I sat many long mornings in Miss Stuart's drawing-room, and +she had the power of making me talk of many things which had always been +hidden even from myself. It was hardly a sympathy with me which seemed +to unlock my inner thoughts; it was as though she had already looked +through them, and that I must needs bring them out for her use. That +same glance which I have already spoken of, which seemed to pass over +and through me, invited me to say in words what I felt she was beginning +to read with her eyes. We went together, the day before I was to leave +town, to the Gallery of Paintings.</p> + +<p>As we watched a fine landscape by Kensett, a stream of sunshine rested a +moment on the canvas, giving motion and color, as it were, to the +pictured sunlight.</p> + +<p>Miss Stuart turned to me.</p> + +<p>"Why will you not imprison sunlight in that way, Mr. Desmond? That would +be artistic."</p> + +<p>"You forget," I said, "if I could put the real sunlight into such a +picture, it would no longer be mine; I should be a borrower, not a +creator of light; I should be no more of an artist than I am now."</p> + +<p>"You will always refuse to acknowledge it," she said; "but you can never +persuade me that you have not the power to create a sunbeam. An +imprisoned sunbeam! The idea is absurd."</p> + +<p>"It is because the idea is so absurd," I said, "that, if I felt the +power were mine to imprison sunbeams, I should hardly care to repeat the +effort. The sunshine rests upon the grass, freely we say, but in truth +under some law that prevents its penetrating farther. A sunbeam existing +in the absence of the sun is, of course, an absurdity. Yet they are +there, the sunbeams of last spring, in your oval room, as I saw them one +day in May."</p> + +<p>"Which convinces me," said Miss Stuart, "that you are an artist. That is +not real sunshine. You have created it. You are born for an artist-life. +Do not go back to your drudgery."</p> + +<p>"Daily work," I answered, "must become mechanical work, if we perform it +in a servile way. A lawyer is perhaps inspired, when he is engaged in a +cause on which he thinks his reputation hangs; but, day by day, when he +goes down to the work that brings him his daily bread, he is quite as +likely to call it his drudgery as I my daily toil."</p> + +<p>She left her seat and walked with me towards a painting which hung not +far from us. It represented sunset upon the water. "The tender-curving +lines of creamy spray" were gathering up the beach; the light was +glistening across the waves; and shadows and light almost seemed to move +over the canvas.</p> + +<p>"There," said Miss Stuart, "is what I call work that is worthy. I know +there was inspiration in every touch of the brush. I know there was +happy life in the life that inspired that painting. It is worth while to +live and to show that one has been living in that way."</p> + +<p>"But I think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside +his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it +finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he +went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the +work,--because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy +was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The days of +drudgery hung heavily on the days of inspiration; and it was only when +he carried his heart into the most monotonous part of his work that he +found any inspiration in it, that he could feel he had accomplished +anything."</p> + +<p>We turned suddenly away into a room where we had not been before. I +could not notice the pictures that covered the walls for the sake of one +to which Miss Stuart led the way. After looking upon that, there could +be no thought of finding out any other. It possessed the whole room. The +inspiration which uplifted the eyes fell over the whole painting. We +looked at it silently, and it was not till we had left the building that +Miss Stuart said,--</p> + +<p>"We have seen there something which takes away all thought of artist or +style of painting or work. I have never been able to ask myself what is +the color of the eyes of that Madonna, or of her flowing hair, or the +tone of the drapery. I see only an expression that inspires the whole +figure, gives motion to the hands, life to the eyes, thought to the +lips, and soul to the whole being."</p> + +<p>"The whole inspiration, the whole work," I said, "is far above us. It is +quite above me. No, I am not an artist; my fingers do not tingle for the +brush. This is an inspiration I cannot reach; it floats above me. It +moves and touches me, but shows me my own powerlessness."</p> + +<p>I left Boston. I went back to winter, to my old home, to my every-day's +work. My work was not monotonous; or if one tone did often recur in it, +I built upon it, out of my heart and life, full chords of music. The +vision of Margaret Stuart came before my eyes in the midst of all +mechanical labor, in all the hours of leisure, in all the dreams of +night. My life, indeed, grew more varied than ever; for I found myself +more at ease with those around me, finding more happiness than I had +ever found before in my intercourse with others. I found more of myself +in them, more sympathy in their joy or sorrow, myself more of an equal +with those around me.</p> + +<p>The winter months passed quickly away. Mr. Clarkson frequently showed +his disappointment because the mills no longer produced the wonder of +last year. For me, it had almost passed out of my thoughts. It seemed +but a part of the baser fabric of that vision where Margaret Stuart +reigned supreme. I saw no way to help him; but more and more, daily, +rejoiced in the outer sunshine of the world, in the fresh, glowing +spring, in the flowers of May. So I was surprised again, when, near the +close of May, after a week of stormy weather, the sunlight broke through +the window where it had shone the year before. It hung a moment on the +threads of work,--then, seeming to spurn them, fell upon the ground.</p> + +<p>We were weaving, alas! a strange "arabesque pattern," as it was called, +with no special form,--so it seemed to my eyes,--bringing in gorgeous +colors, but set in no shape which Nature ever produced, either above the +earth or in metals or crystals hid far beneath. How I reproached myself, +on Mr. Clarkson's account, that I had not interceded, just for this one +day of sunshine, for some pattern that Nature might be willing to +acknowledge! But the hour was past, I knew it certainly, when the next +day the sun was clouded, and for many days we did not see its +face again.</p> + +<p>So the time passed away. Another summer came along, and another glowing +autumn, and that winter I did not go to Boston. Mr. Clarkson let me fall +back again into my commonplace existence. I was no longer more than one +of the common workmen. Perhaps, indeed, he looked upon, me with a +feeling of disappointment, as though a suddenly discovered diamond had +turned to charcoal in his hands. Sometimes he consulted me upon chemical +matters, finding I knew what the books held, but evidently feeling a +little disturbed that I never brought out any hidden knowledge.</p> + +<p>This second winter seemed more lonely to me. The star that had shone +upon me seemed farther away than ever. I could see it still. It was +hopelessly distant. My Juno! For a little while I could imagine she was +thinking of me, that my little name might be associated in her memory +with what we had talked of, what we had seen together, with some of the +high things which I knew must never leave her thoughts. But this +glimmering memory of me I knew must have faded away as her life went on, +varied as it was with change of faces, sounds of music, and whirl of +excitement. Then, too, I never heard her name mentioned. She was out of +my circle, as far away from my sphere as the heroines of those old +romances that I had read so long ago; but more life-like, more warm, +more sunny was her influence still. It uplifted my work, and crowned my +leisure with joy. I blessed the happy sunshine of that 27th of May, +which in a strange way had been the clue that led to my knowledge +of her.</p> + +<p>The longest winter-months melt away at last into spring, and so did +these. May came with her promises and blights of promise. Recalling, +this time, how sunshine would come with the latter end of May through +the dark walls, I begged of Mr. Clarkson that a favorite pattern of mine +might be put upon the looms. Its design was imagined by one of my +companions in my later walks. He was an artist of the mills, and had +been trying to bring within the rigid lines that were required some of +the grace and freedom of Nature. He had scattered here some water-lilies +among broad green leaves. My admiration for Nature, alas! had grown only +after severe cultivation among the strange forms which we carpet-makers +indulge in with a sort of mimicry of Nature. So I cannot be a fair judge +of this, even as a work of art. I see sometimes tapestries in a meadow +studded with buttercups, and I fancy patterns for carpets when I see a +leaf casting its shadow upon a stone. So I may be forgiven for saying +that these water-lilies were dear to me as seeming like Nature, as they +were lying upon their green leaves.</p> + +<p>Mr. Clarkson granted my request, and for a few days, this pattern was +woven by the machine. These trial-days I was excited from my usual +calmness. The first day the sunshine did not reach the narrow window. +The second day we had heavy storm and rain. But the third day, not far +from the expected hour, the sunshine burst through the little space. It +fell upon my golden threads; it seemed directly to embrace them +joyously, to encircle them closely. The sunlight seemed to incorporate +itself with the woolly fibre, to conceal itself among the work where the +shuttle chose to hide it. I fancied a sort of laughing joy, a clatter +and dash in the machinery itself, as though there were a happy time, +where was usually only a monotonous whirl. I could scarcely contain +myself till noon.</p> + +<p>When I left my room, I found, on inquiry, that Mr. Clarkson was not in +the building, and was to be away all day. I went out into the air for a +free breath, and looked up into the glowing sky, yet was glad to go back +again to my machines, which I fancied would greet me with an unwonted +joy. But, as I passed towards the stairway, I glanced into one of the +lower rooms, where some of the clerks were writing. I fancied Mr. +Clarkson might be there. There were women employed in this room, and +suddenly one who was writing at a desk attracted my attention. I did not +see her face; but the impression that her figure gave me haunted me as I +passed on. Some one passing me saw my disturbed look.</p> + +<p>"What have you seen? a ghost?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Who is writing in that room? Can you tell me?" I said.</p> + +<p>"You know them all," was his answer, "except the new-comer, Miss Stuart. +Have not you heard the talk of her history,--how the father has failed +and died and all that, and how the daughter is glad enough to get work +under Mr. Clarkson's patronage?"</p> + +<p>The bell was ringing that called me, and I could not listen to more. My +brain was whirling uncertainly, and I doubted if I ought to believe my +ears. I went back to my work more dazed and bewildered than ever in my +youthful days. I forgot the wonder of the morning. It was quite outshone +by the wonder of the afternoon. I longed for my hour of release. I +longed for a time for thought,--to learn whether what had been told me +could be true. When the time came, I hastened down-stairs; but I found +the door of the office closed. Its occupants had all gone. I hastened +through the village, turned back again, and on the bridge over the +little stream met Margaret Stuart. She was the same. It made no +difference what were her surroundings, she was the same; there was the +same wonderful glance, the same smile of repose. It made no difference +where or how I met her, she ruled me still. She greeted me with the same +air and manner as in her old home when I saw her first.</p> + +<p>She told me afterwards of the changes and misfortunes of the past year, +of her desire for independence, and how she found she was little able to +uphold it herself.</p> + +<p>"Some of my friends," she said, "were very anxious I should teach +singing,--I had such a delicious voice, which had been so well +cultivated. I could sing Italian opera-songs and the like. But I found I +could only sing the songs that pleased me, and it was doubtful whether +they would happen to suit the taste or the voice of those I should try +to teach. For, I must confess it, I have never cultivated my voice +except for my own pleasure, and never for the sake of the art. I did try +to teach music a little while, and, oh, it was hopeless! I remembered +some of our old talks about drudgery, and thought it had been a happy +thing for me, if I had ever learned how to drudge over anything. What I +mean is, I have never learned how to go through a monotonous duty, how +to give it an inspiration which would make it possible or endurable. It +would have been easier to summon up all my struggling for the sake of +one great act of duty. I did not know how to scatter it over work day +after day the same. Worse than all, in spite of all my education, I did +not know enough of music to teach it."</p> + +<p>She went on, not merely this evening, but afterwards, to tell me of the +different efforts she had made to earn a living for herself with the +help of kind friends.</p> + +<p>"At last," she said, "I bethought me of my handwriting, of the 'elegant' +notes which used to receive such praise; and when I met Mr. Clarkson one +day in Boston, I asked him what price he would pay me for it. I will +tell you that he was very kind, very thoughtful for me. He fancied the +work he had to offer would be distasteful to me; but he has made it as +agreeable, as easy to be performed, as can be done. My aunt was willing +to come here with me. She has just enough to live upon herself, and we +are likely to live comfortably together here. So I am trying that sort +of work you praised so much when you were with me; and I shall be glad, +if you can go on and show me what inspiration can bring into it."</p> + +<p>So day after day I saw her, and evening after evening we renewed the old +talks. The summer passed on, and the early morning found her daily at +her work, every day pursuing an unaccustomed labor. Her spirit seemed +more happy and joyous than ever. She seemed far more at home than in the +midst of crowded streets and gay, brilliant rooms. Her expression was +more earnest and spiritual than ever,--her life, I thought, gayer +and happier.</p> + +<p>So I thought till one evening, when we had walked far away down the +little stream that led out of the town. We stopped to look into its +waters, while she leaned against the trunk of a tree overshadowed it. We +watched the light and shade that nickered below, the shadow of the +clover-leaves, of the long reeds that hung almost across the stream. The +quiet was enhanced by the busy motion below, the bustle of little animal +life, the skimming of the water-insects, the tender rustling of the +leaves, and the gentle murmuring of the stream itself. Then I looked at +her, from the golden hair upon her head down to its shadow in the brook +below. I saw her hands folded over each other, and, suddenly, they +looked to me very thin and white and very weary. I looked at her again, +and her whole posture was one of languor and weariness,--the languor of +the body, not a weariness of the soul. There was a happy smile on the +lips, and a gleam of happiness from under the half-closed eyes. But, oh, +so tired and faint did the slender body look that I almost feared to see +the happier spirit leave it, as though it were incumbered by something +which could not follow it.</p> + +<p>"Margaret!" I exclaimed. "You are wearing yourself away. You were never +made for such labor. You cannot learn this sort of toil. You are of the +sunshine, to play above the dusty earth, to gladden the dreary places. +Look at my hands, that are large for work,--at my heavy shoulders, +fitted to bear the yoke. Let me work for us both, and you shall still be +the inspiration of my work, and the sunshine that makes it gold. The +work we talked of is drudgery for you; you cannot bear it."</p> + +<p>I think she would not agree to what I said about her work. She "had +began to learn how to find life in every-day work, just as she saw a new +sun rise every day." But she did agree that we would work together, +without asking where our sunshine came from, or our inspiration.</p> + +<p>So it was settled. And her work was around and within the old +"natural-colored" house, whose walls by this time were half-embowered in +vines. There was gay sunshine without and within. And the lichen was +yellow that grew on the deeply sloping roof, and we liked to plant +hollyhocks and sunflowers by the side of the quaint old building, while +scarlet honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers and gay convolvuli gladdened +the front porch.</p> + +<p>There was but one question that was left to be disputed between us. +Margaret still believed I was an artist, all-undeveloped.</p> + +<p>"Those sunbeams"--</p> + +<p>"I had nothing to do with them. They married golden threads that seemed +kindred to them."</p> + +<p>"It is not true. Sunbeams cannot exist without the sun. Your magnetic +power, perhaps, attracted the true sunbeam, and you recreated others."</p> + +<p>She fancies, if I would only devote myself to Art, I might become an +American Murillo, and put a Madonna upon canvas.</p> + +<p>But before we carried the new sunshine into the old house, I had been +summoned again by Mr. Clarkson. Another wonderful piece of carpeting had +gone out from the works, discovered by our agent before it had left our +warehouse. It was the Water-Lily pattern,--lilies sitting among green +leaves with sunshine playing in and out and among them. So dazzling it +seemed, that it shed a light all round the darkened walls of the +warehouse. It was priceless, he thought, a perfect unique. Better, +almost, that never such a pattern should appear again. It ought to +remain the only one in the world.</p> + +<p>And it did so remain. The rival establishment built a new chimney to +their mill, which shut out completely all sunshine or hope of sunshine +from our narrow windows. This was accomplished before the next May, and +I showed Mr. Clarkson how utterly impossible it was for the most +determined sunbeam ever to mingle itself with our most inviting fabrics. +Mr. Clarkson pondered a long time. We might build our establishment a +story higher; we might attempt to move it. But here were solid changes, +and the hopes were uncertain. Affairs were going on well, and the +reputation of the mills was at its height. And the carpets of sunshine +were never repeated.</p> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>THE TWO TONGUES.</h2> +<br> + +<p>Whoever would read a profound political pamphlet under the guise of a +brilliant novel may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay +overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the +curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the <i>prolétaire</i> +in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness, +and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober truth of present +history. And we are often tempted to bind up the novel of the dashing +Parliamenteer with our copy of "Ivanhoe," that we may thus have, side by +side, from the pens of the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli and Sir +Walter Scott, the beginning and the end of these eight hundred years of +struggle between Norman rule and Saxon endurance. For let races and +families change as they will, there have ever been in England two +nations; and the old debate of Wamba and Gurth in the forest-glade by +Rotherwood is illustrated by the unconscious satires of last week's +"Punch." In Chartism, Reform-Bills, and Strikes, in the etiquette which +guards the Hesperides of West-End society, in the rigid training which +stops many an adventurer midway in his career, are written the old +characters of the forest-laws of Rufus and the Charter of John. Races +and families change, but the distinction endures, is stamped upon all +things pertaining to both.</p> + +<p>We in America, who boast our descent from this matrimony of Norman and +Saxon, claim also that we have blent the features of the two into one +homogeneous people. In this country, where the old has become new, and +the new is continually losing its raw lustre before the glitter of some +fresher splendor, the traces of the contest are all but obliterated. +Only our language has come to us with the brand of the fatherland upon +it. In our mother-tongue prevails the same principle of dualism, the +same conflict of elements, which not all the lethean baptism of the +Atlantic could wash out. The two nations of England survive in the two +tongues of America.</p> + +<p>We beg the reluctant reader not to prematurely pooh-pooh as a "miserable +mouse" this conclusion, thinking that we are only serving up again that +old story of Wamba and Gurth with an added <i>sauce-piquante</i> from Dean +Trench. We admit that we allude to that original composition of English +past and present from a Latin and a Teutonic stock. But that is to us +not an ultimate, but a primal fact. It is the premise from which we +propose to trace out the principle now living and working in our present +speech. We commence our history with that strife of the tongues which +had at the outset also their battle of Hastings, their field of Sanilac. +There began the feud which to-day continues to divide our language, +though the descendants of the primitive stocks are inextricably mingled.</p> + +<p>For it is as in "Sibyl." That novel showed us the peer's descendants at +the workman's forge, while the manufacturer's grandchildren were wearing +the ermine and the strawberry-leaves. There is the constant passing to +and fro across the one border-line which never changes. Dandy Mick and +Devilsdust save a little money and become "respectable." We can follow +out their history after Mr. Disraeli leaves them. They marry Harriet and +Caroline, and contrive to educate a sharp boy or two, who will rise to +become superintendents in the mills and to speculate in cotton-spinning. +They in turn send into trade, with far greater advantages, their sons. +The new generation, still educating, and, faithful to the original +impulse, putting forth its fresh and aspiring tendrils, gets one boy +into the church, another at the bar, and keeps a third at the great +<i>Rouge-et-Noir</i> table of commerce. Some one of their stakes has a run of +luck. Either it is my Lord Eldon who sits on the wool-sack, or the young +curate bids his Oxford laurels against a head-mastership of a public +school and covers his baldness with a mitre, or Jones Lloyd steps from +his back parlor into the carriage which is to take Lord Overstone to the +House of Peers. From the day when young Osborne, the bold London +'prentice, leaped into the Thames to fish up thence his master's +daughter, and brought back, not only the little lady, but the ducal +coronet of Leeds in prospective, to that when Thomas Newcome the elder +walked up to the same London that he might earn the "bloody hand" for +Sir Brian and Sir Barnes, English life has been full of such gallant +achievements.</p> + +<p>So it has been with the words these speak. The phrases of the noble +Canon Chaucer have fallen to the lips of peasants and grooms, while many +a pert Cockney saying has elbowed its sturdy way into her Majesty's High +Court of Parliament. Yet still there are two tongues flowing through our +daily talk and writing, like the Missouri and Mississippi, with distinct +and contrasted currents.</p> + +<p>And this appears the more strikingly in this country, where other +distinctions are lost. We have an aristocracy of language, whose +phrases, like the West-End men of "Sibyl," are effeminate, extravagant, +conventional, and prematurely worn-out. These words represent ideas +which are theirs only by courtesy and conservatism, like the law-terms +of the courts, or the "cant" of certain religious books. We have also a +plebeian tongue, whose words are racy, vigorous, and healthy, but which +men look askance at, when met in polite usage, in solemn literature, and +in sermons. Norman and Saxon are their relative positions, as in the old +time when "Ox" was for the serf who drove a-field the living animal, and +"Beef" for the baron who ate him; but their lineage is counter-crossed +by a hundred, nay, a thousand vicissitudes.</p> + +<p>With this aristocracy of speech we are all familiar. We do not mean with +the speech of our aristocracy, which is quite another thing, but that +which is held appropriate for "great occasions," for public parade, and +for pen, ink, and types. It is cherished where all aristocracies +flourish best,--in the "rural districts." There is a style and a class +of words and phrases belonging to country newspapers, and to the city +weeklies which have the largest bucolic circulation, which you detect in +the Congressional eloquence of the honorable member for the Fifteenth +District, Mass., and in the Common-School Reports of Boston Corner,--a +style and words that remind us of the country gentry whose titles date +back to the Plantagenets. They look so strangely beside the brisk, +dapper curtnesses in which metropolitan journals transact their daily +squabbles! We never write one of them out without an involuntary +addition of quotation-marks, as a New-Yorker puts to his introduction of +his verdant cousin the supplementary, "From the Jerseys." Their +etymological Herald's Office is kept by schoolmasters, and especially +schoolma'ams, or, in the true heraldic tongue, "Preceptresses of +Educational Seminaries." You may find them in Mr. Hobbs, Jr.'s, +celebrated tale of "The Bun-Baker of Cos-Cob," or in Bowline's thrilling +novelette of "Beauty and Booty, or The Black Buccaneer of the Bermudas." +They glitter in the train of "Napoleon and his Marshals," and look down +upon us from the heights of "The Sacred Mountains."</p> + +<p>Occasionally you will find them degraded from their high estate and +fallen among the riff-raff of slang. They become "seedy" words, stripped +of their old meaning, mere <i>chevaliers d'industrie</i>, yet with something +of the air noble about them which distinguishes them from the born +"cad." The word "convey" once suffered such eclipse, (we are glad to say +it has come up again,) and consorted, unless Falstaff be mistaken, with +such low blackguards as "nim" and "cog" and "prig" and similar +"flash" terms.</p> + +<p>But we do not propose to linger among the "upper-ten" of the +dictionaries. The wont of such is to follow the law of hereditary +aristocracies: the old blood gets thin, there is no sparkle to the +<i>sangre azul</i>, the language dies out in poverty. The strong, new, +popular word forces its way up, is heard at the bar, gets quoted in the +pulpit, slips into the outer ring of good society. King Irving or King +Emerson lays his pen across its shoulder and it rises up ennobled, till +finally it is accepted of the "Atlantic Monthly," and its +court-presentation is complete.</p> + +<p>We have thus indicated the nature of the great contest in language +between the conventional and the idiomatic. Idioms are just what their +name implies. They are the commonalty of language,--private, proletarian +words, who do the work, "<i>dum alteri tulerunt honores</i>." They come to us +from all handiworks and callings, where you will always find them at +their posts. Sharp, energetic, incisive, they do the hard labor of +speech,--that of carrying heavy loads of thought and shaping new ideas.</p> + +<p>We think them vulgar at first, and savoring of the shop; but they are +useful and handy, and we cannot do without them. They rivet, they forge, +they coin, they "fire up," "brake up," "switch off," "prospect," "shin" +for us when we are "short," "post up" our books, and finally ourselves, +"strike a lead," "follow a trail," "stand up to the rack," "dicker," +"swap," and "peddle." They are "whole teams" beside the "one-horse" +vapidities which fail to bear our burdens. The Norman cannot keep down +the Saxon. The Saxon finds his Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Now "Mose" brings +his Bowery Boys into our parlor, or Cromwell Judd recruits his Ironsides +from the hamlets of the Kennebec.</p> + +<p>We declare for the prolétaires. We vote the working-words ticket. We +have to plead the cause of American idioms. Some of them have, as we +said, good blood in them and can trace their lineage and standing to the +English Bible and Book of Common Prayer; others are "new men," born +under hedge-rows and left as foundlings at furnace-doors. And before we +go farther, we have a brief story to tell in illustration of the +two tongues.</p> + +<p>A case of assault and battery was tried in a Western court. The +plaintiff's counsel informed the jury in his opening, that he was +"prepared to prove that the defendant, a steamboat-captain, menaced his +client, an English traveller, and put him in bodily fear, commanding him +to vacate the avenue of the steamboat with his baggage, or he would +precipitate him into the river." The evidence showed that the captain +called out,--"Stranger, ef you don't tote your plunder off that +gang-plank, I'll spill you in the drink."</p> + +<p>We submit that for terseness and vigor the practitioner at the bar of +the Ohio had the better of the learned counsel who appeared at the bar +of justice, albeit his client was in a Cockney mystification at +the address.</p> + +<p>The illustration will serve our turn. It points to a class of phrases +which are indigenous to various localities of the land, in which the +native thought finds appropriate, bold, and picturesque utterance. And +these in time become incorporate into the universal tongue. Of them is +the large family of political phrases. These are coined in moments of +intense excitement, struck out at white heat, or, to follow our leading +metaphor, like the speakers who use them, come upon the stump in their +shirt-sleeves. Every campaign gives us a new horde. Some die out at +once; others felicitously tickle the public ear and ring far and wide. +They "speak for Buncombe," are Barn-Burners, Old Hunkers, Hard Shells, +Soft Shells, Log-Rollers, Pipe-Layers, Woolly Heads, Silver Grays, +Locofocos, Fire-Eaters, Adamantines, Free Soilers, Freedom Shriekers, +Border Ruffians. They spring from a bon-mot or a retort. The log-cabin +and hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the +Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers +may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious +arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, to transfer the balance of +power to his own party. One of his opponents, poring over the map of the +Commonwealth, was struck by the odd look of the geographical lines which +thus were drawn, curving in and out among the towns and counties. "It +looks," said he, "like a Salamander." "Looks like a <i>Gerry</i>-mander!" +ejaculated another; and the term stuck long and closely.</p> + +<p>Now and then you have the aristocratic and democratic sides of an idea +in use at the same time. Those who style themselves "Gentlemen of the +Press" are known to the rest of mankind as "Dead Heads,"--being, for +paying purposes, literally, <i>capita mortua</i>.</p> + +<p>So, too, our colleges are provided, over and above the various dead +languages of their classic curriculum, with the two tongues. The one +serves the young gentlemen, especially in their Sophomoric maturity, +with appropriate expressions for their literary exercises and public +flights. The other is for their common talk, tells who "flunked" and was +"deaded," who "fished" with the tutor, who "cut" prayers, and who was +"digging" at home. Each college, from imperial Harvard and lordly Yale +to the freshest Western "Institution," whose three professors fondly +cultivate the same number of aspiring Alumni, has its particular dialect +with its quadrennial changes. The just budded Freshmen of the class of +'64 could hardly without help decipher "The Rebelliad," which in the +Consulship of Plancus Kirkland was the epic of the day. The good old +gentlemen who come up to eat Commencement dinners and to sing with +quavery voices the annual psalm thereafter, are bewildered in the mazes +of the college-speech of their grandsons. Whence come these phrases few +can tell. Like witty Dr. S------'s "quotation," which never was +anything else, they started in life as sayings, springing full-grown, +like Pallas Athene, from the laboring brain of some Olympic Sophister. +Here in the quiet of our study in the country, we wonder if the boys +continue as in our day to "create a shout," instead of "making a call," +upon their lady acquaintances,--if they still use "ponies,"--if they +"group," and get, as we did, "parietals" and "publics" for the same.</p> + +<p>The police courts contribute their quota. Baggage-smashing, +dog-smudging, ring-dropping, watch-stuffing, the patent-safe men, the +confidence men, garroters, shysters, policy-dealers, mock-auction Peter +Funks, bogus-ticket swindlers, are all terms which have more or less +outgrown the bounds of their Alsatia of Thieves' Latin and are known +of men.</p> + +<p>Even the pulpit, with its staid decorums, has its idioms, which it +cannot quite keep to itself. We hear in the religious world of +"professors," and "monthly concerts," (which mean praying, and not +psalmody,) of "sensation-preaching," (which takes the place of the +"painful" preaching of old times,) of "platform-speakers," of +"revival-preachers," of "broad pulpits," and "Churches of the Future," +of the "Eclipse of Faith" and the "Suspense of Faith," of "liberal" +Christians, (with no reference to the contribution-plates,) of +"subjective" and "objective" sermons, "Spurgeonisms," and "businessmen's +meetings." And we can never think without a smile of that gifted genius, +whoever he was, who described a certain public exercise as <i>"the most +eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience."</i> He surely created +a new and striking idiom.</p> + +<p>The boys do, as Young America should, their share. And the sayings of +street urchins endure with singular tenacity. Like their sports, which +follow laws of their own, uninfluenced by meteorological considerations, +tending to the sedentary games of marbles in the cold, chilly spring, +and bursting into base-and foot-ball in the midsummer solstice, strict +tradition hands down from boy to boy the well-worn talk. There are still +"busters," as in our young days, and the ardent youth upon floating +cakes of ice "run bendolas" or "kittly-benders," or simply "benders." In +different latitudes the phrase varies,--one-half of it going to Plymouth +Colony, and the other abiding in Massachusetts Bay. And this tendency to +dismember a word is curiously shown in that savory fish which the Indian +christened "scup-paug." Eastward he swims as "scup," while at the +Manhattan end of the Sound he is fried as "porgie." And apropos of him, +let us note a curious instance of the tenacity of associated ideas. The +street boys of our day and early home were wont to term the <i>hetairai</i> +of the public walks "scup." The young Athenians applied to the classic +courtesans the epithet of [Greek: saperdion], the name of a small fish +very abundant in the Black Sea. Here now is a bit of slang which may +fairly be warranted to keep fresh in any climate.</p> + +<p>But boy-talk is always lively and pointed; not at all precise, but very +prone to prosopopeia; ever breaking out of the bounds of legitimate +speech to invent new terms of its own. Dr. Busby addresses Brown, Jr., +as Brown Secundus, and speaks to him of his "young companions." Brown +himself talks of "the chaps," or "the fellows," who in turn know Brown +only as Tom Thumb. The power of nicknaming is a school-boy gift, which +no discouragement of parents and guardians can crush out, and which +displays thoroughly the idiomatic faculty. For a man's name was once +<i>his</i>, the distinctive mark by which the world got at his identity. +Long, Short, White, Black, Greathead, Longshanks, etc., told what a +person in the eyes of men the owner presented. The hereditary or +aristocratic process has killed this entirely. Men no longer make their +names; even the poor foundlings, like Oliver Twist, are christened +alphabetically by some Bumble the Beadle. But the nickname restores his +lost rights, and takes the man at once out of the <i>ignoble vulgus</i> to +give him identity. We recognize this gift and are proud of our +nicknames, when we can get them to suit us. Only the sharp judgment of +our peers reverses our own heraldry and sticks a surname like a burr +upon us. The nickname is the idiom of nomenclature. The sponsorial +appellation is generally meaningless, fished piously out of Scripture or +profanely out of plays and novels, or given with an eye to future +legacies, or for some equally insufficient reason apart from the name +itself. So that the gentleman who named his children One, Two, and +Three, was only reducing to its lowest term the prevailing practice. But +the nickname abides. It has its hold in affection. When the "old boys" +come together in Gore Hall at their semi-centennial Commencement, or the +"Puds" or "Pores" get together after long absence, it is not to inquire +what has become of the Rev. Dr. Heavysterne or his Honor Littleton Coke, +but it is, "Who knows where Hockey Jones is?" and "Did Dandy Glover +really die in India?" and "Let us go and call upon Old Sykes" or "Old +Roots" or "Old Conic-Sections,"--thus meaning to designate +Professor----, LL.D., A.A.S., F.R.S., etc. A college president who had +no nickname would prove himself, <i>ipso facto</i>, unfit for his post. It is +only dreadfully affected people who talk of "Tully"; the sensible all +cling to the familiar "Chick-Pea" or Cicero, by which the wart-faced +orator was distinguished. For it is not the boys only, but all American +men, who love nicknames, the idioms of nomenclature. The first thing +which is done, after a nominating convention has made its platform and +balloted for its candidates, is to discover or invent a nickname: Old +Hickory, Tippecanoe, The Little Giant, The Little Magician, The Mill-Boy +of the Slashes, Honest John, Harry of the West, Black Dan, Old Buck, Old +Rough and Ready. A "good name" is a tower of strength and many votes.</p> + +<p>And not only with candidates for office, the spots on whose "white +garments" are eagerly sought for and labelled, but in the names of +places and classes the principle prevails, the democratic or Saxon +tongue gets the advantage. Thus, we have for our states, cities, and +ships-of-war the title of fondness which drives out the legal title of +ceremony. Are we not "Yankees" to the world, though to the diplomatists +"citizens of the United States of America"? We have a Union made up upon +the map of Maine, New Hampshire, etc., to California; we have another in +the newspapers, composed of the Lumber State, the Granite State, the +Green-Mountain State, the Nutmeg State, the Empire State, the Keystone +State, the Blue Hen, the Old Dominion, of Hoosiers, Crackers, Suckers, +Badgers, Wolverines, the Palmetto State, and Eldorado. We have the +Crescent City, the Quaker City, the Empire City, the Forest City, the +Monumental City, the City of Magnificent Distances. We hear of Old +Ironsides sent to the Mediterranean to relieve the Old Tea-Wagon, +ordered home. Everywhere there obtains the Papal principle of taking a +new title upon succeeding to any primacy. The Norman imposed his laws +upon England; the courts, the parish-registers, the Acts of Parliament +were all his; but to this day there are districts of the Saxon Island +where the postman and census-taker inquire in vain for Adam Smith and +Benjamin Brown, but must perforce seek out Bullhead and Bandyshins. So +indomitable is the Saxon.</p> + +<p>We have not done yet with our national idioms. In the seaboard towns +nautical phrases make tarry the talk of the people. "Where be you +a-cruising to?" asks one Nantucket matron of her gossip. "Sniver-dinner, +I'm going to Egypt; Seth B. has brought a letter from Turkey-wowner to +Old Nancy." "Dressed-to-death-and-drawers-empty, don't you see we're +goin' to have a squall? You had better take in your stu'n'-sails." The +good woman was dressed up, intending, "<i>as soon as ever</i> dinner was +over," to go, not to the land of the Pharaohs, but to the negro-quarter +of the town, with a letter which "Seth B." (her son, thus identified by +his middle letter) had brought home from Talcahuana.</p> + +<p>For the rural idioms we refer the reader to the late Sylvester Judd's +"Margaret" and "Richard Edney," and to the Jack Downing Letters.</p> + +<p>The town is not behind the country. For, whatever is the current fancy, +pugilism, fire-companies, racing, railway-building, or the opera, its +idioms invade the talk. The Almighty Dollar of our worship has more +synonymes than the Roman Pantheon had divinities. We are not +"well-informed," but "posted" or "posted up." We are not "hospitably +entreated" any more, but "put through." We do not "meet with +misadventure," but "see the elephant," which we often do through the +Hibernian process of "fighting the tiger."</p> + +<p>Purists deplore this, but it is inevitable; and if one searches beneath +the surface, there is often a curious deposit of meaning, sometimes +auriferous enough to repay our use of cradle and rocker. We "panned +out," the other day, a phrase which gave us great delight, and which +illustrated a fact in New England history worth noting. We were puzzling +over the word "socdollager," which Bartlett, we think, defines as +"Anything very large and striking,"--<i>Anglicé</i>, a "whopper,"--"also a +peculiar fish-hook." The word first occurs in print, we believe, in Mr. +Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of +Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that +there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon +us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology." +This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or +"j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis, +both because its words were familiar to all without book, and because it +served instead of the chanted creed of their Anglican forefathers. The +last thing, after which nothing could properly follow, the most +important and most conspicuous of all, it represented to our Yankee +Walton the crowning hope of his life,--the big bass, after taking which +he might put hook-and-line on the shelf. By a slight transposition, +natural enough to untrained organs, "doxology" became "socdollager."</p> + +<p>We are not making a dictionary of Americanisms, but merely wandering a +little way into our native forests. We refer to the prevalent habit of +idiomatic speech as a fact that makes part of our literature. It cannot +be ignored, nor do we see how it is to be avoided. It is well, of +course, to retain the sterling classic basis of our speech as we +received it from abroad, and to this all that is best and purest in our +literature past and present will tend. But we hold to no Know-Nothing +platform which denies a right of naturalization to the worthy. As Ruskin +says of the river, that it does not make its bed, but finds it, seeking +out, with infinite pains, its appointed channel, so thought will seek +its expression, guided by its inner laws of association and sympathy. If +the mind and heart of a nation become barbarized, no classic culture can +keep its language from corruption. If its ideas are ignoble, it will +turn to the ignoble and vulgar side of every word in its tongue, it will +affix the mean sense it desires to utter where it had of old no place. +It converts the prince's palace into a stable or an inn; it pulls down +the cathedral and the abbey to use the materials for the roads on which +it tramples. It is good to sanctify language by setting some of its +portions apart for holy uses,--at least, by preserving intact the high +religious association which rests upon it. The same silver may be +moulded to the altar-chalice or the Bacchic goblet; but we touch the one +with reverent and clean hands, while the other is tossed aside in the +madness of the revel. Men clamor for a new version of the Sacred +Scriptures, and profess to be shocked at its plain outspokenness, +forgetting that to the pure all things are pure, and that to the +prurient all things are foul. It was a reverent and a worshipping age +that gave us that treasure, and so long as we have the temper of +reverence and worship we shall not ask to change it.</p> + +<p>And to return once more to our original illustration. We have the two +nations also in us, the Norman and the Saxon, the dominant and the +aspiring, the patrician and the <i>prolétaire</i>. The one rules only by +right of rule, the other rises only by right of rising. The power of +conservatism perishes, when there is no longer anything to keep; the +might of radicalism overflows into excess, when the proper check is +taken away or degraded. So long as the noble is noble and "<i>noblesse +oblige</i>," so long as Church and State are true to their guiding and +governing duties, the elevation of the base is the elevation of the +whole. If the standards of what is truly aristocratic in our language +are standards of nobility of thought, they will endure and draw up to +them, on to the episcopal thrones and into the Upper House of letters, +all that is most worthy. Whatever makes the nation's life will make its +speech. War was once the career of the Norman, and he set the seal of +its language upon poetry. Agriculture was the Saxon's calling, and he +made literature a mirror of the life he led. We in this new land are +born to new heritages, and the terms of our new life must be used to +tell our story. The Herald's College gives precedence to the +Patent-Office, and the shepherd's pipe to the steam-whistle. And since +all literature which can live stands only upon the national speech, we +must look for our hopes of coming epics and immortal dramas to the +language of the land, to its idioms, in which its present soul abides +and breathes, and not to its classicalities, which are the empty shells +upon its barren sea-shore.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>MIDSUMMER AND MAY.</h2> + +<p>[Continued.]</p> +<br> +<p>II.</p> + +<p>When Miss Kent, the maternal great-aunt of Mr. Raleigh, devised her +property, the will might possibly have been set aside as that of a +monomaniac, but for the fact that he cared too little about anything to +go to law for it, and for the still more important fact that the +heirs-at-law were sufficiently numerous to ingulf the whole property and +leave no ripple to attest its submerged existence, had he done so; and +on deserting it, he was better pleased to enrich the playfellow of his +childhood than a host of unknown and unloved individuals. I cannot say +that he did not more than once regret what he had lost: he was not of a +self-denying nature, as we know; on the contrary, luxurious and +accustomed to all those delights of life generally to be procured only +through wealth. But, for all that, there had been intervals, ere his +thirteen years' exile ended, in which, so far from regret, he +experienced a certain joy at remembrance of this rough and rugged point +of time where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to one of action +and freedom and real life. He had been happy in reaching India before +his uncle's death, in applying his own clear understanding to the +intricate entanglements of the affairs before him, in rescuing his +uncle's commercial good name, and in securing thus for himself a +foothold on the ladder of life, although that step had not occurred to +him till thrust there by the pressure of circumstances. For the rest, I +am not sure that Mr. Raleigh did not find his path suiting him well +enough. There was no longer any charm in home; he was forbidden to think +of it. That strange summer, that had flashed into his life like the +gleam of a carnival-torch into quiet rooms, must be forgotten; the forms +that had peopled it, in his determination, should become shadows. +Valiant vows! Yet there must have come moments, in that long lapse of +days and years, when the whole season gathered up its garments and swept +imperiously through his memory: nights, when, under the shadow of the +Himmaleh, the old passion rose at spring-tide and flooded his heart and +drowned out forgetfulness, and a longing asserted itself, that, if +checked as instantly by honor as despair, was none the less insufferable +and full of pain,--warm, wide, Southern nights, when all the stars, +great and golden, leaned out of heaven to meet him, and all ripe +perfumes, wafted by their own principle of motion, floated in the rich +dusk and laden air about him, and the phantom of snow on topmost heights +sought vainly to lend him its calm. Days also must have showered their +fervid sunshine on him, as he journeyed through plains of rice, where +all the broad reaches whitening to harvest filled him with intense and +bitterest loneliness. What region of spice did not recall the noons when +they two had trampled the sweet-fern on wide, high New England pastures, +and breathed its intoxicating fragrance? and what forest of the tropics, +what palms, what blooms, what gorgeous affluence of color and of growth, +equalled the wood on the lake-shores, with its stately hemlocks, its +joyous birches, its pale-blue, shadow-blanched violets? Nor was this +regret, that had at last become a part of the man's identity, entirely a +selfish one. He had no authority whatever for his belief, yet believe he +did, that, firmly and tenderly as he loved, he was loved, and of the two +fates his was not the harder. But a man, a man, too, in the stir of the +world, has not the time for brooding over the untoward events of his +destiny that a woman has; his tender memories are forever jostled by +cent. per cent.; he meets too many faces to keep the one in constant and +unchanging perpetuity sacredly before his thought. And so it happened +that Mr. Raleigh became at last a silent, keen-eyed man, with the shadow +of old and enduring melancholy on his life, but with no certain +sorrow there.</p> + +<p>In the course of time his business-connections extended themselves; he +was associated with other men more intent than he upon their aim; +although not wealthy, years might make him so; his name commanded +respect. Something of his old indifference lingered about him; it was +seldom that he was in earnest; he drifted with the tide, and, except to +maintain a clear integrity before God and men and his own soul, exerted +scarcely an effort. It was not an easy thing for him to break up any +manner of life; and when it became necessary for one of the firm to +visit America, and he as the most suitable was selected, he assented to +the proposition with not a heart-beat. America was as flat a wilderness +to him as the Desert of Sahara. On landing in India, he had felt like a +semi-conscious sleeper in his dream, the country seemed one of +phantasms: the Lascars swarming in the port,--the merchants wrapped in +snowy muslins, who moved like white-robed bronzes faintly animate,--the +strange faces, modes, and manners,--the stranger beasts, immense, and +alien to his remembrance; all objects that crossed his vision had seemed +like a series of fantastic shows; he could have imagined them to be the +creations of a heated fancy or the weird deceits of some subtle draught +of magic. But now they had become more his life than the scenes which he +had left; this land with its heats and its languors had slowly and +passively endeared itself to him; these perpetual summers, the balms and +blisses of the South, had unconsciously become a need of his nature. One +day all was ready for his departure; and in the clipper ship Osprey, +with a cargo for Day, Knight, and Company, Mr. Raleigh bade farewell +to India.</p> + +<p>The Osprey was a swift sailer and handled with consummate skill, so that +I shall not venture to say in how few days she had weathered the Cape, +and, ploughing up the Atlantic, had passed the Windward Islands, and off +the latter had encountered one of the severest gales in Captain +Tarbell's remembrance, although he was not new to shipwreck. If Mr. +Raleigh had found no time for reflection in the busy current of affairs, +when, ceasing to stand aside, he had mingled in the turmoil and become a +part of the generations of men, he could not fail to find it in this +voyage, not brief at best, and of which every day's progress must assure +him anew toward what land and what people he was hastening. Moreover, +Fate had woven his lot, it seemed, inextricably among those whom he +would shun; for Mr. Laudersdale himself was deeply interested in the +Osprey's freight, and it would be incumbent upon him to extend his +civilities to Mr. Raleigh. But Mr. Raleigh was not one to be cozened by +circumstances more than by men.</p> + +<p>The severity of the gale, which they had met some three days since, had +entirely abated; the ship was laid to while the slight damage sustained +was undergoing repair, and rocked heavily under the gray sky on the +long, sullen swell and roll of the grayer waters. Mr. Raleigh had just +come upon deck at dawn, where he found every one in unaccountable +commotion. "Ship to leeward in distress," was all the answer his +inquiries could obtain, while the man on the topmast was making his +observations. Mr. Raleigh could see nothing, but every now and then the +boom of a gun came faintly over the distance. The report having been +made, it was judged expedient to lower a boat and render her such +assistance as was possible. Mr. Raleigh never could tell how it came to +pass that he found himself one of the volunteers in this +dangerous service.</p> + +<p>The disabled vessel proved to be a schooner from the West Indies in a +sinking condition. A few moments sufficed to relieve a portion of her +passengers, sad wretches who for two days had stared death in the face, +and they pulled back toward the Osprey. A second and third journey +across the waste, and the remaining men prepared to lower the last woman +into the boat, when a stout, but extremely pale individual, who could no +longer contain his frenzy of fear, clambered down the chains and dropped +in her place. There was no time to be lost, and nothing to do but +submit; the woman was withdrawn to wait her turn with the captain and +crew, and the laden boat again labored back to the ship. Each trip in +the heavy sea and the blinding rain occupied no less than a couple of +hours, and it was past noon when, uncertain just before if she might yet +be there, they again came within sight of the little schooner, slowly +and less slowly settling to her doom. As they approached her at last, +Mr. Raleigh could plainly detect the young woman standing at a little +distance from the anxious group, leaning against the broken mast with +crossed arms, and looking out over the weary stretch with pale, grave +face and quiet eyes. At the motion of the captain, she stepped forward, +bound the ropes about herself, and was swung over the side to await the +motion of the boat, as it slid within reach on the top of the long wave, +or receded down its shining, slippery hollow. At length one swell brought +it nearer, Mr. Raleigh's arms snatched the slight form and drew her +half-fainting into the boat, a cloak was tossed after, and one by one +the remainder followed; they were all safe, and some beggared. The bows +of the schooner already plunged deep down in the gaping gulfs, they +pulled bravely away, and were tossed along from billow to billow.</p> + +<p>"You are very uncomfortable, Mademoiselle Le Blanc?" asked the rescued +captain at once of the young woman, as she sat beside him in the +stern-sheets.</p> + +<p>"<i>Moi?</i>" she replied. "<i>Mais non, Monsieur.</i>"</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh wrapped the cloak about her, as she spoke. They were +equidistant from the two vessels, neither of which was to be seen, the +rain fell fast into the hissing brine, their fate still uncertain. There +was something strangely captivating and reassuring in this young girl's +equanimity, and he did not cease speculating thereon till they had again +reached the Osprey, and she had disappeared below.</p> + +<p>By degrees the weather lightened; the Osprey was on the wing again, and +a week's continuance of this fair wind would bring them into port. The +next day, toward sunset, as Mr. Raleigh turned about in his regular +pacing of the deck, he saw at the opposite extremity of the ship the +same slight figure dangerously perched upon the taffrail, leaning over, +now watching the closing water, and now eagerly shading her eyes with +her hand to observe the ship which they spoke, as they lay head to the +wind, and for a better view of which she had climbed to this position. +It was not Mr. Raleigh's custom to interfere; if people chose to drown +themselves, he was not the man to gainsay them; but now, as his walk +drew him toward her, it was the most natural thing in the world to pause +and say,--</p> + +<p>"<i>Il serait fâcheux, Mademoiselle, lorsqu' on a failli faire naufrage, +de se noyer</i>"--and, in want of a word, Mr. Raleigh ignominiously +descended to his vernacular--"with a lee-lurch."</p> + +<p>The girl, resting on the palm of one hand, and unsupported otherwise, +bestowed upon him no reply, and did not turn her head. Mr. Raleigh +looked at her a moment, and then continued his walk. Returning, the +thing happened as he had predicted, and, with a little quick cry, +Mademoiselle Le Blanc was hanging by her hands among the ropes. Reaching +her with a spring, "<i>Viens, petite!</i>" he said, and with an effort placed +her on her feet again before an alarm could have been given.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah! mais je crus c'en était fait de moi!</i>" she exclaimed, drawing in +her breath like a sob. In an instant, however, surveying Mr. Raleigh, +the slight emotion seemed to yield to one of irritation, that she had +been rescued by him; for she murmured quickly, in English, head +haughtily thrown back and eyes downcast,--"Monsieur thinks that I owe +him much for having saved my life!"</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle best knows its worth," said he, rather amused, and turning +away.</p> + +<p>The girl was still looking down; now, however, she threw after him a +quick glance.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tenez!</i>" said she, imperiously, and stepping toward him. "You fancy me +very ungrateful," she continued, lifting her slender hand, and with the +back of it brushing away the floating hair at her temples. "Well, I am +not, and at some time it may be that I prove it. I do not like to owe +debts; but, since I must, I will not try to cancel them with thanks."</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh bowed, but said nothing. She seemed to think it necessary to +efface any unpleasant impression, and, with a little more animation and +a smile, added,--</p> + +<p>"The Captain Tarbell told me your name, Mr. Raleigh, and that you had +not been at home for thirteen years. <i>Ni moi non plus</i>,--at least, I +suppose it is home where I am going; yet I remember no other than the +island and my"--</p> + +<p>And here the girl opened her eyes wide, as if determined that they +should not fill with tears, and looked out over the blue and sparkling +fields around them. There was a piquancy in her accent that made the +hearer wish to hear further, and a certain artlessness in her manner not +met with recently by him. He moved forward, keeping her beside him.</p> + +<p>"Then you are not French," he said.</p> + +<p>"I? Oh, no,--nor Creole. I was born in America; but I have always lived +with mamma on the plantation; <i>et maintenant, il y a six mois qu'elle +est morte!</i>"</p> + +<p>Here she looked away again. Mr. Raleigh's glance followed hers, and, +returning, she met it bent kindly and with a certain grave interest upon +her. She appeared to feel reassured, somewhat protected by one so much +her elder.</p> + +<p>"I am going now to my father," she said, "and to my other mother."</p> + +<p>"A second marriage," thought Mr. Raleigh, "and before the orphan's +crapes are"--Then, fearful lest she should read his thought, he +added,--"And how do you speak such perfect English?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my father came to see us every other year, and I have written home +twice a week since I was a little child. Mamma, too, spoke as much +English as French."</p> + +<p>"I have not been in America for a long time," said Mr. Raleigh, after a +few steps. "But I do not doubt that you will find enjoyment there. It +will be new: womanhood will have little like youth for you; but, in +every event, it is well to add to our experience, you know."</p> + +<p>"What is it like, Sir? But I know! Rows of houses, very counterparts of +rows of houses, and they of rows of houses yet beyond. Just the +toy-villages in boxes, uniform as graves and ugly as bricks"--</p> + +<p>"Brick houses are not such ugly things. I remember one, low and wide, +possessed of countless gables, covered with vines and shaded with +sycamores; it could not have been so picturesque, if built of the marble +of Paros, and gleaming temple-white through masks of verdure."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me that I, too, remember such a one," said she, dreamily. +"<i>Mais non, je m'y perds</i>. Yet, for all that, I shall not find the New +York avenues lined with them."</p> + +<p>"No; the houses there are palaces."</p> + +<p>"I suppose, then, I am to live in a palace," she answered, with a light +tinkling laugh. "That is fine; but one may miss the verandas, all the +whiteness and coolness. How one must feel the roof!"</p> + +<p>"Roofs should be screens, and not prisons, not shells, you think?" said +Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"At home," she replied, "our houses are, so to say, parasols; in those +cities they must be iron shrouds. <i>Ainsi soit il!</i>" she added, and +shrugged her shoulders like a little fatalist.</p> + +<p>"You must not take it with such desperation; perhaps you will not be +obliged to wear the shroud."</p> + +<p>"Not long, to be sure, at first. We go to freeze in the country, a place +with distant hills of blue ice, my old nurse told me,--old Ursule. Oh, +Sir, she was drowned! I saw the very wave that swept her off!"</p> + +<p>"That was your servant?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then, perhaps, I have some good news for you. She was tall and large?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oui</i>."</p> + +<p>"Her name was Ursule?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oui! je dis que oui!</i>"</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh laughed at her eagerness. "She is below, then," he +said,--"not drowned. There is Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds, will you take this +young lady to her servant, Ursule, the woman you rescued?"</p> + +<p>And Mademoiselle Le Blanc disappeared under that gentleman's escort.</p> + +<p>The ordinary restraints of social life not obtaining so much on board +ship as elsewhere, Mr. Raleigh saw his acquaintance with the pale young +stranger fast ripening into friendliness. It was an agreeable variation +from the monotonous routine of his voyage, and he felt that it was not +unpleasant to her. Indeed, with that childlike simplicity that was her +first characteristic, she never saw him without seeking him, and every +morning and every evening it became their habit to pace the deck +together. Sunrise and twilight began to be the hours with which he +associated her; and it was strange, that, coming, as she did, out of the +full blaze of tropical suns, she yet seemed a creature that had taken +life from the fresh, cool, dewy hours, and that must fairly dissolve +beneath the sky of noon. She puzzled him, too, and he found singular +contradictions in her: to-night, sweetness itself,--to-morrow, petulant +as a spoiled child. She had all a child's curiosity, too; and he amused +himself by seeing, at one time, with what novelty his adventures struck +her, when, at another, he would have fancied she had always held Taj and +Himmaleh in her garden. Now and then, excited, perhaps, by emulation and +wonder, her natural joyousness broke through the usually sad and quiet +demeanor; and she related to him, with dramatic <i>abandon</i>, scenes of her +gay and innocent island-life, so that he fancied there was not an +emotion in her experience hidden from his knowledge, till, all-unaware, +he tripped over one reserve and another, that made her, for the moment, +as mysterious a being as any of those court-ladies of ancient <i>régimes</i>, +in whose lives there were strange <i>lacunae</i>, and spaces of shadow. And a +peculiarity of their intercourse was, that, let her depart in what freak +or perversity she pleased, she seemed always to have a certainty of +finding him in the same mood in which she had left him,--as some bright +wayward vine of Southern forests puts out a tendril to this or that +enticing point, yet, winding back, will find its first support +unchanged. Shut out, as Mr. Raleigh had been, from any but the most +casual female society, he found a great charm in this familiarity, and, +without thinking how lately it had begun or how soon it must cease, he +yielded himself to its presence. At one hour she seemed to him an +impetuous and capricious thing, for whose better protection the accident +of his companionship was extremely fortunate,--at another hour, a woman +too strangely sweet to part with; and then Mr. Raleigh remembered that +in all his years he had really known but two women, and one of these had +not spent a week in his memory.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle Le Blanc came on deck, one evening, and, wrapping a soft, +thick mantle round her, looked about for a minute, shaded her eyes from +the sunset, meantime, with a slender, transparent hand, bowed to one, +spoke to another, slipped forward and joined Mr. Raleigh, where he +leaned over the ship's side.</p> + +<p>"<i>Voici ma capote!</i>" said she, before he was aware of her approach. +"<i>Ciel! qu'il fait frais!</i>"</p> + +<p>"We have changed our skies," said Mr. Raleigh, looking up.</p> + +<p>"It is not necessary that you should tell me that!" she replied. "I +shiver all the time. I shall become a little iceberg, for the sake of +floating down to melt off Martinique!"</p> + +<p>"Warm yourself now in the sunset; such a blaze was kindled for the +purpose."</p> + +<p>"Whenever I see a sunset, I find it to be a splendid fact, <i>une +jouissance vraie, Monsieur</i>, to think that men can paint,--that these +shades, which are spontaneous in the heavens, and fleeting, can be +rivalled by us and made permanent,--that man is more potent than light."</p> + +<p>"But you are all wrong in your <i>jouissance</i>."</p> + +<p>She pouted her lip, and hung over the side in an attitude that it seemed +he had seen a hundred times before.</p> + +<p>"That sunset, with all its breadth and splendor, is contained in every +pencil of light."</p> + +<p>She glanced up and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! a part of its possibilities. Which proves?"--</p> + +<p>"That color is an attribute of light and an achievement of man." +<br><br> + "Cà et là,<br> + Toute la journée,<br> + Le vent vain va<br> + En sa tournée,"<br> +<br> +hummed the girl, with a careless dismissal of the subject.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh shut up the note-book in which he had been writing, and +restored it to his pocket. She turned about and broke off her song.</p> + +<p>"There is the moon on the other side," she said, "floating up like a +great bubble of light. She and the sun are the scales of a balance, I +think; as one ascends, the other sinks."</p> + +<p>"There is a richness in the atmosphere, when sunset melts into moonrise, +that makes one fancy it enveloping the earth like the bloom on a plum."</p> + +<p>"And see how it has powdered the sea! The waters look like the wings of +the <i>papillon bleu</i>."</p> + +<p>"It seems that you love the sea."</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly. I have thought that we islanders were like those Chinese +who live in great <i>tanka</i>-boats on the rivers; only our boat rides at +anchor. To climb up on the highest land, and see yourself girt with +fields of azure enamelled in sheets of sunshine and fleets of sails, and +lifted against the horizon, deep, crystalline, and translucent as a +gem,--that makes one feel strong in isolation, and produces keen races. +Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I think that isolation causes either vivid characteristics or idiocy, +seldom strong or healthy ones; and I do not value race."</p> + +<p>"Because you came from America!"--with an air of disgust,--"where there +is yet no race, and the population is still too fluctuating for the +mould of one."</p> + +<p>"I come from India, where, if anywhere, there is race."</p> + +<p>"But, pshaw! that was not what we were talking about."</p> + +<p>"No, Mademoiselle, we were speaking of an element even more fluctuating +than American population."</p> + +<p>"Of course I love the sea; but if the sea loves me, it is the way a cat +loves the mouse."</p> + +<p>"It is always putting up a hand to snatch you?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I am sent to Nineveh and persist in shipping for Tarshish. I +never enter a boat without an accident. The Belle Voyageuse met +shipwreck, and I on board. That was anticipated, though, by all the +world; for the night before we set sail,--it was a very murk, hot night, +--we were all called out to see the likeness of a large merchantman +transfigured in flames upon the sky,--spars and ropes and hull one net +and glare of fire."</p> + +<p>"A mirage, probably, from some burning ship at sea."</p> + +<p>"No, I would rather think it supernatural. Oh, it was frightful! Rather +superb, though, to think of such a spectral craft rising to warn us with +ghostly flames that the old Belle Voyageuse was riddled with rats!"</p> + +<p>"Did it burn blue?" asked Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you're going to make fun of me, I'll tell you nothing more!"</p> + +<p>As she spoke, Capua, who had considered himself, during the many years +of wandering, both guiding and folding star to his master, came up, with +his eyes rolling fearfully in a lively expansion of countenance, and +muttered a few words in Mr. Raleigh's ear, lifting both hands in comical +consternation the while.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Raleigh, following him, and, meeting +Captain Tarbell at the companion-way, the three descended together.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh was absent some fifteen minutes, at the end of that time +rejoining Mademoiselle Le Blanc.</p> + +<p>"I did not mean to make fun of you," said he, resuming the conversation +as if there had been no interruption. "I was watching the foam the +Osprey makes in her speed, which certainly burns blue. See the flashing +sparks! now that all the red fades from the west, they glow in the moon +like broken amethysts."</p> + +<p>"What did you mean, then?" she asked, pettishly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wished to see if the idea of a burning ship was so terrifying."</p> + +<p>"Terrifying? No; I have no fear; I never was afraid. But it must, in +reality, be dreadful. I cannot think of anything else so appalling."</p> + +<p>"Not at all timid?"</p> + +<p>"Mamma used to say, those that know nothing fear nothing."</p> + +<p>"Eminently your case. Then you cannot imagine a situation in which you +would lose self-possession?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely. Isn't it people of the finest organization, comprehensive, +large-souled, that are capable of the extremes either of courage or +fear? Now I am limited, so that, without rash daring or pale panic, I +can generally preserve equilibrium."</p> + +<p>"How do you know all this of yourself?" he asked, with an amused air.</p> + +<p>"<i>Il se présentait des occasions</i>," she replied, briefly.</p> + +<p>"So I presumed," said he. "Ah? They have thrown out the log. See, we +make progress. If this breeze holds!"</p> + +<p>"You are impatient, Mr. Raleigh. You have dear friends at home, whom you +wish to see, who wish to see you?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, with a certain bitterness in his tone. "There is no +one to whom I hasten, no one who waits to receive me."</p> + +<p>"No one? But that is terrible! Then why should you wish to hasten? For +me, I would always be willing to loiter along, to postpone home +indefinitely."</p> + +<p>"That is very generous, Mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Raleigh"--</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I wish--please--you must not say Mademoiselle. Nobody will address me +so, shortly. Give me my name,--call me Marguerite. <i>Je vous en +prie</i>."</p> + +<p>And she looked up with a blush deepening the apple-bloom of her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Marguerite? Does it answer for pearl or for daisy with you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they called me so because I was such a little round white baby. I +couldn't have been very precious, though, or she never would have parted +with me. Yes, I wish we might drift on some lazy current for years. I +hate to shorten the distance. I stand in awe of my father, and I do not +remember my mother."</p> + +<p>"Do not remember?"</p> + +<p>"She is so perfect, so superb, so different from me! But she ought to +love her own child!"</p> + +<p>"Her own child?"</p> + +<p>"And then I do not know the customs of this strange land. Shall I be +obliged to keep an establishment?"</p> + +<p>"Keep an establishment?"</p> + +<p>"It is very rude to repeat my words so! You oughtn't! Yes, keep an +establishment!"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>"No, it is I who am rude."</p> + +<p>"Not at all,--but mysterious. I am quite in the dark concerning you."</p> + +<p>"Concerning me?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, Miss Marguerite, it is my turn now."</p> + +<p>"Oh! It must be----This is your mystery, <i>n'est ce pas?</i> Mamma was my +grandmamma. My own mother was far too young when mamma gave her in +marriage; and, to make amends, mamma adopted me and left me her name and +her fortune. So that I am very wealthy. And now shall I keep an +establishment?"</p> + +<p>"I should think not," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, you constantly reassure me? Home grows less and less a +bugbear when you speak of it. How strange! It seems as if I had known +you a year, instead of a week."</p> + +<p>"It would probably take that period of time to make us as well +acquainted under other circumstances."</p> + +<p>"I wish you were going to be with us always. Shall you stay in America, +Mr. Raleigh?"</p> + +<p>"Only till the fall. But I will leave you at your father's door"----</p> + +<p>And then Mr. Raleigh ceased suddenly, as if he had promised an +impossibility.</p> + +<p>"How long before we reach New York?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"In about nine hours," he replied,--adding, in unconscious undertone, +"if ever."</p> + +<p>"What was that you said to yourself?" she asked, in a light and gayly +inquisitive voice, as she looked around and over the ship. "Why, how +many there are on deck! It is such a beautiful night, I suppose. Eh, +Mr. Raleigh?"</p> + +<p>"Are you not tired of your position?" he asked. "Sit down beside me +here." And he took a seat.</p> + +<p>"No, I would rather stand. Tell me what you said."</p> + +<p>"Sit, then, to please me, Marguerite, and I will tell you what I said."</p> + +<p>She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood of her capote, +with its rich purple, dropping from the fluttering yellow hair that the +moonlight deepened into gold, and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling +with her breath, like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still +warm and soft, with his own, which was icy. She withdrew it, turned her +eyes, whose fair, faint lustre, the pale forget-me-not blue, was +darkened by the antagonistic light to an amethystine shadow, +inquiringly upon him.</p> + +<p>"There is some danger," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Yes. When you are not a mark for general observation, you shall hear +it."</p> + +<p>"I would rather hear it standing."</p> + +<p>"I told you the condition."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall go and ask Captain Tarbell."</p> + +<p>"And come sobbing back to me for 'reassurance.'"</p> + +<p>"No," she said, quickly, "I should go down to Ursule."</p> + +<p>"Ursule has a mattress on deck; I assisted her up."</p> + +<p>"There is the captain! Now"----</p> + +<p>He seized her hand and drew her down beside him. For an instant she +would have resisted, as the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks +attested,--and then, with the instinctive feminine baseness that compels +every woman, when once she has met her master, she submitted.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, if you are offended," said he. "But the captain cannot +attend to you now, and it is necessary to be guarded in movement; for a +slight thing on such occasions may produce a panic."</p> + +<p>"You should not have forced me to sit," said she, in a smothered voice, +without heeding him; "you had no right."</p> + +<p>"This right, that I assume the care of you."</p> + +<p>"Monsieur, you see that I am quite competent to the care of myself."</p> + +<p>"Marguerite, I see that you are determined to quarrel."</p> + +<p>She paused a moment, ere replying; then drew a little nearer and turned +her face toward him, though without looking up.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, then!" said she. "But I would rather be naughty and +froward, it lets me stay a child, and so you can take me in keeping, and +I need not think for myself at all. But if I act like a woman grown, +then comes all the responsibility, and I must rely on myself, which is +such trouble now, though I never felt it so before,--I don't know why. +Don't you see?" And she glanced at him with her head on one side, and +laughing archly.</p> + +<p>"You were right," he replied, after surveying her a moment; "my +proffered protection is entirely superfluous."</p> + +<p>She thought he was about to go, and placed her hand on his, as it lay +along the side. "Don't leave me," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I have no intention of leaving you," he said.</p> + +<p>"You are very good. I have never seen one like you. I love you well." +And, bathed in moonlight, she raised her face and her glowing lips +toward him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh gazed in the innocent eyes a moment, to seek the extent of +her meaning, and felt, that, should he take advantage of her childlike +forgetfulness, he would be only reënacting the part he had so much +condemned in one man years before. So he merely bent low over the hand +that lay in his, raised it, and touched his lips to that. In an instant +the color suffused her face, she snatched the hand away, half rose +trembling from her seat, then sank into it again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Soit, Monsieur!</i>" she exclaimed, abruptly. "But you have not told me +the danger."</p> + +<p>"It will not alarm you now?" he replied, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I have said that I am not a coward."</p> + +<p>"I wonder what you would think of me when I say that without doubt I +am."</p> + +<p>"You, Mr. Raleigh?" she cried, astonishment banishing anger.</p> + +<p>"Not that I betray myself. But I have felt the true heart-sinking. Once, +surprised in the centre of an insurrection, I expected to find my hair +white as snow, if I escaped."</p> + +<p>"Your hair is very black. And you escaped?"</p> + +<p>"So it would appear."</p> + +<p>"They suffered you to go on account of your terror? You feigned death? +You took flight?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly, neither."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it," she said, imperiously.</p> + +<p>Though Mr. Raleigh had exchanged the singular reserve of his youth for a +well-bred reticence, he scarcely cared to be his own hero.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," said she. "It will shorten the time; and that is what you are +trying to do, you know."</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"It was once when I was obliged to make an unpleasant journey into the +interior, and a detachment was placed at my service. We were in a +suspected district quite favorable to their designs, and the commanding +officer was attacked with illness in the night. Being called to his +assistance, I looked abroad and fancied things wore an unusual aspect +among the men, and sent Capua to steal down a covered path and see if +anything were wrong. Never at fault, he discovered a revolt, with +intent to murder my companion and myself, and retreat to the mountains. +Of course there was but one thing to do. I put a pistol in my belt and +walked down and in among them, singled out the ringleader, fixed him +with my eye, and bade him approach. My appearance was so sudden and +unsuspected that they forgot defiance."</p> + +<p>"<i>Bien</i>, but I thought you were afraid."</p> + +<p>"So I was. I could not have spoken a second word. I experienced intense +terror, and that, probably, gave my glance a concentration of which I +was unaware and by myself incapable; but I did not suffer it to waver; I +could not have moved it, indeed; I kept it on the man while he crept +slowly toward me. I shall never forget the horrible sensation. I did not +dare permit myself to doubt his conquest; but if I had failed, as I then +thought, his approach was like the slow coil of a serpent about me, and +it was his glittering eyes that had fixed mine, and not mine his. At my +feet, I commanded him, with a gesture, to disarm. He obeyed, and I +breathed; and one by one they followed his example. Capua, who was +behind me, I sent back with the weapons, and in the morning gave them +their choice of returning to town with their hands tied behind their +backs, or of going on with me and remaining faithful. They chose the +latter, did me good service, and I said nothing about the affair."</p> + +<p>"That was well. But were you really frightened?"</p> + +<p>"So I said. I cannot think of it yet without a slight shudder."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and a rehearsal. Your eyes charge bayonets now. I am not a Sepoy."</p> + +<p>"Well, you are still angry with me?"</p> + +<p>"How can I be angry with you?"</p> + +<p>"How, indeed? So much your senior that you owe me respect, Miss +Marguerite. I am quite old enough to be your father."</p> + +<p>"You are, Sir?" she replied, with surprise. "Why, are you fifty-five +years old?"</p> + +<p>"Is that Mr. Laudersdale's age?"</p> + +<p>"How did you know Mr. Laudersdale Was my father?"</p> + +<p>"By an arithmetical process. That is his age?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and yours?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly. I was thirty-seven last August."</p> + +<p>"And will be thirty-eight next?"</p> + +<p>"That is the logical deduction."</p> + +<p>"I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just twice my age."</p> + +<p>"By what courier will you make it reach me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I forgot. But--Mr. Raleigh?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he replied, turning to look at her,--for his eyes had been +wandering over the deck.</p> + +<p>"I thought you would ask me to write to you."</p> + +<p>"No, that would not be worth while."</p> + +<p>His face was too grave for her to feel indignation.</p> + +<p>"Why?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"It would give me great pleasure, without doubt. But in a week you will +have too many other cares and duties to care for such a burden."</p> + +<p>"That shows that you do not know me at all. <i>Vous en avez usé mal avec +moi!</i>"</p> + +<p>Though Mr. Raleigh still looked at her, he did not reply. She rose and +walked away a few steps, coming back.</p> + +<p>"You are always in the right, and I consequently in the wrong," she +said. "How often to-night have I asked pardon? I will not put up +with it!"</p> + +<p>"We shall part in a few hours," he replied; "when you lose your temper, +I lose my time."</p> + +<p>"In a few hours? Then is the danger which you mentioned past?"</p> + +<p>"I scarcely think so."</p> + +<p>"Now I am not going to be diverted again. What is this dreadful danger?"</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the +port before our situation becomes apparently worse,--that we do not take +to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the +Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several +other becauses,--that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the +captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape"----</p> + +<p>"<i>Allez au hut!</i>"</p> + +<p>"That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of +excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail +into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal."</p> + +<p>"Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite +faint. Soon recovering herself,--</p> + +<p>"And what do you think of the mirage now?" she asked. "Where is Ursule? +I must go to her," she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting +to her feet.</p> + +<p>"Shall I accompany you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no."</p> + +<p>"She lies on a mattress there, behind that group,"--nodding in the +implied direction; "and it would be well, if you could lie beside her +and get an hour's rest."</p> + +<p>"Me? I couldn't sleep. I shall come back to you,--may I?" And she was +gone.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had left him, when, a +half-hour afterward, she returned.</p> + +<p>"Where is your cloak?" he asked, rising to receive her.</p> + +<p>"I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly."</p> + +<p>"You will not take cold?"</p> + +<p>"I? I am on fire myself."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you."</p> + +<p>"It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not?--drifting on before +the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire and all red-hot raging +turbulence. Just look up the long sparkling length of these white, full +shrouds, swelling and curving like proud swans, in the gale,--and then +imagine the devouring monster below in his den!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> imagine it. Be quiet and sit beside me. Half the night is +gone."</p> + +<p>"I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driving forward to +destruction on fearful breakers, drank and sang and died madly. I wish +the whole ship's company would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or +that we might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance,--dance +wildly into death and daylight."</p> + +<p>"We have nothing to do with death," said Mr. Raleigh. "Our foe is simply +time. You dance, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. I dance well,--like those white fluttering butterflies,--as if +I were <i>au gré du vent</i>."</p> + +<p>"That would not be dancing well."</p> + +<p>"It would not be dancing well to <i>be</i> at the will of the wind, but it is +perfection to appear so."</p> + +<p>"The dance needs the expression of the dancer's will. It is breathing +sculpture. It is mimic life beyond all other arts."</p> + +<p>"Then well I love to dance. And I do dance well. Wait,--you shall see."</p> + +<p>He detained her.</p> + +<p>"Be still, little maid!" he said, and again drew her beside him, though +she still continued standing.</p> + +<p>At this moment the captain approached.</p> + +<p>"What cheer?" asked Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"No cheer," he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger-nails into his +palm. "The planks forward are already hot to the hand. I tremble at +every creak of cordage, lest the deck crash in and bury us all."</p> + +<p>"You have made the Sandy Hook light?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; too late to run her ashore."</p> + +<p>"You cannot try that at the Highlands?"</p> + +<p>"Certain death."</p> + +<p>"The wind scarcely"----</p> + +<p>"Veered a point I am carrying all sail. But if this tooth of fire gnaws +below, you will soon see the masts go by the board. And then we are +lost, indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Courage! she will certainly hold together till you can hail the +pilots."</p> + +<p>"I think no one need tremble when he has such an instance of +fearlessness before him," replied the captain, bowing to Marguerite; +and turning away, he hid his suspense and pain again under a calm +countenance.</p> + +<p>Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had heard the whole of +the conversation, and he felt the hand in his growing colder as it +continued. He wondered if it were still the same excitement that sent +the alternate flush and pallor up her cheek. She sat down, leaning her +head back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and suffering +the light, fine hair to blow about her temples before the steady breeze. +He bent over to look into her eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless.</p> + +<p>"Marguerite!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>She tried to speak, but the teeth seemed to hinder the escape of her +words, and to break them into bits of sound; a shiver shook her from +head to foot.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if this is fear," she succeeded in saying. "Oh, if there were +somewhere to go, something to hide me! A great horror is upon me! I am +afraid! <i>Seigneur Dieu! Mourir par le feu! Périssons alors au plus +vite!</i>" And she shuddered, audibly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh passed his arm about her and gathered her closer to himself. +He saw at once, that, sensitive as she was to every impression, this +fear was a contagious one, a mere gregarian affinity, and that she +needed the preponderating warmth and strength of a protecting presence, +the influence of a fuller vitality. He did not speak, but his touch must +in some measure have counteracted the dread that oppressed her. She +ceased trembling, but did not move.</p> + +<p>The westering moon went to bury herself in banks of cloud; the wind +increasing piped and whistled in strident threatening through the +rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No +murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they +drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one +voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light +was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the +forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. +Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all the people. The +captain's voice thundered through the tumult, and instantly the mates +sprang forward and the jib went crashing overboard. Mr. Raleigh tore his +eyes away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them by chance +on two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with +intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with +hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting +prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat +at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into +file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if +possible, the flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed over +to Ursule.</p> + +<p>The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to the girl a +portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and +rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve +with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and +unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else +broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of +breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place +was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to +leave below the stings of the blistering deck. None waited on the order +of their going, but thronged and sprang precipitately. Ursule was at +once deposited in safety. The captain moved to conduct Marguerite +across, but she drew back and clung to Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"<i>J'ai honte</i>," she said; "<i>je ne bougerai pas plus tót que vous.</i>"</p> + +<p>The breath of the fierce flames scorched her cheek as she spoke, the +wind of their roaring progress swept her hair. He lifted her over +without further consultation, and still kept her in his care.</p> + +<p>There was a strange atmosphere on board the little vessels, as they +labored about and parted from the doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with +awe and joy at their deliverance; others broke the tense strain of the +last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the panting engines they +answered with waiting heart-beats, as it sent them farther from the +fearful wonder, now blazing in multiplex lines of fire against the gray +horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration of +a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze with him. An hour +silently passed, and as the fiery phantom faded into dawn and distance +she sang sweetly the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another +voice took up the measure, stronger and clearer; those who knew nothing +of the words caught the spirit of the tune; and no choral service ever +pealed up temple-vaults with more earnest accord than that in which this +chant of grateful, exultant devotion now rose from rough-throated men +and weary women in the crisp air and yellowing spring-morning.</p> + +<p>As the moment of parting approached, Marguerite stood with folded hands +before Mr. Raleigh, looking sadly down the harbor.</p> + +<p>"I regret all that," she said,--"these days that seem years."</p> + +<p>"An equivocal phrase," he replied, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"But you know what I mean. I am going to strangers; I have been with +you. I shall find no one so kind to me as you have been, Monsieur."</p> + +<p>"Your strangers can be much kinder to you than I have been."</p> + +<p>"Never! I wish they did not exist! What do I care for them? What do they +care for me? They do not know me; I shall shock them. I miss you, I hate +them, already. <i>Non! Personne ne m'aime, et je n'aime personne!</i>" she +exclaimed, with low-toned vehemence.</p> + +<p>"Rite," began Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"Rite! No one but my mother ever called me that. How did you know it?"</p> + +<p>"I have met your mother, and I knew you a great many years ago."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Raleigh!" And there was the least possible shade of unconscious +regret in the voice before it added,--"And what was I?"</p> + +<p>"You were some little wood-spirit, the imp of a fallen cone, mayhap, or +the embodiment of birch-tree shadows. You were a soiled and naughty +little beauty, not so different from your present self, and who kissed +me on the lips."</p> + +<p>"And did you refuse to take the kiss?"</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"You were a child then," he said. "And I was not"----</p> + +<p>"Was not?"----</p> + +<p>Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the shock prevented Mr. +Raleigh's finishing his sentence.</p> + +<p>"Ursule is with us, or on the other one?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"With us."</p> + +<p>"That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by which to prove my +identity."</p> + +<p>"As if there could be two such maidens in the world!"</p> + +<p>Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tarbell her address, and +returning, they were shortly afterward seated side by side in a coach, +Capua and Ursule following in another. As they stopped at the destined +door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She lingered a moment +ere taking it,--not to say adieu, nor to offer him cheek or lip again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Que je te remercie!</i>" she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "<i>Que je +te trouve bon!</i>" and sprang before him up the steps.</p> + +<p>He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined +them; he reëntered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall.</p> + +<p>The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's +business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally +lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and +proceeded at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he +found that affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had +been instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the +overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could +take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months +of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a +little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at +first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the +seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him. +Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him, +if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the +lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues +of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate +and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,-- +<br><br> + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie,<br> + brave Charlie!<br> +<br> + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine<br> + wi' McLean!"<br> +<br> +Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best +to remain long in the city; he would be glad to know if sight of the old +scenes could renew a throb. He answered his letters, replenished his +wardrobe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. At noon +of the second day thereafter he found Mr. McLean's coach, with that +worthy gentleman in person, awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it +paused at the foot of his former garden, with a strange sense of the +world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him,--a face less round and rosy +than once, as the need of pink cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and +bright as youth.</p> + +<p>"The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the first greeting, +putting his hands on her shoulders and smiling down at her benevolently.</p> + +<p>"Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking her head. "I +expected this stain on your skin; but, dear me! your eyes look as if you +had not a friend in the world."</p> + +<p>"How can they look so, when you give me such a welcome?"</p> + +<p>"Dear old Roger, you <i>are</i> just the same," said she, bestowing a little +caress upon his sleeve. "And if you remember the summer before you went +away, you will not find that pleasant company so very much +changed either."</p> + +<p>"I do not expect to find them at all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then they will find you; because they are all here,--at least the +principals; some with different names, and some, like myself, with +duplicates,"--as a shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother +and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over rosy blushes.</p> + +<p>After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. Raleigh turned again +to Mrs. McLean.</p> + +<p>"And who are there here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"There is Mrs. Purcell,--you remember Helen Heath? Poor Mrs. Purcell, +whom you knew, died, and her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary, +who is single and speechless yet; and Captain, now Colonel, Purcell +makes a very good silent partner. He is hunting in the West, on +furlough; she is here alone. There is Mrs. Heath,--you never have +forgotten her?"</p> + +<p>"Not I."</p> + +<p>"There is"------</p> + +<p>"And how came you all in the country so early in the season,--anybody +with your devotion to company?"</p> + +<p>"To be made April fools, John says."</p> + +<p>"Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will be."</p> + +<p>"I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter; and Mrs. Laudersdale +and I agreed, that, the moment the snow was off the ground up here, we +would fly away and be at rest."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Laudersdale? Can she come here?"</p> + +<p>"Goodness! Why not? The last few summers we have always spent +together."</p> + +<p>"She is with you now, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I didn't mean to tell, but +keep her as a surprise. Of course, you will be a surprise to +everybody.--There, run along, children; we'll follow.--Yes, won't it be +delightful, Roger? We can all play at youth again."</p> + +<p>"Like skeletons in some Dance of Death!" he exclaimed. "We shall be +hideous in each other's sight."</p> + +<p>"McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding the late misanthropy; +"Helen is a girl; the ghost of the prior Mrs. Purcell shall be +<i>rediviva</i>; and Katy there"------</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin.</p> + +<p>"Before you have shuffled off mortality for the whole party, sit down +under this hedge,--here is an opportune bench,--and give me accounts +from the day of my departure."</p> + +<p>"Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible! The ocean in a tea-cup? Let +me see,--you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn't you? Well, +she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It was odd to +miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once. Mrs. +Laudersdale was ill; I don't know exactly what the trouble was. You know +she had been in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer; +and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old city-life, she +became oppressed with a speechless melancholy, I believe, so that the +doctors foreboded insanity. She expressed great disinclination to follow +their advice, and her husband finally banished them all. It was a great +care to him; he altered much. McLean surmised that she didn't like to +see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround +her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and +raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her +sight during the greater part of the winter. I don't know whether she +became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she +conquered it, and decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing, +or what happened. But one cold March evening he set out for his home, +dreary, as usual, he thought; and he found the fire blazing and +reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich +shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as +you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and +impenetrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, "I have +manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has +now and then reported from his conversation. I dare say there isn't a +bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale isn't a man to publish his affairs; +but <i>I</i> believe it. One thing is certain: Mrs. Laudersdale withdrew from +society one autumn and returned one spring, and has queened it +ever since."</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Laudersdale with you?"</p> + +<p>"No. But he will come with their daughter shortly."</p> + +<p>"And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to do. Mrs. Purcell +gossips and lounges, as if she were playing with the world for +spectator. Mrs. Laudersdale lounges, and attacks things with her +finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them. Mrs. McLean gossips +and scolds, as if it depended on her to keep the world in order."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to keep me under the hedge all night?"</p> + +<p>"This is pretty well! Hush! Who is that?"</p> + +<p>As Mrs. McLean spoke, a figure issued from the tall larches on the left, +and crossed the grass in front of them,--a woman, something less tall +than a gypsy queen might be, the round outlines of her form rich and +regular, with a certain firm luxuriance, still wrapped in a morning-robe +of palm-spread cashmere. In her hand she carried various vines and +lichens that had maintained their orange-tawny stains under the winter's +snow, and the black hair that was folded closely over forehead and +temple was crowned with bent sprays of the scarlet maple-blossom. As +vivid a hue dyed her cheek through warm walking, and with a smile of +unconscious content she passed quickly up the slope and disappeared +within the doorway. She impressed the senses of the beholder like some +ripe and luscious fruit, a growth of sunshine and summer.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. McLean, drawing breath again, "who is it?"</p> + +<p>"Really, I cannot tell," replied Mr. Raleigh.</p> + +<p>"Nor guess?"</p> + +<p>"And that I dare not."</p> + +<p>"Must I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Was it Mrs. Laudersdale?"</p> + +<p>"And shouldn't you have known her?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely."</p> + +<p>"Mercy! Then how did you know me? She is unaltered."</p> + +<p>"If that is Mrs. Purcell, at the window, she does not recognize me, you +see; neither did ------. Both she and yourself are nearly the same; one +could not fail to know either of you; but of the Mrs. Laudersdale of +thirteen years ago there remains hardly a vestige."</p> + +<p>If Mrs. McLean, at this testimony, indulged in that little inward +satisfaction which the most generous woman may feel, when told that her +color wears better than the color of her dearest friend, it must have +been quickly quenched by the succeeding sentence.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she is certainly more beautiful than I ever dreamed of a woman's +being. If she continues, I do not know what perfect thing she will +become. She is too exquisite for common use. I wonder her husband is not +jealous of every mote in the air, of rain and wind, of every day that +passes over her head,--since each must now bear some charm from her in +its flight."</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh was talking to Mrs. McLean as one frequently reposes +confidence in a person when quite sure that he will not understand a +word you say.</p> + +<p>An hour afterward, Mrs. Purcell joined Mrs. McLean.</p> + +<p>"So that is Mr. Raleigh, is it?" she said. "He looks as if he had made +the acquaintance of Siva the Destroyer. There's nothing left of him. Is +he taller, or thinner, or graver, or darker, or what? My dear Kate, your +cousin, that promised to be such a hero, has become a mere +man-of-business. Did you ever burn firecrackers? You have probably found +some that just fizzed out, then." And Mrs. Purcell took an attitude.</p> + +<p>"Roger is a much finer man than he was, I think,--so far as I could +judge in the short time we have seen each other," replied Mrs. McLean, +with spirit.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," continued Mrs. Purcell, "what makes the Laudersdale so +gay? No? She has a letter from her lord, and he brings you that little +Rite next week. I must send for the Colonel to see such patterns of +conjugal felicity as you and she. Ah, there is the tea-bell!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh was standing with one hand on the back of his chair, when +Mrs. Laudersdale entered. The cheek had resumed its usual pallor, and +she was in her customary colors of black and gold. She carried a +curiously cut crystal glass, which she placed on the sideboard, and then +moved toward her chair. Her eye rested casually for a moment on Mr. +Raleigh, as she crossed the threshold, and then returned with a species +of calm curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Laudersdale has forgotten me?" he asked, with a bow. His voice, +not susceptible of change in its tone of Southern sweetness, +identified him.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," she replied, moving toward him, and offering him her hand +quietly. "I am happy at meeting Mr. Raleigh again." And she took +her seat.</p> + +<p>There was something in her grasp that relieved him. It was neither +studiedly cold, nor absurdly brief, nor traitorously tremulous. It was +simply and forgetfully indifferent. Mr. Raleigh surveyed her with +interest during the light table-talk. He had been possessed with a +restless wish to see her once more, to ascertain if she had yet any +fraction of her old power over him; he had all the more determinedly +banished himself from the city,--to find her in the country. Now he +sought for some trace of what had formerly aroused his heart. He rose +from table convinced that the woman whom he once loved with the whole +fervor of youth and strength and buoyant life was no more, that she did +not exist, and that Mr. Raleigh might experience a new passion, but his +old one was as dead as the ashes that cover the Five Cities of the +Plain. He wondered how it might be with her. For a moment he cursed his +inconstancy; then he feared lest she were of larger heart and firmer +resolve than he,--lest her love had been less light than his; he could +scarcely feel himself secure of freedom,--he must watch. And then stole +in a deeper sense of loneliness than exile and foreign tongues had +taught him,--the knowledge of being single and solitary in the world, +not only for life, but for eternity.</p> + +<p>The evening was passed in the recitation of affairs by himself and his +cousins alone together, and until a week completed its tale of dawns and +sunsets there was the same diurnal recurrence of question and answer. +One day, as the afternoon was paling, Rite came.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh had fallen asleep on the vine-hidden seat outside the +bay-window, and was awakened, certainly not by Mrs. Laudersdale's +velvets trailing over the drawing-room carpet. She was just entering, +slow-paced, though in haste. She held out both of her beautiful arms. A +little form of airy lightness, a very snow-wreath, blew into them.</p> + +<p>"<i>O ma maman! Est ce que c'est toi</i>," it cried. "<i>O comme tu es douce! +Si belle, si molle, si chère!</i>" And the fair head was lying beneath the +dark one, the face hidden in the bent and stately neck.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raleigh left his seat, unseen, and betook himself to another abode. +As he passed the drawing-room door, on his return, he saw the mother +lying on a lounge, with the slight form nestled beside her, playing with +it as some tame leopardess might play with her silky whelp. It was +almost the only portion of the maternal nature developed within her.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if the tea-hour were a fated one. Mr. Raleigh had been out +on the water and was late. As he entered, Rite sprang up, +half-overturning her chair, and ran to clasp his hand.</p> + +<p>"I did not know that you and Mr. Raleigh were acquainted," said Mrs. +McLean.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Madam, Mr. Raleigh and I had the pleasure of being shipwrecked +together," was the reply; and except that Mrs. Laudersdale required +another napkin where her cup had spilled, all went on smoothly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laudersdale took Marguerite entirely to herself for a while. She +seemed, at first, to be like some one suddenly possessed of a new sense, +and who did not know in the least what to do with it; but custom and +familiarity destroyed this sentiment. She did not appear to entertain a +doubt of her child's natural affection, but she had care to fortify it +by the exertion of every charm she possessed. From the presence of +dangerous rivals in the house, an element of determination blended with +her manner, and she moved with a certain conscious power, as if +wonderful energies were but half-latent with her, as if there were +kingdoms to conquer and crowns to win, and she the destined instrument +You would have selected her, at this time of her lavish devotion to +Marguerite, as the one woman of complete capability, of practical +effective force, and have declared that there was nothing beyond her +strength. The relation between herself and her child was certainly as +peculiar as anything else about them; the disparity of age seemed so +slight that they appeared like sisters, full of mutual trust, the +younger leaning on the elder for support in the most trivial affairs. +They walked through the woods together, learned again its glades and +coverts, searched its early treasure of blossoms; they went out on the +lake and spent long April afternoons together, floating about cove and +inlet of island-shores; they returned with innocent gayety to that house +which once the mother, in her moment of passion, had fancied to be a +possible heaven of delight, and which, since, she had found to be a very +indifferent limbo. For, after all, we derive as much happiness from +human beings as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that +bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was +careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this +woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never +bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the +little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or +whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that +estranged the past from the present, there was nothing to tell; it +seemed, nevertheless, as if they could have no closer bond, had they +read each other's thoughts from birth.</p> + +<p>That this assumption of Marguerite could not continue exclusive Mr. +Raleigh found, when now and then joined in his walks by an airy figure +flitting forward at his side: now and then; since Mrs. Laudersdale, +without knowing how to prevent, had manifested an uneasiness at every +such rencontre;--and that it could not endure forever, another +gentleman, without so much reason, congratulated himself,--Mr. Frederic +Heath, the confidential clerk of Day, Knight, and Company,--a rather +supercilious specimen, quite faultlessly got up, who had accompanied her +from New York at her father's request, and who already betrayed every +symptom of the suitor. Meanwhile, Mrs. McLean's little women clamorously +demanded and obtained a share of her attention,--although Capua and +Ursule, with their dark skins, brilliant dyes, and equivocal dialects, +were creatures of a more absorbing interest.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, Marguerite came into the drawing-room by one door, as Mr. +Raleigh entered by another; her mother was sitting near the window, and +other members of the family were in the vicinity, having clustered +preparatory to the tea-bell.</p> + +<p>Marguerite had twisted tassels of the willow-catkins in her hair, +drooping things, in character with her wavy grace, and that sprinkled +her with their fragrant yellow powder, the very breath of spring; and in +one hand she had imprisoned a premature lace-winged fly, a fairy little +savage, in its sheaths of cobweb and emerald, and with its jewel eyes.</p> + +<p>"Dear!" said Mrs. Purcell, gathering her array more closely about her. +"How do you dare touch such a venomous sprite?"</p> + +<p>"As if you had an insect at the North with a sting!" replied Marguerite, +suffering it, a little maliciously, to escape in the lady's face, and +following the flight with a laugh of childlike glee.</p> + +<p>"Here are your snowflakes on stems, mamma," she continued, dropping +anemones over her mother's hands, one by one;--"that is what Mr. Raleigh +calls them. When may I see the snow? You shall wrap me in eider, that I +may be like all the boughs and branches. How buoyant the earth must be, +when every twig becomes a feather!" And she moved toward Mr. Raleigh, +singing, "Oh, would I had wings like a dove!"</p> + +<p>"And here are those which, if not daffodils, yet<br><br> + + "'Come before the swallow dares, and take<br> + The winds of March with beauty,'"<br> +<br> +he said, giving her a basket of hepaticas and winter-green.</p> + +<p>Marguerite danced away with the purple trophy, and, emptying a carafe +into a dish of moss that stood near, took them to Mrs. Laudersdale, and, +sitting on the footstool, began to rearrange them. It was curious to +see, that, while Mrs. Laudersdale lifted each blossom and let the stem +lie across her hand, she suffered it to fall into the place designated +for it by Marguerite's fingers, that sparkled in the mosaic till double +wreaths of gold-threaded purple rose from the bed of vivid moss and +melted into a fringe of the starry spires of winter-green.</p> + +<p>"Is it not sweet?" said she then, bending over it.</p> + +<p>"They have no scent," said her mother.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, indeed! the very finest, the most delicate, a kind of aërial +perfume; they must of course alchemize the air into which they waste +their fibres with some sweetness."</p> + +<p>"A smell of earth fresh from 'wholesome drench of April rains,'" said +Mr. Raleigh, taking the dish of white porcelain between his brown, +slender hands. "An immature scent, just such an innocent breath as +should precede the epigea, that spicy, exhaustive wealth of savor, that +complete maturity of odor, marriage of daphne and linnaea. The charm of +these first bidders for the year's favor is neither in the ethereal +texture, the depth or delicacy of tint, nor the large-lobed, +blood-stained, ancient leaves. This imponderable soul gives them such a +helpless air of babyhood."</p> + +<p>"Is fragrance the flower's soul?" asked Marguerite. "Then anemones are +not divinely gifted. And yet you said, the other day, that to paint my +portrait would be to paint an anemone."</p> + +<p>"A satisfactory specimen in the family-gallery," said Mrs. Purcell.</p> + +<p>"A flaw in the indictment!" replied Mr. Raleigh. "I am not one of those +who paint the lily."</p> + +<p>"Though you've certainly added a perfume to the violet," remarked Mr. +Frederic Heath, with that sweetly lingering accent familiarly called the +drawl, as he looked at the hepaticas.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it very complimentary, at any rate," continued +Marguerite. "They are not lovely after bloom,--only the little +pink-streaked, budded bells, that hang so demurely. <i>Oui, dà!</i> I have +exchanged great queen magnolias for rues; what will you give me for +pomegranates and oleanders?"</p> + +<p>"Are the old oleanders in the garden yet?" asked Mrs. Laudersdale.</p> + +<p>"Not the very same. The hurricane destroyed those, years ago; these are +others, grand and rosy as sunrise sometimes."</p> + +<p>"It was my Aunt Susanne who planted those, I have heard."</p> + +<p>"And it was your daughter Rite who planted these."</p> + +<p>"She buried a little box of old keepsakes at its foot, after her brother +had examined them,--a ring or two, a coin from which she broke and kept +one half"------</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! we found the little box, found it when Mr. Heath was in +Martinique, all rusted and moulded and falling apart, and he wears that +half of the coin on his watch-chain. See!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laudersdale glanced up indifferently, but Mrs. Purcell sprang from +her elegant lounging and bent to look at her brother's chain.</p> + +<p>"How odd that I never noticed it, Fred!" she exclaimed. "And how odd +that I should wear the same!" And, shaking her <i>châtelaine</i>, she +detached a similar affair.</p> + +<p>They were placed side by side in Mr. Raleigh's hand; they matched +entirely, and, so united, they formed a singular French coin of value +and antiquity, the missing figures on one segment supplied by the other, +the embossed profile continued and lost on each, the scroll begun by +this and ended by that; they were plainly severed portions of the +same piece.</p> + +<p>"And this was buried by your Aunt Susanne Le Blanc?" asked Mrs. Purcell, +turning to Mrs. Laudersdale again, with a flush on her cheek.</p> + +<p>"So I presume."</p> + +<p>"Strange! And this was given to mamma by her mother, whose maiden name +was Susan White. There's some <i>diablerie</i> about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is a part of the ceremony of money-hiding," said Mr. Raleigh. +"Kidd always buried a little imp with his pots of gold, you know, to +work deceitful charms on the finder."</p> + +<p>"Did he?" said Marguerite, earnestly.</p> + +<p>They all laughed thereat, and went in to tea.</p> + +<p>[To be continued.]</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>EPITHALAMIA.</h2> +<br> + +<h2>I.</h2> + +<h2>THE WEDDING.</h2> +<p> + O Love! the flowers are blowing in park and field,<br> + With love their bursting hearts are all revealed.<br> + So come to me, and all thy fragrance yield!<br> +<br> + O Love! the sun is sinking in the west,<br> + And sequent stars all sentinel his rest.<br> + So sleep, while angels watch, upon my breast!<br> +<br> + O Love! the flooded moon is at its height,<br> + And trances sea and land with tranquil light.<br> + So shine, and gild with beauty all my night!<br> +<br> + O Love! the ocean floods the crooked shore,<br> + Till sighing beaches give their moaning o'er.<br> + So, Love, o'erflow me, till I sigh no more!<br> +</p> +<h2>II.</h2> + +<h2>THE GOLDEN WEDDING.</h2> +<p> + O wife! the fragrant Mayflower now appears,<br> + Fresh as the Pilgrims saw it through their tears.<br> + So blows our love through all these changing years.<br> +<br> + O wife! the sun is rising in the east,<br> + Nor tires to shine, while ages have increased.<br> + So shines our love, and fills my happy breast<br> +<br> + O wife! on yonder beach the ocean sings,<br> + As when it bore the Mayflower's drooping wings.<br> + So in my heart our early love-song rings.<br> +<br> + O wife! the moon and stars slide down the west<br> + To make in fresher skies their happy quest.<br> + So, Love, once more we'll wed among the blest!<br> +</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>ARTHUR HALLAM.</h2> + +<p>We were standing in the old English church at Clevedon on a summer +afternoon. And here, said my companion, pausing in the chancel, sleeps +Arthur Hallam, the friend of Alfred Tennyson, and the subject of "In +Memoriam." +<br><br> + "'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand<br> + Where he in English earth is laid."<br> +<br> +His burial-place is on a hill overhanging the Bristol Channel, a spot +selected by his father as a fit resting-place for his beloved boy. +And so<br><br> + + "They laid him by the pleasant shore,<br> + And in the hearing of the wave."<br> +<br> +Dying at twenty-two, the hope and pride of all who knew him, "remarkable +for the early splendor of his genius," the career of this young man +concentres the interest of more than his native country. Tennyson has +laid upon his early grave a poem which will never let his ashes be +forgotten, or his memory fade like that of common clay. What Southey so +felicitously says of Kirke White applies most eloquently to young +Hallam:--"Just at that age when the painter would have wished to fix his +likeness and the lover of poetry would delight to contemplate him, in +the fair morning of his virtues, the full spring-blossom of his hopes,-- +just at that age hath death set the seal of eternity upon him, and the +beautiful hath been made permanent."</p> + +<p>Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place, London, on the 1st of +February, 1811. The eldest son of Henry Hallam, the eminent historian +and critic, his earliest years had every advantage which culture and +moral excellence could bring to his education. His father has feelingly +commemorated his boyish virtues and talents by recording his "peculiar +clearness of perception, his facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above +all, an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his sense +of what was right and becoming." From that tearful record, not publicly +circulated, our recital is partly gathered. Companions of his childhood +have often told us well-remembered incidents of his life, and this is +the too brief story of his earthly career.</p> + +<p>When about eight years of age, Arthur resided some time in Germany and +Switzerland, with his father and mother. He had already become familiar +with the French language, and a year later he read Latin with some +facility. Although the father judiciously studied to repress his son's +marked precocity of talent, Arthur wrote about this time several plays +in prose and in rhyme,--compositions which were never exhibited, +however, beyond the family-circle.</p> + +<p>At ten years of age he became a pupil at a school in Putney, under the +tuition of an excellent clergyman, where he continued two years. He then +took a short tour on the Continent, and, returning, went to Eton, where +he studied nearly five years. While at Eton, he was reckoned, according +to the usual test at that place, not a first-rate Latin student, for his +mind had a predominant bias toward English literature, and there he +lingered among the exhaustless fountains of the earlier poetry of his +native tongue. One who knew him well in those years has described him to +us as a sweet-voiced lad, moving about the pleasant playing-fields of +Eton with a thoughtful eye and a most kindly expression. Afterwards, as +Tennyson, singing to the witch-elms and the towering sycamore, paints +him, he mixed in all the simple sports, and loved to gather a happy +group about him, as he lay on the grass and discussed grave questions of +state. And again,--<br><br> + + "Thy converse drew us with delight,<br> + The men of rathe and riper years:<br> + The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,<br> + Forgot his weakness in thy sight."</p> + +<p>His taste for philosophical poetry increased with his years, and +Wordsworth and Shelley became his prime favorites. His contributions to +the "Eton Miscellany" were various, sometimes in prose and now and then +in verse. A poet by nature, he could not resist the Muse's influence, +and he expressed a genuine emotion, oftentimes elegantly, and never +without a meaning.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1827 he left Eton, and travelled with his parents eight +months in Italy. And now began that life of thought and feeling so +conspicuous to the end of his too brief career. Among the Alps his whole +soul took the impress of those early introductions to what is most +glorious and beautiful in Nature. After passing the mountains, Italian +literature claimed his attention, and he entered upon its study with all +the ardor of a young and earnest student. An Abbate who recognized his +genius encouraged him with his assistance in the difficult art of +Italian versification, and, after a very brief stay in Italy, at the age +of seventeen, he wrote several sonnets which attracted considerable +attention among scholars. Very soon after acquiring the Italian +language, the great Florentine poet opened to him his mystic visions. +Dante became his worship, and his own spirit responded to that of the +author of the "Divina Commedia."</p> + +<p>His growing taste led him to admire deeply all that is noble in Art, and +he soon prized with enthusiasm the great pictures of the Venetian, the +Tuscan, and the Roman schools. "His eyes," says his father, "were fixed +on the best pictures with silent, intense delight." One can imagine him +at this period wandering with all the ardor of youthful passion through +the great galleries, not with the stolid stony gaze of a coldblooded +critic, but with that unmixed enthusiasm which so well becomes the +unwearied traveller in his buoyant days of experience among the unveiled +glories of genius now first revealed to his astonished vision.</p> + +<p>He returned home in 1828, and went to reside at Cambridge, having been +entered, before his departure for the Continent, at Trinity College. It +is said that he cared little for academical reputation, and in the +severe scrutiny of examination he did not appear as a competitor for +accurate mathematical demonstrations. He knew better than those about +him where his treasures lay,--and to some he may have seemed a dreamer, +to others an indifferent student, perhaps. His aims were higher than the +tutor's black-board, and his life-thoughts ran counter to the usual +college-routine. Disordered health soon began to appear, and a too rapid +determination of blood to the brain often deprived him of the power of +much mental labor. At Florence he had been seized with a slight attack +of the same nature, and there was always a tendency to derangement of +the vital functions. Irregularity of circulation occasioned sometimes a +morbid depression of spirits, and his friends anxiously watched for +symptoms of returning health. In his third Cambridge year he grew +better, and all who knew and loved him rejoiced in his +apparent recovery.</p> + +<p>About this time, some of his poetical pieces were printed, but withheld +from publication. It was the original intention for the two friends, +Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, to publish together; but the idea was +abandoned. Such lines as these the young poet addressed to the man who +was afterwards to lend interest and immortality to the story of his +early loss:--<br><br> + + "Alfred, I would that you beheld me now,<br> + Sitting beneath a mossy, ivied wall<br> + On a quaint bench, which to that structure old<br> + Winds an accordant curve. Above my head<br> + Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves,<br> + Seeming received into the blue expanse<br> + That vaults this summer noon. Before me lies<br> + A lawn of English verdure, smooth, and bright,<br> + Mottled with fainter hues of early hay,<br> + Whose fragrance, blended with the rose-perfume<br> + From that white flowering bush, invites my sense<br> + To a delicious madness,--and faint thoughts<br> + Of childish years are borne into my brain<br> + By unforgotten ardors waking now.<br> + Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade<br> + Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown<br> + Is the prime labor of the pettish winds,<br> + That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves<br> + Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies,<br> + And the gay humming things that summer loves,<br> + Through the warm air, or altering the bound<br> + Where yon elm-shadows in majestic line<br> + Divide dominion with the abundant light."<br> +<br> +And this fine descriptive passage was also written at this period of his +life:-- +<br><br> + + "The garden trees are busy with the shower<br> + That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk,<br> + Lowly and sweetly, as befits the hour,<br> + One to another down the grassy walk.<br> + Hark! the laburnum from his opening flower<br> + This cheery creeper greets in whisper light,<br> + While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night,<br> + Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore.<br> + What shall I deem their converse? Would they hail<br> + The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud,<br> + Or the half-bow rising like pillared fire?<br> + Or are they sighing faintly for desire<br> + That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,<br> + And dews about their feet may never fail?"</p> + +<p>The first college prize for English declamation was awarded to him this +year; and his exercise, "The Conduct of the Independent Party during the +Civil War," greatly improved his standing at the University. Other +honors quickly followed his successful essay, and he was chosen to +deliver an oration in the College Chapel just before the Christmas +vacation. This was in the year 1831. He selected as his subject the one +eminently congenial to his thought; and his theme, "The Influence of +Italian upon English Literature," was admirably treated. The oration is +before us as we write, and we turn the pages with a fond and loving eye. +We remember, as we read, his brief sojourn,--that he died "in the sweet +hour of prime,"--and we are astonished at the eloquent wisdom displayed +by a lad of twenty summers. "I cannot help considering," he says, "the +sonnets of Shakspeare as a sort of homage to the Genius of Christian +Europe, necessarily exacted, although voluntarily paid, before he was +allowed to take in hand the sceptre of his endless dominion." And he +ends his charming disquisition in these words;--"An English mind that +has drunk deep at the sources of Southern inspiration, and especially +that is imbued with the spirit of the mighty Florentine, will be +conscious of a perpetual freshness and quiet beauty resting on his +imagination and spreading gently over his affections, until, by the +blessing of Heaven, it may be absorbed without loss in the pure inner +light of which that voice has spoken, as no other can,-- +<br><br> + "'Light intellectual, yet full of love,<br> + Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy,<br> + Joy, every other sweetness far above.'"</p> + +<p>It was young Hallam's privilege to be among Coleridge's favorites, and +in one of his poems Arthur alludes to him as a man in whose face "every +line wore the pale cast of thought." His conversations with "the old man +eloquent" gave him intense delight, and he often alluded to the +wonderful talks he had enjoyed with the great dreamer, whose magical +richness of illustration took him captive for the time being.</p> + +<p>At Abbotsford he became known to Sir Walter Scott, and Lockhart thus +chronicles his visit:--</p> + +<p>"Among a few other friends from a distance, Sir Walter received this +summer [1829] a short visit from Mr. Hallam, and made in his company +several of the little excursions which had in former days been of +constant recurrence. Mr. Hallam had with him his son, Arthur, a young +gentleman of extraordinary abilities, and as modest as able, who not +long afterwards was cut off in the very bloom of opening life and +genius. His beautiful verses, 'On Melrose seen in Company with Scott,' +have since been often printed." +<br><br> + "I lived an hour in fair Melrose:<br> + It was not when 'the pale moonlight'<br> + Its magnifying charm bestows;<br> + Yet deem I that I 'viewed it right.'<br> + The wind-swept shadows fast careered,<br> + Like living things that joyed or feared,<br> + Adown the sunny Eildon Hill,<br> + And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crowned well.<br> +<br> + "I inly laughed to see that scene<br> + Wear such a countenance of youth,<br> + Though many an age those hills were green,<br> + And yonder river glided smooth,<br> + Ere in these now disjointed walls<br> + The Mother Church held festivals,<br> + And full-voiced anthemings the while<br> + Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the echoing aisle.<br> +<br> + "I coveted that Abbey's doom:<br> + For if, I thought, the early flowers<br> + Of our affection may not bloom,<br> + Like those green hills, through countless hours,<br> + Grant me at least a tardy waning<br> + Some pleasure still in age's paining;<br> + Though lines and forms must fade away,<br> + Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay!<br> +<br> + "But looking toward the grassy mound<br> + Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie,<br> + Who, living, quiet never found,<br> + I straightway learnt a lesson high:<br> + And well I knew that thoughtful mien<br> + Of him whose early lyre had thrown<br> + Over these mouldering walls the magic of its tone.<br> +<br> + "Then ceased I from my envying state,<br> + And knew that aweless intellect<br> + Hath power upon the ways of Fate,<br> + And works through time and space uncheck'd.<br> + That minstrel of old Chivalry<br> + In the cold grave must come to be;<br> + But his transmitted thoughts have part<br> + In the collective mind, and never shall depart.<br> +<br> + "It was a comfort, too, to see<br> + Those dogs that from him ne'er would rove,<br> + And always eyed him reverently,<br> + With glances of depending love.<br> + They know not of that eminence<br> + Which marks him to my reasoning sense;<br> + They know but that he is a man,<br> + And still to them is kind, and glads them all he can.<br> +<br> + "And hence their quiet looks confiding,<br> + Hence grateful instincts seated deep,<br> + By whose strong bond, were ill betiding,<br> + They'd risk their own his life to keep.<br> + What joy to watch in lower creature<br> + Such dawning of a moral nature,<br> + And how (the rule all things obey)<br> + They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!"</p> + +<p>At the University he lived a sweet and gracious life. No man had truer +or fonder friends, or was more admired for his excellent +accomplishments. Earnest in whatever he attempted, his enthusiasm for +all that was high and holy in literature stamped his career at Trinity +as one of remarkable superiority. "I have known many young men, both at +Oxford and elsewhere, of whose abilities I think highly, but I never met +with one whom I considered worthy of being put into competition with +Arthur for a moment," writes his early and intimate friend. "I can +scarcely hope to describe the feelings with which I regarded him, much +less the daily beauty of his existence, out of which they grew," writes +another of his companions. Politics, literature, philosophy he discussed +with a metaphysical subtilty marvellous in one so young. The highest +comprehension seemed native to his mind, so that all who came within the +sphere of his influence were alike impressed with his vast and various +powers. The life and grace of a charmed circle, the display of his gifts +was not for show, and he never forgot to keep the solemn injunction, +<i>"My son, give me thine heart,"</i> clearly engraven before him.</p> + +<p>Among his favorite authors, while at the University, we have been told +he greatly delighted in the old dramatists, Webster, Heywood, and +Fletcher. The grace and harmony of style and versification which he +found particularly in the latter master became one of his favorite +themes, and he often dwelt upon this excellence. He loved to repeat the +sad old strains of Bion; and Aeschylus and Sophocles interested +him deeply.</p> + +<p>On leaving Cambridge, he took his degree and went immediately to London +to reside with his father. It was a beautiful relation which always +existed between the elder and the younger scholar; and now, as soon as +Arthur had been entered on the boards of the Inner Temple, the father +and son sat down to read law together. Legal studies occupied the young +student till the month of October, 1832, when he became an inmate of the +office of an eminent conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Although he +applied himself diligently to obtain a sound practical knowledge of the +profession he had chosen, his former habits of literary pursuit did not +entirely desert him. During the winter he translated most of the sonnets +in the "Vita Nuova," and composed a dramatic sketch with Raffaello for +the hero. About this period he wrote brief, but excellent, memoirs of +Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the "Gallery of Portraits," then +publishing by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But his +time, when unoccupied at the office, was principally devoted to +metaphysical research and the history of philosophical opinion. His +spirits, sometimes apt to be graver than is the wont of youth, now +became more animated and even gay, so that his family were cheered on to +hope that his health was firmly gaining ground. The unpleasant symptoms +which manifested themselves in his earlier years had almost entirely +disappeared, when an attack of intermittent fever in the spring of 1833 +gave the fatal blow to his constitution. In August, the careful, tender +father took his beloved son into Germany, trusting to a change of +climate for restoration. Travelling slowly, they lingered among the +scenes connected with a literature and a history both were so familiar +with, and many pleasant and profitable hours of delightful converse +gladdened Arthur's journey. It is difficult to picture a more +interesting group of travellers through the picturesque regions they +were again exploring.</p> + +<p>No child was ever more ardently loved--nay, worshipped--by his father +than Arthur Hallam. The parallel, perhaps, exists in Edmund Burke's fond +attachment for and subsequent calamity in the loss of his son Richard. +That passage in the life of the great statesman is one of the most +affecting in all biographical literature. "The son thus deeply +lamented," says Prior, "had always conducted himself with much filial +duty and affection. Their confidence on all subjects was even more +unreserved than commonly prevails between father and son, and their +esteem for each other higher.... The son looked to the father as one of +the first, if not the very first, character in history; the father had +formed the very highest opinion of the talents of the son, and among his +friends rated them superior to his own." The same confiding +companionship grew up between Henry Hallam and his eldest boy, and +continued till "death set the seal of eternity" upon the young and +gifted Arthur.</p> + +<p>The travellers were returning to Vienna from Pesth; a damp day set in +while they were on the journey; again intermittent fever attacked the +sensitive invalid, and suddenly, mysteriously, his life was ended. It +was the 15th of September, 1833, and Arthur Hallam lay dead in his +father's arms. Twenty-two brief years, and all high hopes for him, the +manly, the noble-spirited, this side the tomb, are broken down forever. +Well might his heart-crushed father sob aloud, "He seemed to tread the +earth as a spirit from some better world." The author of "Horae +Subsecivae" aptly quotes Shakspeare's memorable words, in connection +with the tragic bereavement of that autumnal day in Vienna:-- +<br><br> + "The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep<br> + Into my study of imagination;<br> + And every lovely organ of thy life<br> + Shall come apparelled in more precious habit,<br> + More moving delicate, and full of life,<br> + Into the eye and prospect of my soul,<br> + Than when thou liv'dst indeed."</p> + +<p>Standing by the grave of this young person, now made so renowned by the +genius of a great poet, whose song has embalmed his name and called the +world's attention to his death, the inevitable reflection is not of +sorrow. He sleeps well who is thus lamented, and "nothing can touch him +further."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>THE CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIUM.</h2> +<br> + +<p>It is not yet a year since I ceased to act as a Spiritual Medium. (I am +forced to make use of this title as the most intelligible, but I do it +with a strong mental protest.) At first, I desired only to withdraw +myself quietly from the peculiar associations into which I had been +thrown by the exercise of my faculty, and be content with the simple +fact of my escape. A man who joins the Dashaways does not care to have +the circumstance announced in the newspapers. "So, he was an habitual +drunkard," the public would say. I was overcome by a similar +reluctance,--nay, I might honestly call it shame,--since, although I had +at intervals officiated as a Medium for a period of seven years, my name +had been mentioned, incidentally, only once or twice in the papers +devoted especially to Spiritualism. I had no such reputation as that of +Hume or Andrew Jackson Davis, which would call for a public statement of +my recantation. The result would be, therefore, to give prominence to a +weakness, which, however manfully overcome, might be remembered to my +future prejudice.</p> + +<p>I find, however, that the resolution to be silent leaves me restless and +unsatisfied. And in reflecting calmly--objectively, for the first +time--upon the experience of those seven years, I recognize so many +points wherein my case is undoubtedly analogous to that of hundreds of +others who may be still entangled in the same labyrinth whence I have +but recently escaped, so clear a solution of much that is enigmatical, +even to those who reject Spiritualism, that the impulse to write weighs +upon me with the pressure of a neglected duty. I <i>cannot</i> longer be +silent, and, in the conviction that the truth of my statement will be +evident enough to those most concerned in hearing it, without the +authority of any name, (least of all, of one so little known as mine,) I +now give my confession to the world. The names of the individuals whom I +shall have occasion to introduce are, of course, disguised; but, with +this exception, the narrative is the plainest possible record of my own +experience. Many of the incidents winch I shall be obliged to describe +are known only to the actors therein, who, I feel assured, will never +foolishly betray themselves. I have therefore no fear that any harm can +result from my disclosures.</p> + +<p>In order to make my views intelligible to those readers who have paid no +attention to psychological subjects, I must commence a little in advance +of my story. My own individual nature is one of those apparently +inconsistent combinations which are frequently found in the children of +parents whose temperaments and mental personalities widely differ. This +class of natures is much larger than would be supposed. Inheriting +opposite, even conflicting, traits from father and mother, they assume, +as either element predominates, diverse characters; and that which is +the result of temperament (in fact, congenital inconsistency) is set +down by the unthinking world as moral weakness or duplicity. Those who +have sufficient skill to perceive and reconcile--or, at least, +govern--the opposing elements are few, indeed. Had the power come to me +sooner, I should have been spared the necessity of making these +confessions.</p> + +<p>From one parent I inherited an extraordinarily active and sensitive +imagination,--from the other, a sturdy practical sense, a disposition to +weigh and balance with calm fairness the puzzling questions which life +offers to every man. These conflicting qualities--as is usual in all +similar natures--were not developed in equal order of growth. The former +governed my childhood, my youth, and enveloped me with spells, which all +the force of the latter and more slowly ripened faculty was barely +sufficient to break. Luxuriant weeds and brambles covered the soil +which should have been ploughed and made to produce honest grain. +Unfortunately, I had no teacher who was competent to understand and +direct me. The task was left for myself, and I can only wonder, after +all that has occurred, how it has been possible for me to succeed. +Certainly, this success has not been due to any vigorous exercise of +virtue on my part, but solely to the existence of that cool, reflective +reason which lay <i>perdue</i> beneath all the extravagances of my mind.</p> + +<p>I possessed, even as a child, an unusual share of what phrenologists +call Concentrativeness. The power of absorption, of self-forgetfulness, +was at the same time a source of delight and a torment. Lost in some +wild dream or absurd childish speculation, my insensibility to outward +things was chastised as carelessness or a hardened indifference to +counsel. With a memory almost marvellous to retain those things which +appealed to my imagination, I blundered painfully over the commonest +tasks. While I frequently repeated the Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too +often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my +corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, +to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing +my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat +moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman +required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They +could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. +The closing hymn recalled me to myself, always with a shock, or sense of +pain, and sometimes even with a temporary nausea.</p> + +<p>This habit of abstraction--properly a complete <i>passivity</i> of the +mind--after a while developed another habit, in which I now see the root +of that peculiar condition which made me a Medium. I shall therefore +endeavor to describe it. I was sitting, one Sunday, just as the minister +was commencing his sermon, with my eyes carelessly following the fingers +of my right hand, as I drummed them slowly across my knee. Suddenly, the +wonder came into my mind,--How is it my fingers move? What set them +going? What is it that stops them? The mystery of that communication +between will and muscle, which no physiologist has ever fathomed, burst +upon my young intellect. I had been conscious of no intention of thus +drumming my fingers; they were in motion when I first noticed them: they +were certainly a part of myself, yet they acted without my knowledge or +design! My left hand was quiet; why did its fingers not move also? +Following these reflections came a dreadful fear, as I remembered Jane, +the blacksmith's daughter, whose elbows and shoulders sometimes jerked +in such a way as to make all the other scholars laugh, although we were +sorry for the poor girl, who cried bitterly over her unfortunate, +ungovernable limbs. I was comforted, however, on finding that I could +control the motion of my fingers at pleasure; but my imagination was too +active to stop there. What if I should forget how to direct my hands? +What if they should refuse to obey me? What if my knees, which were just +as still as the hymn-books in the rack before me, should cease to bend, +and I should sit there forever? These very questions seemed to produce a +temporary paralysis of the will. As my right hand lay quietly on my +knee, and I asked myself, with a stupid wonder, "Now, can I move it?" it +lay as still as before. I had only questioned, not willed. "No I cannot +move it," I said, in real doubt I was conscious of a blind sense of +exertion, wherein there was yet no proper exertion, but which seemed to +exhaust me. Fascinated by this new mystery, I contemplated my hand as +something apart from myself,--something subordinate to, but not +identical with, me. The rising of the congregation for the hymn broke +the spell, like the snapping of a thread.</p> + +<p>The reader will readily understand that I carried these experiences much +farther. I gradually learned to suspend (perhaps in imagination only, +but therefore none the less really) the action of my will upon the +muscles of my arms and legs; and I did it with the greater impunity, +from knowing that the stir consequent upon the conclusion of the +services would bring me to myself. In proportion as the will became +passive, the activity of my imagination was increased, and I experienced +a new and strange delight in watching the play of fantasies which +appeared to come and go independently of myself. There was still a dim +consciousness of outward things mingled with my condition; I was not +beyond the recall of my senses. But one day, I remember, as I sat +motionless as a statue, having ceased any longer to attempt to control +my dead limbs, more than usually passive, a white, shining mist +gradually stole around me; my eyes finally ceased to take cognizance of +objects; a low, musical humming sounded in my ears, and those creatures +of the imagination which had hitherto crossed my brain as <i>thoughts</i> now +spoke to me as audible voices. If there is any happy delirium in the +first stages of intoxication, (of which, thank Heaven, I have no +experience,) it must be a sensation very much like that which I felt. +The death of external and the birth of internal consciousness +overwhelmed my childish soul with a dumb, ignorant ecstasy, like that +which savages feel on first hearing the magic of music.</p> + +<p>How long I remained thus I know not. I was aroused, by feeling myself +violently shaken. "John!" exclaimed my mother, who had grasped my arm +with a determined hand,--"bless the boy! what ails him? Why, his face +is as white as a sheet!" Slowly I recovered my consciousness, saw the +church and the departing congregation, and mechanically followed my +parents. I could give no explanation of what had happened, except to say +that I had fallen asleep. As I ate my dinner with a good appetite, my +mother's fears were quieted. I was left at home the following Sunday, +and afterwards only ventured to indulge sparingly in the exercise of my +newly discovered faculty. My mother, I was conscious, took more note of +my presence than formerly, and I feared a repetition of the same +catastrophe. As I grew older and my mind became interested in a wider +range of themes, I finally lost the habit, which I classed among the +many follies of childhood.</p> + +<p>I retained, nevertheless, and still retain, something of that subtile +instinct which mocks and yet surpasses reason. My feelings with regard +to the persons whom I met were quite independent of their behavior +towards me, or the estimation in which they were held by the world. +Things which puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in +sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid +doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible +to understand my motives of action,--because, in fact, there were no +<i>motives</i>,--complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I +presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the +instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which +I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and was +generally able to distinguish between its suggestions and the mere +humors of my imagination. It is scarcely necessary to say that I assume +the existence of such a power, at the outset. I recognize it as a normal +faculty of the human mind,--not therefore universal, any more than the +genius which makes a poet, a painter, or a composer.</p> + +<p>My education was neither general nor thorough; hence I groped darkly +with the psychological questions which were presented to me. Tormented +by those doubts which at some period of life assail the soul of every +thinking man, I was ready to grasp at any solution which offered, +without very carefully testing its character. I eagerly accepted the +theory of Animal Magnetism, which, so far as it went, was satisfactory; +but it only illustrated the powers and relations of the soul in its +present state of existence; it threw no light upon that future which I +was not willing to take upon faith alone. Though sensible to mesmeric +influences, I was not willing that my spiritual nature should be the +instrument of another's will,--that a human being, like myself, should +become possessed of all my secrets and sanctities, touching the keys of +every passion with his unhallowed fingers. In the phenomena of +clairvoyance I saw only other and more subtile manifestations of the +power which I knew to exist in my own mind. Hence, I soon grew weary of +prosecuting inquiries which, at best, would fall short of solving my own +great and painful doubt,--Does the human soul continue to exist after +death? That it could take cognizance of things beyond the reach of the +five senses, I was already assured. This, however, might be a sixth +sense, no less material and perishable in its character than the others. +My brain, as yet, was too young and immature to follow the thread of +that lofty spiritual logic in the light of which such doubts melt away +like mists of the night. Thus, uneasy because undeveloped, erring +because I had never known the necessary guidance, seeking, but almost +despairing of enlightenment, I was a fit subject for any spiritual +epidemic which seemed to offer me a cure for worse maladies.</p> + +<p>At this juncture occurred the phenomena known as the "Rochester +Knockings." (My home, let me say, is in a small town not far from New +York.) I shared in the general interest aroused by the marvellous +stories, which, being followed by the no less extraordinary display of +some unknown agency at Norwalk, Connecticut, excited me to such a degree +that I was half-converted to the new faith before I had witnessed any +spiritual manifestation. Soon after the arrival of the Misses Fox in New +York I visited them in their rooms at the Howard House. Impressed by +their quiet, natural demeanor, the absence of anything savoring of +jugglery, and the peculiar character of the raps and movements of the +table, I asked my questions and applied my tests, in a passive, if not a +believing frame of mind. In fact, I had not long been seated, before the +noises became loud and frequent.</p> + +<p>"The spirits like to communicate with you," said Mrs. Fish: "you seem to +be nearer to them than most people."</p> + +<p>I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother, +and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained +correct answers to all my questions. I did not then remark, what has +since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I +knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind +at the time. The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression +upon me. Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train +that morning, I asked,--"Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind +communicate with me?" To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on +calling over the alphabet,--"<i>He is living!</i>"</p> + +<p>I returned home, very much puzzled. Precisely those features of the +exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me. The +searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the +manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me +favorably towards the spiritual theory. If disembodied souls, I said, +really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should +they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for +their visitations? What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in +places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than +when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination? In such +reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination, +while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical.</p> + +<p>Soon after this, circles began to be formed in my native town, for the +purpose of table-moving. A number of persons met, secretly at +first,--for as yet there were no avowed converts,--and quite as much for +sport as for serious investigation. The first evening there was no +satisfactory manifestation. The table moved a little, it is true, but +each one laughingly accused his neighbors of employing some muscular +force: all isolated attempts were vain. I was conscious, nevertheless, +of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind +my forgotten experiments in church. No rappings were heard, and some of +the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole thing +a delusion.</p> + +<p>A few evenings after this we met again. Those who were most incredulous +happened to be absent, while, accidentally, their places were filled by +persons whose temperaments disposed them to a passive seriousness. Among +these was a girl of sixteen, Miss Abby Fetters, a pale, delicate +creature, with blond hair and light-blue eyes. Chance placed her next to +me, in forming the ring, and her right hand lay lightly upon my left. We +stood around a heavy circular dining-table. A complete silence was +preserved, and all minds gradually sank into a quiet, passive +expectancy. In about ten minutes I began to feel, or to imagine that I +felt, a stream of light,--if light were a palpable substance,--a +something far finer and more subtile than an electric current, passing +from the hand of Miss Fetters through my own into the table. Presently +the great wooden mass began to move,--stopped,--moved again,--turned in +a circle, we following, without changing the position of our hands,--and +finally began to rock from side to side, with increasing violence. Some +of the circle were thrown off by the movements; others withdrew their +hands in affright; and but four, among whom were Miss Fetters and +myself, retained their hold. My outward consciousness appeared to be +somewhat benumbed, as if by some present fascination or approaching +trance, but I retained curiosity enough to look at my companion. Her +eyes, sparkling with a strange, steady light, were fixed upon the table; +her breath came quick and short, and her cheek had lost every trace of +color. Suddenly, as if by a spasmodic effort, she removed her hands; I +did the same, and the table stopped. She threw herself into a seat, as +if exhausted, yet, during the whole time, not a muscle of the hand which +lay upon mine had stirred. I solemnly declare that my own hands had been +equally passive, yet I experienced the same feeling of fatigue,--not +muscular fatigue, but a sense of <i>deadness</i>, as if every drop of nervous +energy had been suddenly taken from me.</p> + +<p>Further experiments, the same evening, showed that we two, either +together or alone, were able to produce the same phenomena without the +assistance of the others present. We did not succeed, however, in +obtaining any answers to our questions, nor were any of us impressed by +the idea that the spirits of the dead were among us. In fact, these +table-movings would not, of themselves, suggest the idea of a spiritual +manifestation. "The table is bewitched," said Thompson, a hard-headed +young fellow, without a particle of imagination; and this was really the +first impression of all: some unknown force, latent in the dead matter, +had been called into action. Still, this conclusion was so strange, so +incredible, that the agency of supernatural intelligences finally +presented itself to my mind as the readiest solution.</p> + +<p>It was not long before we obtained rappings, and were enabled to repeat +all the experiments which I had tried during my visit to the Fox family. +The spirits of our deceased relatives and friends announced themselves, +and generally gave a correct account of their earthly lives. I must +confess, however, that, whenever we attempted to pry into the future, we +usually received answers as ambiguous as those of the Grecian oracles, +or predictions which failed to be realized. Violent knocks or other +unruly demonstrations would sometimes interrupt an intelligent +communication which promised us some light on the other life: these, we +were told, were occasioned by evil or mischievous spirits, whose delight +it was to create disturbances. They never occurred, I now remember, +except when Miss Fetters was present. At the time, we were too much +absorbed in our researches to notice the fact.</p> + +<p>The reader will perceive, from what he knows of my previous mental +state, that it was not difficult for me to accept the theories of the +Spiritualists. Here was an evidence of the immortality of the +soul,--nay, more, of its continued individuality through endless future +existences. The idea of my individuality being lost had been to me the +same thing as complete annihilation. The spirits themselves informed us +that they had come to teach these truths. The simple, ignorant faith of +the Past, they said, was worn out; with the development of science, the +mind of man had become skeptical; the ancient fountains no longer +sufficed for his thirst; each new era required a new revelation; in all +former ages there had been single minds pure enough and advanced enough +to communicate with the dead and be the mediums of their messages to +men, but now the time had come when the knowledge of this intercourse +must be declared unto all; in its light the mysteries of the Past became +clear; in the wisdom thus imparted, that happy Future which seems +possible to every ardent and generous heart would be secured. I was not +troubled by the fact that the messages which proclaimed these things +were often incorrectly spelt, that the grammar was bad and the language +far from elegant. I did not reflect that these new and sublime truths +had formerly passed through my own brain as the dreams of a wandering +imagination. Like that American philosopher who looks upon one of his +own neophytes as a man of great and profound mind because the latter +carefully remembers and repeats to him his own carelessly uttered +wisdom, I saw in these misty and disjointed reflections of my own +thoughts the precious revelation of departed and purified spirits.</p> + +<p>How a passion for the unknown and unattainable takes hold of men is +illustrated by the search for the universal solvent, by the mysteries of +the Rosicrucians, by the patronage of fortune-tellers, even. Wholly +absorbed in spiritual researches,--having, in fact, no vital interest in +anything else,--I soon developed into what is called a Medium. I +discovered, at the outset, that the peculiar condition to be attained +before the tables would begin to move could be produced at will.<a name="FNanchor7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> I +also found that the passive state into which I naturally fell had a +tendency to produce that trance or suspension of the will which I had +discovered when a boy. External consciousness, however, did not wholly +depart. I saw the circle of inquirers around me, but dimly, and as +phantoms,--while the impressions which passed over my brain seemed to +wear visible forms and to speak with audible voices.</p> + +<p>I did not doubt, at the time, that spirits visited me, and that they +made use of my body to communicate with those who could hear them in no +other way. Beside the pleasant intoxication of the semi-trance, I felt a +rare joy in the knowledge that I was elected above other men to be their +interpreter. Let me endeavor to describe the nature of this possession. +Sometimes, even before a spirit would be called for, the figure of the +person, as it existed in the mind of the inquirer, would suddenly +present itself to me,--not to my outward senses, but to my interior, +instinctive knowledge. If the recollection of the other embraced also +the voice, I heard the voice in the same manner, and unconsciously +imitated it. The answers to the questions I knew by the same instinct, +as soon as the questions were spoken.</p> + +<p>If the question was vague, asked for information rather than +<i>confirmation</i>, either no answer came, or there was an impression of a +<i>wish</i> of what the answer might be, or, at times, some strange +involuntary sentence sprang to my lips. When I wrote, my hand appeared +to move of itself; yet the words it wrote invariably passed through my +mind. Even when blindfolded, there was no difference in its performance. +The same powers developed themselves in a still greater degree in Miss +Fetters. The spirits which spoke most readily through her were those of +men, even coarse and rude characters, which came unsummoned. Two or +three of the other members of our circle were able to produce motions in +the table; they could even feel, as they asserted, the touch of +spiritual hands; but, however much they desired it, they were never +personally possessed as we, and therefore could not properly be +called Mediums.</p> + +<p>These investigations were not regularly carried on. Occasionally the +interest of the circle flagged, until it was renewed by the visit of +some apostle of the new faith, usually accompanied by a "Preaching +Medium." Among those whose presence especially conduced to keep alive +the flame of spiritual inquiry was a gentleman named Stilton, the editor +of a small monthly periodical entitled "Revelations from the Interior." +Without being himself a Medium, he was nevertheless thoroughly +conversant with the various phenomena of Spiritualism, and both spoke +and wrote in the dialect which its followers adopted. He was a man of +varied, but not profound learning, an active intellect, giving and +receiving impressions with equal facility, and with an unusual +combination of concentrativeness and versatility in his nature. A +certain inspiration was connected with his presence. His personality +overflowed upon and influenced others. "My mind is not sufficiently +submissive," he would say, "to receive impressions from the spirits, but +my atmosphere attracts them and encourages them to speak." He was a +stout, strongly built man, with coarse black hair, gray eyes, large +animal mouth, square jaws, and short, thick neck. Had his hair been +cropped close, he would have looked very much like a prize-fighter; but +he wore it long, parted in the middle, and as meek in expression as its +stiff waves would allow.</p> + +<p>Stilton soon became the controlling spirit of our circle. His presence +really seemed, as he said, to encourage the spirits. Never before had +the manifestations been so abundant or so surprising. Miss Fetters, +especially, astonished us by the vigor of her possessions. Not only +Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe +Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens, +prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her +frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she +floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore +for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the +opposite cast. Hypatia, Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest +of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually +spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand, +and often without giving any clue to their personality. A practised +stenographer, engaged by Mr. Stilton, took down many of these +communications as they were spoken, and they were afterwards published +in the "Revelations." It was also remarked, that, while Miss Fetters +employed violent gestures and seemed to possess a superhuman strength, +I, on the contrary, sat motionless, pale, and with little sign of life +except in my voice, which, though low, was clear and dramatic in its +modulations. Stilton explained this difference without hesitation. "Miss +Abby," he said, "possesses soul-matter of a texture to which the souls +of these strong men naturally adhere. In the spirit-land the +superfluities repel each other; the individual souls seek to remedy +their imperfections: in the union of opposites only is to be found the +great harmonia of life. You, John, move upon another plane; through +what in you is undeveloped, these developed spirits are attracted."</p> + +<p>For two or three years, I must admit, my life was a very happy one. Not +only were those occasional trances an intoxication, nay, a coveted +indulgence, but they cast a consecration over my life. My restored faith +rested on the sure evidence of my own experience; my new creed contained +no harsh or repulsive feature; I heard the same noble sentiments which I +uttered in such moments repeated by my associates in the faith, and I +devoutly believed that a complete regeneration of the human race was at +hand. Nevertheless, it struck me sometimes as singular that many of the +Mediums whom I met--men and women chosen by spiritual hands to the same +high office--excited in my mind that instinct of repulsion on which I +had learned to rely as a sufficient reason for avoiding certain persons. +Far as it would have been from my mind, at that time, to question the +manifestations which accompanied them, I could not smother my mistrust +of their characters. Miss Fetters, whom I so frequently met, was one of +the most disagreeable. Her cold, thin lips, pale eyes, and lean figure +gave me a singular impression of voracious hunger. Her presence was +often announced to me by a chill shudder, before I saw her. Centuries +ago one of her ancestors must have been a ghoul or vampire. The trance +of possession seemed, with her, to be a form of dissipation, in which +she indulged as she might have catered for a baser appetite. The new +religion was nothing to her; I believe she valued it only on account of +the importance she obtained among its followers. Her father, a vain, +weak-minded man, who kept a grocery in the town, was himself a convert.</p> + +<p>Stilton had an answer for every doubt. No matter how tangled a labyrinth +might be exhibited to him, he walked straight through it.</p> + +<p>"How is it," I asked him, "that so many of my fellow-mediums inspire me +with an instinctive dislike and mistrust?"</p> + +<p>"By mistrust you mean dislike," he answered; "since you know of no +reason to doubt their characters. The elements of soul-matter are +differently combined in different individuals, and there are affinities +and repulsions, just as there are in the chemical elements. Your feeling +is chemical, not moral. A want of affinity does not necessarily imply an +existing evil in the other party. In the present ignorance of the world, +our true affinities can only he imperfectly felt and indulged; and the +entire freedom which we shall obtain in this respect is the greatest +happiness of the spirit-life."</p> + +<p>Another time I asked,--</p> + +<p>"How is it that the spirits of great authors speak so tamely to us? +Shakspeare, last night, wrote a passage which he would have been +heartily ashamed of, as a living man. We know that a spirit spoke, +calling himself Shakspeare; but, judging from his communication, it +could not have been he."</p> + +<p>"It probably was not," said Mr. Stilton. "I am convinced that all +malicious spirits are at work to interrupt the communications from the +higher spheres. We were thus deceived by one professing to be Benjamin +Franklin, who drew for us the plan of a machine for splitting shingles, +which we had fabricated and patented at considerable expense. On trial, +however, it proved to be a miserable failure, a complete mockery. When +the spirit was again summoned, he refused to speak, but shook the table +to express his malicious laughter, went off, and has never since +returned. My friend, we know but the alphabet of Spiritualism, the mere +A B C; we can no more expect to master the immortal language in a day +than a child to read Plato after learning his letters."</p> + +<p>Many of those who had been interested in the usual phenomena gradually +dropped off, tired, and perhaps a little ashamed, in the reaction +following their excitement; but there were continual accessions to our +ranks, and we formed, at last, a distinct clan or community. Indeed, the +number of <i>secret</i> believers in Spiritualism would never be suspected +by the uninitiated. In the sect, however, as in Masonry and the Catholic +Church, there are circles within circles,--concentric rings, whence you +can look outwards, but not inwards, and where he alone who stands at the +centre is able to perceive everything. Such an inner circle was at last +formed in our town. Its object, according to Stilton, with whom the plan +originated, was to obtain a purer spiritual atmosphere, by the exclusion +of all but Mediums and those non-mediumistic believers in whose presence +the spirits felt at ease, and thus invite communications from the +farther and purer spheres.</p> + +<p>In fact, the result seemed to justify the plan. The character of the +trance, as I had frequently observed, is vitiated by the consciousness +that disbelievers are present. The more perfect the atmosphere of +credulity, the more satisfactory the manifestations. The expectant +company, the dim light, the conviction that a wonderful revelation was +about to dawn upon us, excited my imagination, and my trance was really +a sort of delirium, in which I spoke with a passion and an eloquence I +had never before exhibited. The fear, which had previously haunted me, +at times, of giving my brain and tongue into the control of an unknown, +power, was forgotten; yet, more than ever, I was conscious of some +strong controlling influence, and experienced a reckless pleasure in +permitting myself to be governed by it. "Prepare," I concluded, (I quote +from the report in the "Revelations,") "prepare, sons of men, for the +dawning day! Prepare for the second and perfect regeneration of man! For +the prison-chambers have been broken into, and the light from the +interior shall illuminate the external! Ye shall enjoy spiritual and +passional freedom; your guides shall no longer be the despotism of +ignorant laws, nor the whip of an imaginary conscience,--but the natural +impulses of your nature, which are the melody of Life, and the natural +affinities, which are its harmony! The reflections from the upper +spheres shall irradiate the lower, and Death is the triumphal arch +through which we pass from glory to glory!"</p> + +<p>--I have here paused, deliberating whether I should proceed farther in +my narrative. But no; if any good is to be accomplished by these +confessions, the reader must walk with me through the dark labyrinth +which follows. He must walk over what may be considered delicate ground, +but he shall not be harmed. One feature of the trance condition is too +remarkable, too important in its consequences, to be overlooked. It is a +feature of which many Mediums are undoubtedly ignorant, the existence of +which is not even suspected by thousands of honest Spiritualists.</p> + +<p>Let me again anticipate the regular course of my narrative, and explain. +A suspension of the Will, when indulged in for any length of time, +produces a suspension of that inward consciousness of good and evil +which we call Conscience, and which can be actively exercised only +through the medium of the Will. The mental faculties and the moral +perceptions lie down together in the same passive sleep. The subject is, +therefore, equally liable to receive impressions from the minds of +others, and from their passions and lusts. Besides this, the germs of +all good and of all evil are implanted in the nature of every human +being; and even when some appetite is buried in a crypt so deep that its +existence is forgotten, let the warder be removed, and it will gradually +work its way to the light. Persons in the receptive condition which +belongs to the trance may be surrounded by honest and pure-minded +individuals, and receive no harmful impressions; they may even, if of a +healthy spiritual temperament, resist for a time the aggressions of evil +influences; but the final danger is always the same. The state of the +Medium, therefore, may be described as one in which the Will is passive, +the Conscience passive, the outward senses partially (sometimes wholly) +suspended, the mind helplessly subject to the operations of other minds, +and the passions and desires released from all restraining +influences.<a name="FNanchor8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> I make the statement boldly, after long and careful +reflection, and severe self-examination.</p> + +<p>As I said before, I did not entirely lose my external consciousness, +although it was very dim and dream-like. On returning to the natural +state, my recollection of what had occurred during the trance became +equally dim; but I retained a general impression of the character of the +possession. I knew that some foreign influence--the spirit of a dead +poet, or hero, or saint, I then believed--governed me for the time; that +I gave utterance to thoughts unfamiliar to my mind in its conscious +state; and that my own individuality was lost, or so disguised that I +could no longer recognize it. This very circumstance made the trance an +indulgence, a spiritual intoxication, no less fascinating than that of +the body, although accompanied by a similar reaction. Yet, behind all, +dimly evident to me, there was an element of terror. There were times +when, back of the influences which spoke with my voice, rose another,--a +vast, overwhelming, threatening power, the nature of which I could not +grasp, but which I knew was evil. Even when in my natural state, +listening to the harsh utterances of Miss Fetters or the lofty spiritual +philosophy of Mr. Stilton, I have felt, for a single second, the touch +of an icy wind, accompanied by a sensation of unutterable dread.</p> + +<p>Our secret circle had not held many sessions before a remarkable change +took place in the character of the revelations. Mr. Stilton ceased to +report them for his paper.</p> + +<p>"We are on the threshold, at last," said he; "the secrets of the ages +lie beyond. The hands of spirits are now lifting the veil, fold by fold. +Let us not be startled by what we hear: let us show that our eyes can +bear the light,--that we are competent to receive the wisdom of the +higher spheres, and live according to it."</p> + +<p>Miss Fetters was more than ever possessed by the spirit of Joe Manton, +whose allowance of grog having been cut off too suddenly by his death, +he was continually clamoring for a dram.</p> + +<p>"I tell you," yelled he, or rather she, "I won't stand sich meanness. I +ha'n't come all the way here for nothin'. I'll knock Erasmus all to +thunder, if you go for to turn me out dry, and let him come in."</p> + +<p>Mr. Stilton thereupon handed him, or her, a tumbler half-full of brandy, +which she gulped down at a single swallow. Joe Manton presently retired +to make room for Erasmus, who spoke for some time in Latin, or what +appeared to be Latin. None of us could make much of it; but Mr. Stilton +declared that the Latin pronunciation of Erasmus was probably different +from ours, or that he might have learned the true Roman accent from +Cicero and Seneca, with whom, doubtless, he was now on intimate terms. +As Erasmus generally concluded by throwing his arms, or rather the arms +of Miss Fetters, around the neck of Mr. Stilton,--his spirit +fraternizing, apparently, with the spirit of the latter,--we greatly +regretted that his communications were unintelligible, on account of the +superior wisdom which they might be supposed to contain.</p> + +<p>I confess, I cannot recall the part I played in what would have been a +pitiable farce, if it had not been so terribly tragical, without a +feeling of utter shame. Nothing but my profound sympathy for the +thousands and tens of thousands who are still subject to the same +delusion could compel me to such a sacrifice of pride. Curiously enough, +(as I thought <i>then</i>, but not now,) the enunciation of sentiments +opposed to my moral sense--the abolition, in fact, of all moral +restraint--came from my lips, while the actions of Miss Fetters hinted +at their practical application. Upon the ground that the interests of +the soul were paramount to all human laws and customs, I declared--or +rather, <i>my voice</i> declared--that self-denial was a fatal error, to +which half the misery of mankind could be traced; that the passions, +held as slaves, exhibited only the brutish nature of slaves, and would +be exalted and glorified by entire freedom; and that our sole guidance +ought to come from the voices of the spirits who communicated with us, +instead of the imperfect laws constructed by our benighted fellow-men. +How clear and logical, how lofty, these doctrines seemed! If, at times, +something in their nature repelled me, I simply attributed it to the +fact that I was still but a neophyte in the Spiritual Philosophy, and +incapable of perceiving the truth with entire clearness.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stilton had a wife,--one of those meek, amiable, simple-hearted +women whose individuality seems to be completely absorbed into that of +their husbands. When such women are wedded to frank, tender, protecting +men, their lives are truly blessed; but they are willing slaves to the +domestic tyrant. They bear uncomplainingly,--many of them even without a +thought of complaint,--and die at last with their hearts full of love +for the brutes who have trampled upon them. Mrs. Stilton was perhaps +forty years of age, of middle height, moderately plump in person, with +light-brown hair, soft, inexpressive gray eyes, and a meek, helpless, +imploring mouth. Her voice was mild and plaintive, and its accents of +anger (if she ever gave utterance to such) could not have been +distinguished from those of grief. She did not often attend our +sessions, and it was evident, that, while she endeavored to comprehend +the revelations, in order to please her husband, their import was very +far beyond her comprehension. She was now and then a little frightened +at utterances which no doubt sounded lewd or profane to her ears; but +after a glance at Mr. Stilton's face, and finding that it betrayed +neither horror nor surprise, would persuade herself that everything +must be right.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure," she once timidly whispered to me, "are you very sure, +Mr. ------, that there is no danger of being led astray? It seems +strange to me; but perhaps I don't understand it."</p> + +<p>Her question was so indefinite, that I found it difficult to answer. +Stilton, however, seeing me engaged in endeavoring to make clear to her +the glories of the new truth, exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"That's right, John! Your spiritual plane slants through many spheres, +and has points of contact with a great variety of souls. I hope my wife +will be able to see the light through you, since I appear to be too +opaque for her to receive it from me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Abijah!" said the poor woman, "you know it is my fault. I try to +follow, and I hope I have faith, though I don't see everything as +clearly as you do."</p> + +<p>I began also to have my own doubts, as I perceived that an "affinity" +was gradually being developed between Stilton and Miss Fetters. She was +more and more frequently possessed by the spirit of Erasmus, whose +salutations, on meeting and parting with his brother-philosopher, were +too enthusiastic for merely masculine love. But, whenever I hinted at +the possibility of mistaking the impulses of the soul, or at evil +resulting from a too sudden and universal liberation of the passions, +Stilton always silenced me with his inevitable logic. Having once +accepted the premises, I could not avoid the conclusions.</p> + +<p>"When our natures are in harmony with spirit-matter throughout the +spheres," he would say, "our impulses will always be in accordance. Or, +if there should be any temporary disturbance, arising from our necessary +intercourse with the gross, blinded multitude, we can always fly to our +spiritual monitors for counsel. Will not they, the immortal souls of the +ages past, who have guided us to a knowledge of the truth, assist us +also in preserving it pure?"</p> + +<p>In spite of this, in spite of my admiration of Stilton's intellect, and +my yet unshaken faith in Spiritualism, I was conscious that the harmony +of the circle was becoming impaired to me. Was I falling behind in +spiritual progress? Was I too weak to be the medium for the promised +revelations? I threw myself again and again into the trance, with a +recklessness of soul which fitted me to receive any, even the darkest +impressions, to catch and proclaim every guilty whisper of the senses, +and, while under the influence of the excitement, to exult in the age of +license which I believed to be at hand. But darker, stronger grew the +terror which lurked behind this spiritual carnival. A more tremendous +power than that which I now recognized as coming from Stilton's brain +was present, and I saw myself whirling nearer and nearer to its grasp. I +felt, by a sort of blind instinct, too vague to be expressed, that some +demoniac agency had thrust itself into the manifestations,--perhaps had +been mingled with them from the outset.</p> + +<p>For two or three months, my life was the strangest mixture of happiness +and misery. I walked about with the sense of some crisis hanging over +me. My "possessions" became fiercer and wilder, and the reaction so much +more exhausting that I fell into the habit of restoring myself by means +of the bottle of brandy which Mr. Stilton took care should be on hand, +in case of a visit from Joe Manton. Miss Fetters, strange to say, was +not in the least affected by the powerful draughts she imbibed. But, at +the same time, my waking life was growing brighter and brighter under +the power of a new and delicious experience. My nature is eminently +social, and I had not been able--indeed, I did not desire--wholly to +withdraw myself from intercourse with non-believers. There was too much +in society that was congenial to me to be given up. My instinctive +dislike to Miss Abby Fetters and my compassionate regard for Mrs. +Stilton's weakness only served to render the company of intelligent, +cultivated women more attractive to me. Among those whom I met most +frequently was Miss Agnes Honeywood, a calm, quiet, unobtrusive girl, +the characteristic of whose face was sweetness rather than beauty, while +the first feeling she inspired was respect rather than admiration. She +had just that amount of self-possession which conceals without +conquering the sweet timidity of woman. Her voice was low, yet clear; +and her mild eyes, I found, were capable, on occasion, of both flashing +and melting. Why describe her? I loved her before I knew it; but, with +the consciousness of my love, that clairvoyant sense on which I had +learned to depend failed for the first time. Did she love me? When I +sought to answer the question in her presence, all was confusion within.</p> + +<p>This was not the only new influence which entered into and increased the +tumult of my mind. The other half of my two-sided nature--the cool, +reflective, investigating faculty--had been gradually ripening, and the +questions which it now began to present seriously disturbed the +complacency of my theories. I saw that I had accepted many things on +very unsatisfactory evidence; but, on the other hand, there was much for +which I could find no other explanation. Let me be frank, and say, that +I do not now pretend to explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism. This, +however, I determined to do,--to ascertain, if possible, whether the +influences which governed me in the trance state came from the persons +around, from the exercise of some independent faculty of my own mind, or +really and truly from the spirits of the dead. Mr. Stilton appeared to +notice that some internal conflict was going on; but he said nothing in +regard to it, and, as events proved, he entirely miscalculated its +character.</p> + +<p>I said to myself,--"If this chaos continues, it will drive me mad. Let +me have one bit of solid earth beneath my feet, and I can stand until it +subsides. Let me throw over the best bower of the heart, since all the +anchors of the mind are dragging!" I summoned resolution. I made that +desperate venture which no true man makes without a pang of forced +courage; but, thank God! I did not make it in vain. Agnes loved me, and +in the deep, quiet bliss which this knowledge gave I felt the promise of +deliverance. She knew and lamented my connection with the Spiritualists; +but, perceiving my mental condition from the few intimations which I +dared to give her, discreetly held her peace. But I could read the +anxious expression of that gentle face none the less.</p> + +<p>My first endeavor to solve the new questions was to check the +<I>abandon</I> of the trance condition, and interfuse it with more of +sober consciousness. It was a difficult task; and nothing but the +circumstance that my consciousness had never been entirely lost enabled +me to make any progress. I finally succeeded, as I imagined, (certainty +is impossible,) in separating the different influences which impressed +me,--perceiving where one terminated and the other commenced, or where +two met and my mind vibrated from one to the other until the stronger +prevailed, or where a thought which seemed to originate in my own brain +took the lead and swept away with me like the mad rush of a prairie +colt. When out of the trance, I noticed attentively the expressions made +use of by Mr. Stilton and the other members of the circle, and was +surprised to find how many of them I had reproduced. But might they not, +in the first place, have been derived from me? And what was the vague, +dark Presence which still overshadowed me at such times? What was that +Power which I had tempted,--which we were all tempting, every time we +met,--and which continually drew nearer and became more threatening? I +knew not; <I>and I know not</I>. I would rather not speak or think of +it any more.</p> + +<p>My suspicions with regard to Stilton and Miss Fetters were confirmed by +a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should +treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, +but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there +was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon +the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual harmonies. Among +<I>us</I>, he said, there could be no more hatred or mistrust or +jealousy,--nothing but love, pure, unselfish, perfect love. "You, my +dear," (turning to Mrs. Stilton,) "belong to a sphere which is included +within my own, and share in my harmonies and affinities; yet the +soul-matter which adheres to you is of a different texture from mine. +Yours has also its independent affinities; I see and respect them; and +even though they might lead our bodies--our outward, material +lives--away from one another, we should still be true to that glorious +light of Jove which permeates all soul-matter."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Abijah!" cried Mrs. Stilton, really distressed, "how can you say +such a thing of me? You know I can never adhere to anybody else +but you!"</p> + +<p>Stilton would then call in my aid to explain his meaning, asserting that +I had a faculty of reaching his wife's intellect, which he did not +himself possess. Feeling a certain sympathy for her painful confusion of +mind, I did my best to give his words an interpretation which soothed +her fears. Then she begged his pardon, taking all the blame to her own +stupidity, and received his grudged, unwilling kiss with a restored +happiness which pained me to the heart.</p> + +<p>I had a growing presentiment of some approaching catastrophe. I felt, +distinctly, the presence of unhallowed passions in our circle; and my +steadfast love for Agnes, borne thither in my bosom, seemed like a pure +white dove in a cage of unclean birds. Stilton held me from him by the +superior strength of his intellect. I began to mistrust, even to hate +him, while I was still subject to his power, and unable to acquaint him +with the change in my feelings. Miss Fetters was so repulsive that I +never spoke to her when it could be avoided. I had tolerated her, +heretofore, for the sake of her spiritual gift; but now, when I began to +doubt the authenticity of that gift, her hungry eyes, her thin lips, her +flat breast, and cold, dry hands excited in me a sensation of absolute +abhorrence.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of Affinities had some time before been adopted by the +circle, as a part of the Spiritual Truth. Other circles, with which we +were in communication, had also received the same revelation; and the +ground upon which it was based, in fact, rendered its acceptance easy. +Even I, shielded as I was by the protecting arms of a pure love, sought +in vain for arguments to refute a doctrine, the practical operation of +which, I saw, might be so dangerous. The soul had a right to seek its +kindred soul: that I could not deny. Having found, they belonged to each +other. Love is the only law which those who love are bound to obey. I +shall not repeat all the sophistry whereby these positions were +strengthened. The doctrine soon blossomed and bore fruit, the nature of +which left no doubt as to the character of the tree.</p> + +<p>The catastrophe came sooner than I had anticipated, and partly through +my own instrumentality; though, in any case, it must finally have come. +We were met together at the house of one of the most zealous and +fanatical believers. There were but eight persons present,--the host and +his wife, (an equally zealous proselyte,) a middle-aged bachelor +neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Stilton, Miss Fetters and her father, and myself. +It was a still, cloudy, sultry evening, after one of those dull, +oppressive days when all the bad blood in a man seems to be uppermost in +his veins. The manifestations upon the table, with which we commenced, +were unusually rapid and lively. "I am convinced," said Mr. Stilton, +"that we shall receive important revelations to-night. My own mind +possesses a clearness and quickness, which, I have noticed, always +precede the visit of a superior spirit. Let us be passive and receptive, +my friends. We are but instruments in the hands of loftier +intelligences, and only through our obedience can this second advent of +Truth be fulfilled."</p> + +<p>He looked at me with that expression which I so well knew, as the signal +for a surrender of my will. I had come rather unwillingly, for I was +getting heartily tired of the business, and longed to shake off my habit +of (spiritual) intoxication, which no longer possessed any attraction, +since I had been allowed to visit Agnes as an accepted lover. In fact, I +continued to hold my place in the circle principally for the sake of +satisfying myself with regard to the real nature and causes of the +phenomena. On this night, something in Mr. Stilton's face arrested my +attention, and a rapid inspiration flashed through my mind. "Suppose," I +thought, "I allow the usual effect to be produced, yet reverse the +character of its operation? I am convinced that he has been directing +the current of my thought according to his will; let me now render +myself so thoroughly passive, that my mind, like a mirror, shall reflect +what passes through his, retaining nothing of my own except the simple +consciousness of what I am doing." Perhaps this was exactly what he +desired. He sat, bending forward a little over the table, his square +jaws firmly set, his eyes hidden beneath their heavy brows, and every +long, wiry hair on his head in its proper place. I fixed my eyes upon +him, threw my mind into a state of perfect receptivity, and waited.</p> + +<p>It was not long before I felt his approach. Shadow after shadow flitted +across the still mirror of my inward sense. Whether the thoughts took +words in his brain or in mine,--whether I first caught his disjointed +musings, and, by their utterance reacting upon him, gave system and +development to <I>his</I> thoughts,--I cannot tell. But this I know: +what I said came wholly from him,--not from the slandered spirits of the +dead, not from the vagaries of my own imagination, but from <I>him</I>. +"Listen to me!" I said. "In the flesh I was a martyr to the Truth, and I +am permitted to communicate only with those whom the Truth has made +free. You are the heralds of the great day; you have climbed from sphere +to sphere, until now you stand near the fountains of light. But it is +not enough that you see: your lives must reflect the light. The inward +vision is for you, but the outward manifestation thereof is for the +souls of others. Fulfil the harmonies in the flesh. Be the living music, +not the silent instruments."</p> + +<p>There was more, much more of this,--a plenitude of eloquent sound, which +seems to embody sublime ideas, but which, carefully examined, contains +no more palpable substance than sea-froth. If the reader will take the +trouble to read an "Epic of the Starry Heavens," the production of a +Spiritual Medium, he will find several hundred pages of the same +character. But, by degrees, the revelation descended to details, and +assumed a personal application. "In you, in all of you, the spiritual +harmonies are still violated," was the conclusion. "You, Abijah Stilton, +who are chosen to hold up the light of truth to the world, require that +a transparent soul, capable of transmitting that light to you, should be +allied to yours. She who is called your wife is a clouded lens; she can +receive the light only through John----, who is her true spiritual +husband, as Abby Fetters is <I>your</I> true spiritual wife!"</p> + +<p>I was here conscious of a sudden cessation of the influence which forced +me to speak, and stopped. The members of the circle opposite to me--the +host, his wife, neighbor, and old Mr. Fetters--were silent, but their +faces exhibited more satisfaction than astonishment. My eye fell upon +Mrs. Stilton. Her face was pale, her eyes widely opened, and her lips +dropped apart, with a stunned, bewildered expression. It was the blank +face of a woman walking in her sleep. These observations were +accomplished in an instant; for Miss Fetters, suddenly possessed with +the spirit of Black Hawk, sprang upon her feet. "Ugh! ugh!" she +exclaimed, in a deep, harsh voice, "where's the pale-face? Black Hawk, +he like him,--he love him much!"--and therewith threw her arms around +Stilton, fairly lifting him off his feet. "Ugh! fire-water for Black +Hawk!--big Injun drink!"--and she tossed off a tumbler of brandy. By +this time I had wholly recovered my consciousness, but remained silent, +stupefied by the extraordinary scene.</p> + +<p>Presently Miss Fetters became more quiet, and the possession left her. +"My friends," said Stilton, in his cold, unmoved voice, "I feel that the +spirit has spoken truly. We must obey our spiritual affinities, or our +great and glorious mission will be unfulfilled. Let us rather rejoice +that we have been selected as the instruments to do this work. Come to +me, Abby; and you, Rachel, remember that our harmony is not disturbed, +but only made more complete."</p> + +<p>"Abijah!" exclaimed Mrs. Stilton, with a pitiful cry, while the tears +burst hot and fast from her eyes; "dear husband, what does this mean? +Oh, don't tell me that I'm to be cast off! You promised to love me and +care for me, Abijah! I'm not bright, I know, but I'll try to understand +you; indeed I will! Oh, don't be so cruel!--don't"---And the poor +creature's voice completely gave way.</p> + +<p>She dropped on the floor at his feet, and lay there, sobbing piteously.</p> + +<p>"Rachel, Rachel," said he,--and his face was not quite so calm as his +voice,--"don't be rebellious. We are governed by a higher Power. This is +all for our own good, and for the good of the world. Besides, ours was +not a perfect affinity. You will be much happier with John, as he +harmonizes"----</p> + +<p>I could endure it no longer. Indignation, pity, the full energy of my +will, possessed me. He lost his power over me then, and forever.</p> + +<p>"What!" I exclaimed, "you, blasphemer, beast that you are, you dare to +dispose of your honest wife in this infamous way, that you may be free +to indulge your own vile appetites?--you, who have outraged the dead and +the living alike, by making me utter your forgeries? Take her back, and +let this disgraceful scene end!--take her back, or I will give you a +brand that shall last to the end of your days!"</p> + +<p>He turned deadly pale, and trembled. I knew that he made a desperate +effort to bring me under the control of his will, and laughed mockingly +as I saw his knit brow and the swollen veins in his temples. As for the +others, they seemed paralyzed by the suddenness and fierceness of my +attack. He wavered but for an instant, however, and his +self-possession returned.</p> + +<p>"Ha!" he exclaimed, "it is the Spirit of Evil that speaks in him! The +Devil himself has risen to destroy our glorious fabric! Help me, +friends! help me to bind him, and to silence his infernal voice, before +he drives the pure spirits from our midst!"</p> + +<p>With that, he advanced a step towards me, and raised a hand to seize my +arm, while the others followed behind. But I was too quick for him. Weak +as I was, in comparison, rage gave me strength, and a blow, delivered +with the rapidity of lightning, just under the chin, laid him senseless +on the floor. Mrs. Stilton screamed, and threw herself over him. The +rest of the company remained as if stupefied. The storm which had been +gathering all the evening at the same instant broke over the house in +simultaneous thunder and rain.</p> + +<p>I stepped suddenly to the door, opened it, and drew a long, deep breath +of relief, as I found myself alone in the darkness. "Now," said I, "I +have done tampering with God's best gift; I will be satisfied with the +natural sunshine which beams from His Word and from His Works; I have +learned wisdom at the expense of shame!" I exulted in my new freedom, in +my restored purity of soul; and the wind, that swept down the dark, +lonely street, seemed to exult with me. The rains beat upon me, but I +heeded them not; nay, I turned aside from the homeward path, in order to +pass by the house where Agnes lived. Her window was dark, and I knew she +was sleeping, lulled by the storm; but I stood a moment below, in the +rain, and said aloud, softly,--</p> + +<p>"Now, Agnes, I belong wholly to you! Pray to God for me, darling, that I +may never lose the true light I have found at last!"</p> + +<p>My healing, though complete in the end, was not instantaneous. The habit +of the trance, I found, had really impaired the action of my will. I +experienced a periodic tendency to return to it, which I have been able +to overcome only by the most vigorous efforts. I found it prudent, +indeed, to banish from my mind, as far as was possible, all subjects, +all memories, connected with Spiritualism. In this work I was aided by +Agnes, who now possessed my entire confidence, and who willingly took +upon herself the guidance of my mind at those seasons when my own +governing faculties flagged. Gradually my mental health returned, and I +am now beyond all danger of ever again being led into such fatal +dissipations. The writing of this narrative, in fact, has been a test of +my ability to overlook and describe my experience without being touched +by its past delusions. If some portions of it should not be wholly +intelligible to the reader, the defect lies in the very nature of +the subject.</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that I have given but a partial explanation of the +spiritual phenomena. Of the genuineness of the physical manifestations I +am fully convinced, and I can account for them only by the supposition +of some subtile agency whereby the human will operates upon inert +matter. Clairvoyance is a sufficient explanation of the utterances of +the Mediums,--at least of those which I have heard; but there is, as I +have said before, <i>something</i> in the background,--which I feel too +indistinctly to describe, yet which I know to be Evil. I do not wonder +at, though I lament, the prevalence of the belief in Spiritualism. In a +few individual cases it may have been productive of good, but its +general tendency is evil. There are probably but few Stiltons among its +apostles, few Miss Fetterses among its Mediums; but the condition which +accompanies the trance, as I have shown, inevitably removes the +wholesome check which holds our baser passions in subjection. The +Medium is at the mercy of any evil will, and the impressions received +from a corrupt mind are always liable to be accepted by innocent +believers as revelations from the spirits of the holy dead. I shall +shock many honest souls by this confession, but I hope and believe that +it may awaken and enlighten others. Its publication is necessary, as an +expiation for some of the evil which has been done through my own +instrumentality.</p> + +<p>I learned, two days afterwards, that Stilton (who was not seriously +damaged by my blow) had gone to New York, taking Miss Fetters with him. +Her ignorant, weak-minded father was entirely satisfied with the +proceeding. Mrs. Stilton, helpless and heart-broken, remained at the +house where our circle had met, with her only child, a boy of three +years of age, who, fortunately, inherited her weakness rather than his +father's power. Agnes, on learning this, insisted on having her removed +from associations which were at once unhappy and dangerous. We went +together to see her, and, after much persuasion, and many painful scenes +which I shall not recapitulate, succeeded in sending her to her father, +a farmer in Connecticut. She still remains there, hoping for the day +when her guilty husband shall return and be instantly forgiven.</p> + +<p>My task is ended; may it not have been performed in vain!</p> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>JOHN ANDRE AND HONORA SNEYD.</h2> +<br> + +<p>Many of our readers will remember the exquisite lines in which Béranger +paints the connection between our mortal lives and the stars of the sky. +With every human soul that finds its way to earth, a new gem is added to +the azure belt of heaven. Thenceforth the two exist in mutual +dependence, each influencing the other's fate; so that, when death comes +to seal the lips of the man, a flame is paled and a lamp extinguished in +the gulf above. In every loosened orb that shoots across the face of +night the experienced eye may trace the story and the fall of a +fellow-being. Youth, beauty, wealth, the humility of indigence and the +pride of power, alike find their term revealed in the bright, silent +course of the celestial spark; and still new signs succeed to provoke +the sympathy or dazzle the philosophy of the observer. +<br><br> + "Quelle est cette étoile qui file,<br> + Qui file, file, et disparait?"</p> + +<p>It is unfortunate that such a pretty manner of accounting for the nature +and origin of falling stars should be unsustained by sound astronomical +data, and utterly discountenanced by Herschel and Bond. There is +something in the theory very pleasant and very flattering to human +nature; and there are passages in the history of our race that might +make its promulgation not unacceptable. When, among the innumerable +"patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part +from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway +with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but +be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being +segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture, +hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their +memory with immortal fame. It is thus that the fulfilment of the vow +made in the heat of battle has given Jephthah's name a melancholy +permanence above all others of the captains of Israel. Mutius would long +ago have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave +as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but +for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And +Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty +years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was +failure and death that made him famous.</p> + +<p>Eighty years ago a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which, +in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes +far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by +calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of +undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan. +Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his +professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John André, +had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the +generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was +opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the +future. So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better +than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the +Promised Land. It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the +circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and +universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to +hold its seat in the bosom of friend and of foe. To this day, the most +distinguished American and English historians are at issue respecting +the justice of his doom; and to this day, the grave inquirer into the +rise and fall of empires pauses by the way to glean some scanty memorial +of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser +author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on +that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and +many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of +the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the +elucidation of the conduct of an individual.</p> + +<p>John André was born in England, probably at London,--possibly at +Southampton,--in the year 1751. His father was an honest, industrious +Switzer, who, following the example of his countrymen and his kindred, +had abandoned the rugged land of his birth, and come over to England to +see what could be made out of John Bull. The family-name appears to have +originally been St. André; and this was the style of the famous +dancing-master who gave to the courtiers of Charles II. their +graceful motions.</p> + +<p>"St. André's feet ne'er kept more equal time,"</p> + +<p>wrote Dryden, in his "MacFlecknoe"; and the same writer again brings him +forward in the third act of "Limberham." It must be remembered that in +those days the teacher of fencing and dancing occupied a very +respectable position; and St. André's career was sufficiently prosperous +to tempt a young kinsman, who felt the elements of success strong within +him, to cross the seas in his own turn, and find wealth and reputation +in those pleasant pastures which England above all other countries then +laid open to the skilful adventurer.</p> + +<p>Nicholas St. André, who came to London about the close of the +seventeenth century, and who was undoubtedly nearly related to the +future Major André, seems to have passed through a career hardly +paralleled by that of Gil Blas himself. From the humblest beginnings, +his ready wit, his multifarious accomplishments, and his indomitable +assurance speedily carried him to the topmost wave of social prosperity. +A brief instruction in surgery gave him such a plausible appearance of +proficiency in the art as to permit his public lectures to be favorably +received, and to lead to his employment in the royal household. George +I. made him Anatomist to the Court, and, as a token of especial grace, +on one occasion, went so far as to bestow upon the young Swiss his own +sword. His attainments in all the amusements of a gentleman probably had +more to do with these advancements, however, than any professional +skill. He was a capital linguist; at fencing, leaping, running, and +other manly exercises, he found few rivals; and his dabblings in +architecture and botany were at least as notable as his mastership of +chess and his skill as a musician. But when it came to a scientific test +of his surgical and anatomical pretensions, his failure was lamentable +indeed. The unquenchable thirst for notoriety--which he may have +mistaken for fame--was perpetually leading him into questionable +positions, and finally covered his name with ridicule and confusion.</p> + +<p>An impudent woman, known as Mary Tofts, declared to the world, that, +instead of a human child, she had given birth to a litter of rabbits. +How such a ridiculous tale ever found believers, it is impossible to +conceive; but such was the case. All England, with the very small +exception of those who united the possession of learning with common +sense, was imbued with the frenzy. The price of warrens was abated to a +mere song, and for a season a Londoner would as readily have eaten a +baked child as a roasted rabbit. The children of men were believed to +populate the burrows, and authorities of the highest reputation lent an +unhesitating support to the delusion. The learned Whiston published in +the circumstance a fulfilment of a prophecy of Esdras, and St. André +loudly urged the authenticity of the entire fable and of the theories +that were founded upon it. But the satiric pen of Swift, the burin of +Hogarth, and the graver investigations of Cheselden at last turned the +popular tide, and covered St. André in particular with such a load of +contemptuous obloquy as to drive him forever from the high circles he +had moved in. So great was his spleen, that, from that time forth, he +would never suffer a dish upon his table or a syllable in his +conversation that could in any way bring to mind the absurd occasion of +his disgrace.</p> + +<p>If all reports are to be believed, St. André's career had led him into +many singular adventures. He had saved Voltaire's life, by violently +detaining Lord Peterborough, when the latter stood prepared to punish +with peremptory death some peccadillo of the Frenchman's. Voltaire fled +from the scene, while his adversary struggled to be released. His +services to Pope, when the poet was overturned in Lord Bolingbroke's +coach, did not protect him from a damaging allusion in the Epilogue to +the Satires, where the source of the wealth that he got by his marriage +with Lady Betty Molyneux is more plainly than politely pointed out. +Leaving forever, therefore, the sphere in which he had encountered so +much favor and so much severity, he retired to Southampton to end his +days in the society of his kindred; and it is more than probable that an +indisposition to proclaim too loudly their identity of race with the +unlucky surgeon was the cause of their modification of name by the +immediate family from which John André sprung.</p> + +<p>The father of our hero was a thrifty London trader, whose business as a +Turkey merchant had been prosperous enough to persuade him that no other +career could possibly be so well adapted for his son. The lad was of +another opinion; but those were not the days when a parent's will might +be safely contravened. Sent to Geneva to complete the education that had +been commenced at London, he returned to a seat in the counting-room +with intellectual qualifications that seemed to justify his aspirations +for a very different scene of action. He was a fluent linguist, a ready +and graceful master of the pencil and brush, and very well versed in the +schools of military design. Add to these a proficiency in poetry and +music, a person of unusual symmetry and grace, a face of almost feminine +softness, yet not descending from the dignity of manhood, and we have an +idea of the youth who was already meditating the means of throwing off +the chains that bound him to the inkhorn and ledger, and embracing a +more brilliant and glorious career. With him, the love of fame was an +instinctive passion. The annals of his own fireside taught him how +easily the path to distinction might be trod by men of parts and +address; and he knew in his heart that opportunity was the one and the +only thing needful to insure the accomplishment of his desires. Of very +moderate fortunes and utterly destitute of influential connections, he +knew that his education better qualified him for the useful fulfilment +of military duties than perhaps any man of his years in the service of +the king. Once embarked in the profession of arms, he had nothing to +rely upon but his own address to secure patronage and +promotion,--nothing but his own merits to justify the countenance that +his ingenuity should win. Without undue vanity, it is tolerably safe to +say now that he was authorized by the existing state of things to +confidently predicate his own success on these estimates.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to underrate the professional standard of the English +officer a hundred years ago. That some were good cannot be denied; that +most were bad is very certain. As there was no school of military +instruction in the realm, so no proof of mental or even of physical +capacity was required to enable a person to receive and to hold a +commission. A friend at the Horse Guards, or the baptismal gift of a +godfather, might nominate a baby three days old to a pair of colors. +Court influence or the ready cash having thus enrolled a puny suckling +among the armed defenders of the state, he might in regular process of +seniority come out a full-fledged captain or major against the season +for his being soundly birched at Eton; and an ignorant school-boy would +thus be qualified to govern the lives and fortunes of five hundred +stalwart men, and to represent the honor and the interests of the empire +in that last emergency when all might be depending on his courage and +capacity. Even women were thus saddled upon the pay-lists; and the time +is within the memory of living men, when a gentle lady, whose knowledge +of arms may be presumed to have never extended beyond the internecine +disputes of the nursery, habitually received the salary of a captaincy +of dragoons. In ranks thus officered, it was easy to foresee the speedy +and sure triumph of competent ability, when once backed by patronage.</p> + +<p>So long, however, as his dependence upon his father endured, it was +useless for André to anticipate the day when he might don the king's +livery. The repugnance with which his first motion in the matter was +greeted, and the affectionate opposition of his mother and sisters, seem +to have at least silenced, if they did not extinguish his desires. And +when the death of his father, in 1769, left him free to select his own +pathway through the world, a new conjuncture of affairs again caused him +to smother his cherished aspirations.</p> + +<p>The domestic relations of the André family were ever peculiarly tender +and affectionate; and in the loss of its head the survivors confessed a +great and a corroding sorrow. To repair the shattered health and recruit +the exhausted spirits of his mother and sisters, the son resolved to +lead them at once away from the daily contemplation of the grave to more +cheerful scenes. The medicinal waters of Derbyshire were then in vogue, +and a tour towards the wells of Buxton and of Matlock was undertaken. +Among the acquaintances that ensued from this expedition was that of the +family of the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield; and while a warm and lasting +friendship rapidly grew up between André and Miss Anna Seward, his heart +was surrendered to the charms of her adopted sister, Miss Honora Sneyd.</p> + +<p>By every account, Honora Sneyd must have been a paragon of feminine +loveliness. Her father was a country-gentleman of Staffordshire, who had +been left, by the untimely death of their mother, to the charge of a +bevy of infants. The solicitude of friends and relatives had sought the +care of these, and thus Honora became virtually a daughter of Mrs. +Seward's house. The character of this establishment may be conjectured +from the history of Anna Seward. Remote from the crushing weight of +London authority, she grew up in a provincial atmosphere of literary and +social refinement, and fondly believed that the polite praises (for +censure was a thing unknown among them) that were bandied about in her +own coterie would be cordially echoed by the voices of posterity. In +this she has been utterly deceived; but at the same time it must be +confessed that there was much in the tone of the reigning circles at +Lichfield, in those days, to contrast most favorably with the manners of +the literary sovereigns of the metropolis, or the intellectual elevation +of the rulers of fashion. At Lichfield, it was polite to be learned, and +good-breeding and mutual admiration went hand in hand.</p> + +<p>In such an atmosphere had Miss Sneyd been educated; and the +enthusiastic, not to say romantic, disposition of Miss Seward must have +given additional effect to every impulse that taught her to acknowledge +and rejoice in the undisguised admiration of the young London merchant. +His sentiments were as pure and lofty as her own; his person was as +attractive as that of any hero of romance; and his passion was deep and +true. With the knowledge and involuntary approbation of all their +friends, the love-affair between the two young people went on without +interruption or opposition. It seemed perfectly natural and proper that +they should be brought together. It was not, therefore, until a formal +betrothal began to loom up, that the seniors on either side bethought +themselves of the consequences. Neither party was a beggar; but neither +was in possession of sufficient estate to render a speedy marriage +advisable. It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which +must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons +whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved +a prolonged and wide separation. To this arrangement it would appear +that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover. His feelings +were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press +his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance. His +mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own +control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was +forbidden to regard as an elected husband.</p> + +<p>It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him +the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure +the means of accomplishing matrimony, that André was now persuaded to +renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back +to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional +visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss +Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are +vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which +his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a +specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental +fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her +name is Anna.</p> + +<p>"<i>London, October</i> 19, 1769.</p> + +<p>"From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, +let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And +first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must +tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future +profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so +disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged +man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping +a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a +tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the +Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded +with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue +their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods; +Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his +gorgeous vessels 'launched on the bosom of the silver Thames' are +wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus +all the mercantile glories crowd on my fancy, emblazoned in the most +effulgent colouring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soaring +pinions, I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my +labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to +receive me; I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and +poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabrick is +pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes +around, and find John André by a small coal-fire in a gloomy +compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been +making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is +at present. But, oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for +wealth.--You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I +must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this +threatening disease.</p> + +<p>"It is seven o'clock.--You and Honora, with two or three more select +friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fireplace. What +would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and +a snug circle round it, formed by a few select friends, transports me. +You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the +hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The +purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is +kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as +Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray, +imagine me with you; admit me to your <i>conversationés</i>:--Think how I +wish for the blessing of joining them!--and be persuaded that I take +part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that, ere it be very long, +your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray, keep me a place; let +the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me:--But you have Dutch tiles, +which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass be +my representative.</p> + +<p>"But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, +if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps +increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty. Silvered +with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps; musing, +as I homeward plod my way.--Ah! need I name the subject of my +contemplations?</p> + +<p>"<i>Thursday</i>.</p> + +<p>"I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with +their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their +amities, and will write in a few days.</p> + +<p>"This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable; +a solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light +was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the serene beams of an +autumnal sun! Gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, +ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, +expand the heart, and 'chase all sorrows but despair.' In the midst of +such a scene, no lesser sorrow can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A +calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating +power. The very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties. There is +a species of mild chearfulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but +indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented +look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave +unattempted.</p> + +<p>"Business calls me away--I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it +contain? No matter--You like anything better than news. Indeed, you have +never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, +from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the tastes of +Julia and <i>Cher Jean</i>. What is it to you or me, +<br><br> + "If here in the city we have nothing but riot;<br> + If the Spitalfield weavers can't be kept quiet;<br> + If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty;<br> + Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aged of thirty?</p> + +<p>"But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I +should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would +plead my cause with Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has +the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my +random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs.----. +Here it is at your service. +<br><br> + "Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down,<br> + With a flaming red face and a broad yellow gown,<br> + And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown.</p> + +<p>"This little French cousin of our's, Delarise, was my sister Mary's +playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. +Doubtless they tell much of him to you in their letters.</p> + +<p>"How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh, let me not be forgot by the +friends most dear to you at Lichfield. Lichfield! Ah, of what magic +letters is that little word composed! How graceful it looks, when it is +written! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning, 'The Field of +Blood'! Oh, no such thing! It is the field of joy! 'The beautiful city, +that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, <i>I am, and there is +none beside me.'</i> Who says she is vain? Julia will not say so,--nor yet +Honora,--and least of all, their devoted</p> + +<p>"John André."</p> + +<p>It is not difficult to perceive in the tone of this letter that its +writer was not an accepted lover. His interests with the lady, despite +Miss Seward's watchful care, were already declining; and the lapse of a +few months more reduced him to the level of a valued and entertaining +friend, whose civilities were not to pass the conventional limits of +polite intercourse. To André this fate was very hard. He was hopelessly +enamored; and so long as fortune offered him the least hope of eventual +success, he persevered in the faith that Honora might yet be his own. +But every returning day must have shaken this faith. His visits were +discontinued and his correspondence dropped. Other suitors pressed their +claims, and often urged an argument which it was beyond his means to +supply. They came provided with what Parson Hugh calls good gifts: +"Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts." Foremost among +these dangerous rivals were two men of note in their way: Richard Lovell +Edgeworth, and the eccentric, but amiable Thomas Day.</p> + +<p>Mr. Day was a man whose personal charms were not great. Overgrown, +awkward, pitted with the small-pox, he offered no pleasing contrast to +the discarded André: but he had twelve hundred pounds a year. His +notions in regard to women were as peculiar as his estimate of his own +merit. He seems to have really believed that it would be impossible for +any beautiful girl to refuse her assent to the terms of the contract by +which she might acquire his hand. These were absurd to a degree; and it +is not cause for surprise that Miss Sneyd should have unhesitatingly +refused them. Poor Mr. Day was not prepared for such continued ill-luck +in his matrimonial projects. He had already been very unfortunate in his +plans for obtaining a perfect wife,--having vainly provided for the +education of two foundlings between whom he promised himself to select a +paragon of a helpmate. To drop burning sealing-wax upon their necks, and +to discharge a pistol close to their ears, were among his philosophical +rules for training them to habits of submission and self-control; and +the upshot was, that they were fain to attach themselves to men of less +wisdom, but better taste. Miss Sneyd's conduct was more than he could +well endure, after all his previous disappointments; and he went to bed +with a fever that did not leave him till his passion was cured. He could +not at this time have anticipated, however, that the friendly hand which +had aided the prosecution of his addresses was eventually destined to +receive and hold the fair prize which so many were contending for.</p> + +<p>Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the ambassador and counsellor of Mr. Day in +this affair, was at the very moment of the rejection himself enamored of +Miss Sneyd. But Edgeworth had a wife already,--a pining, complaining +woman, he tells us, who did not make his home cheerful,--and honor and +decency forbade him to open his mouth on the subject that occupied his +heart. He wisely sought refuge in flight, and in other scenes the +natural exuberance of his disposition afforded a relief from the pangs +of an unlawful and secret passion. Lord Byron, who met him forty years +afterwards, in five lines shows us the man: if he was thus seen in the +dry wood, we can imagine what he was in the green:--"I thought Edgeworth +a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, +brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty,--no, nor +forty-eight even." He was in France when the death of his father left +him to the possession of a good estate,--and that of his wife occurring +in happy concurrence, he lost little time in opening in his own behalf +the communications that had failed when he spoke for Mr. Day. His wooing +was prosperous; in July, 1773, he married Miss Sneyd.</p> + +<p>It is a mistake, sanctioned by the constant acceptance of historians, to +suppose that it was this occasion that prompted André to abandon a +commercial life. The improbability of winning Honora's hand, and the +freedom with which she received the addresses of other men, undoubtedly +went far to convince him of the folly of sticking to trade with but one +motive; and so soon as he attained his majority, he left the desk and +stool forever, and entered the army. This was a long time before the +Edgeworth marriage was undertaken, or even contemplated.</p> + +<p>Lieutenant André of the Royal Fusileers had a very different line of +duty to perform from Mr. André, merchant, of Warnford Court, Throgmorton +Street; and the bustle of military life, doubtless, in some degree +diverted his mind from the disagreeable contemplation of what was +presently to occur at Lichfield. Some months were spent on the Continent +and among the smaller German courts about the Rhine. After all was over, +however, and the nuptial knot fairly tied that destroyed all his +youthful hopes, he is related to have made a farewell expedition to the +place of his former happiness. There, at least, he was sure to find one +sympathizing heart. Miss Seward, who had to the very last minute +contended with her friend against Mr. Edgeworth and in support of his +less fortunate predecessor, now met him with open arms. No pains were +spared by her to alleviate, since she could not remove, the +disappointment that evidently possessed him. A legend is preserved in +connection with this visit that is curious, though manifestly of very +uncertain credibility. It is said that an engagement had been made by +Miss Seward to introduce her friend to two gentlemen of some note in the +neighborhood, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Newton. On the appointed morning, +while awaiting their expected guests, Cunningham related to his +companion a vision--or rather, a series of visions--that had greatly +disturbed his previous night's repose. He was alone in a wide forest, he +said, when he perceived a rider approaching him. The horseman's +countenance was plainly visible, and its lines were of a character too +interesting to be readily forgotten. Suddenly three men sprang forth +from an ambush among the thickets, and, seizing the stranger, hauled him +from his horse and bore him away. To this succeeded another scene. He +stood with a great multitude near by some foreign town. A bustle was +heard, and he beheld the horseman of his earlier dream again led along a +captive. A gibbet was erected, and the prisoner was at once hanged. In +narrating this tale, Cunningham averred that the features of its hero +were still fresh in his recollection; the door opened, and in the face +of André, who at that moment presented himself, he professed to +recognize that which had so troubled his slumbers.</p> + +<p>Such is the tale that is recorded of the supernatural revelation of +André's fate. If it rested on somewhat better evidence than any we are +able to find in its favor, it would be at least more interesting. But +whether or no the young officer continued to linger in the spirit about +the spires of Lichfield and the romantic shades of Derbyshire, it is +certain that his fleshly part was moving in a very different direction. +In 1774, he embarked to join his regiment, then posted in Canada, and +arrived at Philadelphia early in the autumn of the year.</p> + +<p>It is not within the design of this paper to pursue to any length the +details of André's American career. Regimental duties in a country +district rarely afford matter worthy of particular record; and it is not +until the troubles of our Revolutionary War break out, that we find +anything of mark in his story. He was with the troops that Carleton sent +down, after the fall of Ticonderoga, to garrison Chambly and St. John's, +and to hold the passage of the Sorel against Montgomery and his little +army. With the fall of these forts, he went into captivity. There is too +much reason to believe that the imprisonment of the English on this +occasion was not alleviated by many exhibitions of generosity on the +part of their captors. Montgomery, indeed, was as humane and honorable +as he was brave; but he was no just type of his followers. The articles +of capitulation were little regarded, and the prisoners were, it would +seem, rapidly despoiled of their private effects. "I have been taken by +the Americans," wrote André, "and robbed of everything save the picture +of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving that, I think +myself happy." Sent into the remote parts of Pennsylvania, his +companions and himself met with but scant measure of courtesy from the +mountaineers of that region; nor was he exchanged for many long and +weary months. Once more free, however, his address and capacity soon +came to his aid. His reports and sketches speedily commended him to the +especial favor of the commander-in-chief, Sir William Howe; and ere long +he was promoted to a captaincy and made aide-de-camp to Sir Charles +Grey. This was a dashing, hard-fighting general of division, whose +element was close quarters and whose favorite argument was the cold +steel. If, therefore, André played but an inactive part at the +Brandywine, he had ample opportunity on other occasions of tasting the +excitement and the horrors of war. The night-surprises of Wayne at +Paoli, and of Baylor on the Hudson,--the scenes of Germantown and +Monmouth,--the reduction of the forts at Verplanck's Ferry, and the +forays led against New Bedford and the Vineyard,--all these familiarized +him with the bloody fruits of civil strife. But they never blunted for +one moment the keenness of his humanity, or warped those sentiments of +refinement and liberality that always distinguished him. Within the +limited range of his narrow sphere, he was constantly found the friend +and reliever of the wounded or captive Americans, and the protector and +benefactor of the followers of his own banner. Accomplished to a degree +in all the graces that adorn the higher circles of society, he was free +from most of their vices; and those who knew him well in this country +have remarked on the universal approbation of both sexes that followed +his steps, and the untouched heart that escaped so many shafts. Nor, +while foremost in the brilliant pleasures that distinguished the British +camp and made Philadelphia a Capua to Howe, was he ever known to descend +to the vulgar sports of his fellows. In the balls, the theatricals, the +picturesque <I>Mischianza</I>, he bore a leading hand; but his +affections, meanwhile, appear to have remained where they were earliest +and last bestowed. In our altered days, when marriage and divorce seem +so often interchangeable words, and loyal fidelity but an Old-World +phrase, ill-fashioned and out of date, there is something very +attractive in this hopeless constancy of an exiled lover.</p> + +<p>Beyond the seas, meanwhile, the object of this unfortunate attachment +was lending a happy and a useful life in the fulfilment of the various +duties of a wife, a mother, and a friend. Her husband was a large landed +proprietor, and in public spirit was inferior to no country-gentleman of +the kingdom. Many of his notions were fanciful enough, it must be +allowed; but they were all directed to the improvement and amelioration +of his native land and its people. In these pursuits, as well as in +those of learning, Mrs. Edgeworth was the active and useful coadjutor of +her husband; and it was probably to the desire of this couple to do +something that would make the instruction of their children a less +painful task than had been their own, that we are indebted for the +adaptation of the simpler rudiments of science to a childish dress. In +1778 they wrote together the First Part of "Harry and Lucy," and printed +a handful of copies in that largo black type which every one associates +with the first school-days of his childhood. From these pages she taught +her own children to read. The plan was communicated to Mr. Day, who +entered into it eagerly; and an educational library seemed about to be +prepared for the benefit of a far-away household in the heart of +Ireland. But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's +life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; +and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to +forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his +little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book +that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful +judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth +included "Harry and Lucy" in her "Early Lessons." It is thus a point to +be noticed, that nothing but the <I>res angusta domi</I>, the lack of +wealth, on the part of young André, was the cause of that series of +little volumes being produced by Miss Edgeworth, which so long held the +first place among the literary treasures of the nurseries of England and +America. Lazy Lawrence, Simple Susan, and a score more of excellently +conceived characters, might never have been called from chaos to +influence thousands of tender minds, but for André's narrow purse.</p> + +<p>The ravages of the insidious disease with which she was afflicted soon +came to an end; and after a term of wedlock as brief as it was +prosperous, Mrs. Edgeworth's dying couch was spread.--"I have every +blessing," she wrote, "and I am happy. The conversation of my beloved +husband, when my breath will let me have it, is my greatest delight: he +procures me every comfort, and, as he always said he thought he should, +contrives for me everything that can ease and assist my weakness,-- +<br><br> + "'Like a kind angel, whispers peace,<br> + And smooths the bed of death.'"</p> + +<p>Rightly viewed, the closing scenes in the life of this estimable woman +are not less solemn, not less impressive, than those of that memorable +day, when, with all the awful ceremonials of offended justice and the +stern pageantries of war, her lover died in the full glare of noonday +before the eyes of assembled thousands. He had played for a mighty +stake, and he had lost. He had perilled his life for the destruction of +our American empire, and he was there to pay the penalty: and surely +never, in all the annals of our race, has a man more gallantly yielded +up his forfeited breath, or under circumstances more impressive. He +perished regretted alike by friend and foe; and perhaps not one of the +throng that witnessed his execution but would have rejoicingly hailed a +means of reconciling his pardon with the higher and inevitable duties +which they owed to the safety of the army and the existence of the +state. And in the aspect which the affair has since taken, who can say +that André's fate has been entirely unfortunate? He drank out the wine +of life while it was still sparkling and foaming and bright in his cup: +he tasted none of the bitterness of its lees till almost his last sun +had risen. When he was forever parted from the woman whom he loved, a +new, but not an earthly mistress succeeded to the vacant throne; and +thenceforth the love of glory possessed his heart exclusively. And how +rarely has a greater lustre attached to any name than to his! His bones +are laid with those of the wisest and mightiest of the land; the +gratitude of monarchs cumbers the earth with his sepulchral honors; and +his memory is consecrated in the most eloquent pages of the history not +only of his own country, but of that which sent him out of existence. +Looked upon thus, death might have been welcomed by him as a benefit +rather than dreaded as a calamity, and the words applied by Cicero to +the fate of Crassus be repeated with fresh significancy,--"<I>Mors +dortata quam vita erepta</I>."</p> + +<p>The same year that carries on its records the date of André's fall +witnessed the death of a second Honora Edgeworth, the only surviving +daughter of Honora Sneyd. She is represented as having inherited all the +beauty, all the talents of her mother. The productions of her pen and +pencil seem to justify this assertion, so far as the precocity of such a +mere child may warrant the ungarnered fruits of future years. But with +her parent's person she received the frailties of its constitution; and, +ere girlhood had fairly opened upon her way of life, she succumbed to +the same malady that had wrecked her mother.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<br> + +<h2>WE SHALL RISE AGAIN.</h2> +<p> + We know the spirit shall not taste of death:<br> + Earth bids her elements,<br> + "Turn, turn again to me!"<br> + But to the soul, unto the soul, she saith,<br> + "Flee, alien, flee!"<br> +<br> + And circumstance of matter what doth weigh?<br> + Oh! not the height and depth of this to know<br> + But reachings of that grosser element,<br> + Which, entered in and clinging to it so,<br> + With earthlier earthiness than dwells in clay,<br> + Can drag the spirit down, that, looking up,<br> + Sees, through surrounding shades of death and time,<br> + With solemn wonder, and with new-born hope,<br> + The dawning glories of its native clime;<br> + And inly swell such mighty floods of love,<br> + Unutterable longing and desire,<br> + For that celestial, blessed home above,<br> + The soul springs upward like the mounting fire,<br> + Up, through the lessening shadows on its way,<br> + While, in its raptured vision, grows more clear<br> + The calm, the high, illimitable day<br> + To which it draws more near and yet more near.<br> + Draws near? Alas! its brief, its waning strength<br> + Upward no more the fetters' weight can bear:<br> + It falters,--pauses,--sinks; and, sunk at length,<br> + Plucks at its chain in frenzy and despair.<br> +<br> + Not forever fallen! Not in eternal prison!<br> + No! hell with fire of pain<br> + Melteth apart its chain;<br> + Heaven doth once more constrain:<br> + It hath arisen!<br> +<br> + And never, never again, thus to fall low?<br> + Ah, no!<br> + Terror, Remorse, and Woe,<br> + Vainly they pierced it through with many sorrows;<br> + Hell shall regain it,--thousand times regain it;<br> + But can detain it<br> + Only awhile from ruthful Heaven's to-morrows.<br> +<br> + That sin is suffering,<br> + It knows,--it knows this thing;<br> + And yet it courts the sting<br> + That deeply pains it;<br> + It knows that in the cup<br> + The sweet is but a sup,<br> + That Sorrow fills it up,<br> + And who drinks drains it.<br> +<br> + It knows; who runs may read.<br> + But, when the fetters dazzle, heaven's far joy seems dim;<br> + And 'tis not life but so to be inwound.<br> + A little while, and then--behold it bleed<br> + With madness of its throes to be unbound!<br> +<br> + It knows. But when the sudden stress<br> + Of passion is resistlessness,<br> + It drags the flood that sweeps away,<br> + For anchorage, or hold, or stay,<br> + Or saving rock of stableness,<br> + And there is none,--<br> + No underlying fixedness to fasten on:<br> + Unsounded depths; unsteadfast seas;<br> + Wavering, yielding, bottomless depths:<br> + But these!<br> +<br> + Yea, sometimes seemeth gone<br> + The Everlasting Arm we lean upon!<br> +<br> + So blind, as well as maimed and halt and lame,<br> + What sometimes makes it see?<br> + Oppressed with guilt and gnawed upon of shame,<br> + What comes upon it so,<br> + Faster and faster stealing,<br> + Flooding it like an air or sea<br> + Of warm and golden feeling?<br> + What makes it melt,<br> + Dissolving from the earthiness that made it hard and heavy?<br> + What makes it melt and flow,<br> + And melt and melt and flow,--<br> + Till light, clear-shining through its heart of dew,<br> + Makes all things new?<br> +<br> + Loosed from the spirit of infirmity, listen its cry.<br> + "Was it I that longed for oblivion,<br> + O wonderful Love! was it I,<br> + That deep in its easeful water<br> + My wounded soul might lie?<br> + That over the wounds and anguish<br> + The easeful flood might roll?<br> + A river of loving-kindness<br> + Has healed and hidden the whole.<br> + Lo! in its pitiful bosom<br> + Vanish the sins of my youth,--<br> + Error and shame and backsliding<br> + Lost in celestial ruth.<br> +<br> + "O grace too great!<br> + O excellency of my new estate!<br> +<br> + "No more, for the friends that love me,<br> + I shall veil my face or grieve<br> + Because love outrunneth deserving;<br> + I shall be as they believe.<br> + And I shall be strong to help them,<br> + Filled of Thy fulness with stores<br> + Of comfort and hope and compassion.<br> + Oh, upon all my shores,<br> + With the waters with which Thou dost flood me,<br> + Bid me, my Father, o'erflow!<br> + Who can taste Thy divineness,<br> + Nor hunger and thirst to bestow?<br> + Send me, oh, send me!<br> + The wanderers let me bring!<br> + The thirsty let me show<br> + Where the rivers of gladness spring,<br> + And fountains of mercy flow!<br> + How in the hills shall they sit and sing,<br> + With valleys of peace below!"<br> +<br> + Oh that the keys of our hearts the angels would bear in their bosoms!<br> + For revelation fades and fades away,<br> + Dream-like becomes, and dim, and far-withdrawn;<br> + And evening comes to find the soul a prey,<br> + That was caught up to visions at the dawn;<br> + Sword of the spirit,--still it sheathes in rust,<br> + And lips of prophecy are sealed with dust.<br> +<br> + High lies the better country,<br> + The land of morning and perpetual spring;<br> + But graciously the warder<br> + Over its mountain-border<br> + Leans to us, beckoning,--bids us, "Come up hither!"<br> + And though we climb with step unfixed and slow,<br> + From visioning heights of hope we look off thither,<br> + And we must go.<br> +<br> + And we shall go! And we shall go!<br> + We shall not always weep and wander so,--<br> + Not always in vain,<br> + By merciful pain,<br> + Be upcast from the hell we seek again!<br> + How shall we,<br> + Whom the stars draw so, and the uplifting sea?<br> + Answer, thou Secret Heart! how shall it be,<br> + With all His infinite promising in thee?<br> +<br> + Beloved! beloved! not cloud and fire alone<br> + From bondage and the wilderness restore<br> + And guide the wandering spirit to its own;<br> + But all His elements, they go before:<br> + Upon its way the seasons bring,<br> + And hearten with foreshadowing<br> + The resurrection-wonder,<br> + What lands of death awake to sing<br> + And germs of hope swell under;<br> + And full and fine, and full and fine,<br> + The day distils life's golden wine;<br> + And night is Palace Beautiful, peace-chambered.<br> + All things are ours; and life fills up of them<br> + Such measure as we hold.<br> + For ours beyond the gate,<br> + The deep things, the untold,<br> + We only wait.</p> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br><br> +<h2>THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.</h2> +<br><br> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> +<br><br> + +<h2>THE WILD HUNTSMAN.</h2> + +<p>The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. Without +attributing any great importance to the warning he had given him, Mr. +Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was becoming a +pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as good as many +others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after the first +few days.</p> + +<p>The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the back-yard of the Institute +was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about in +Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not easily +stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, +but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. +It soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful +shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at +three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; +some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and +that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other +words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, +as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, +however innocent he may be of them.</p> + +<p>In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this +time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the +population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for +want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the +Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he +can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's +version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, +as far as he could see the white of it.</p> + +<p>Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing +more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster +too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant +work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did +not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in +his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,--a robber, +say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; +long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with +the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he +could do as a marksman.</p> + +<p>The nature of the mark that Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from +an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially +abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some +practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to +render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet +way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was +very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; +rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's ears, +if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick satisfied himself +that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance +of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there happened to be anything +behind it, the glass would not materially alter the force or direction +of the bullet.</p> + +<p>About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want of +practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and +regain its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For his +first trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and after +the hour when the Rockland people were like to be stirring abroad. He +was so far established now that he could do much as he pleased without +exciting remark.</p> + +<p>The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, +had been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be remembered, +he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long strip of hide +with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been accustomed to playing +with such a thong from his boyhood, and had become expert in its use in +capturing wild cattle in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately, +there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in the neighborhood, to +become the subjects of his skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a +horse in a pasture, must serve his turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks +to aim at, at any rate.</p> + +<p>Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the +lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the +silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving +a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale +explosion,--is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm +the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest +with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost +naked <i>retiarius</i> with his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin +in the other. Once get a net over a man's head, or a cord round his +neck, or, what is more frequently done nowadays, <i>bonnet</i> him by +knocking his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his +opponent. Our soldiers who served against the Mexicans found this out +too well. Many a poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from +the plains, and fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him +in the fatal noose.</p> + +<p>But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might have +been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky mother +who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately along the +road, laying the dust, as she went, with thready streams from her +swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the windmill!" said +Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the lasso round his head as +he rode. The creature swerved to one side of the way, as the wild horse +and his rider came rushing down upon her, and presently turned and ran, +as only cows and--it wouldn't be safe to say it--can run. Just before he +passed,--at twenty or thirty feet from her,--the lasso shot from his +hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in an instant its loop was round her +horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as he galloped up to her side and +dexterously disengaged the lasso. "Now for a horse on the run!"</p> + +<p>He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at the +roadside. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove the +horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young animal enough, +and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew more and +more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, until the two horses +stretched themselves out in their longest strides. If the first feat +looked like play, the one he was now to attempt had a good deal the +appearance of real work. He touched the mustang with the spur, and in a +few fierce leaps found himself nearly abreast of the frightened animal +he was chasing. Once more he whirled the lasso round and round over his +head, and then shot it forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from +the loops against which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, +and in another instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. +The prairie horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the +captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and +the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble +and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a +thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was +enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet +snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and rode slowly +along towards the mansion-house.</p> + +<p>The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as he +now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the grand +mountain-screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern blasts, +rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high +towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square chimneys, and +bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared +gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings,--the beds of +flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in its centre +bearing a sun-dial on which the rays of the moon were idly shining, +another with a white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over all these +objects, harmonized with all their infinite details into one fair whole +by the moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed himself, looked +with admiring eyes.</p> + +<p>But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from a +poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of the +inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. Every day +this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up to +that place,--that usher's girltrap. Every day,--regularly now,--it used +to be different. Did she go only to get out of his, her cousin's, reach? +Was she not rather becoming more and more involved in the toils of this +plotting Yankee?</p> + +<p>If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in advance, +the chances are that in less than one minute he would have found himself +with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted horseman. +Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse +quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded towards the +house. He got to his bed without disturbing the family, but could not +sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of his mind that a deep +intrigue was going on which would end by bringing Elsie and the +schoolmaster into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With that +ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy, he tortured every +circumstance of the last few weeks so as to make it square with this +belief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed to a consideration +of every possible method by which the issue he feared might be avoided.</p> + +<p>Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these inward +colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be done then? +First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which should put a +complete and final check upon his projects and contrivances. The +particular accident which might interrupt his career must, evidently, be +determined by circumstances; but it must be of a nature to explain +itself without the necessity of any particular person's becoming +involved in the matter. It would be unpleasant to go into particulars; +but everybody knows well enough that men sometimes get in the way of a +stray bullet, and that young persons occasionally do violence to +themselves in various modes,--by fire-arms, suspension, and other +means,--in consequence of disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than +from other motives. There was still another kind of accident which might +serve his purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the +most natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his +nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, Uncle Dudley +should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, where would +he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication which he could +conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not help noticing--that +his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much +pleased with, that young woman from the school. What did that mean? Was +it possible that he was going to take a fancy to her?</p> + +<p>It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might +defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his +grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: sometimes at that +of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the +meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that +of the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that +of his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to +peril the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection. It was +a frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no +one single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the +fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If +it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one +person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make +that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that +a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered +the case.</p> + +<p>His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes arranging +plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, sometimes +getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of considering +what object he should select as the one most clearly in his way. On the +whole, there could be no doubt where the most threatening of all his +embarrassments lay. It was in the probable growing relation between +Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should prove, as it seemed likely, +that there was springing up a serious attachment tending to a union +between them, he knew what he should do, if he was not quite so sure how +he should do it.</p> + +<p>There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, +at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet +observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: +whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under +what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with +him might be reckoned on, in case it should be desirable. He could also +very probably learn some facts about Elsie: whether the young man was in +the habit of attending her on her way home from school; whether she +stayed about the school-room after the other girls had gone; and any +incidental matters of interest which might present themselves.</p> + +<p>He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A mad +gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a fancy to +him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in her talk, +for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of some of his +earlier friends, the <i>señoritas</i>,--all these were distractions, to be +sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in +longings for more dangerous excitements. The thought of getting a +knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he would be in his power at +any moment, was a happy one.</p> + +<p>For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, +to watch her until she got to the school-house. One day he saw Mr. +Bernard join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only once +this happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart from the +groups of girls who strolled out of the school-house yard in company. +Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. Could she +have stayed to meet the schoolmaster?</p> + +<p>If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have liked +to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding between +her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. But this was +beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content himself with +such cautious observations as could be made at a distance. With the aid +of a pocket-glass he could make out persons without the risk of being +observed himself.</p> + +<p>Mr. Silas Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off duty +or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. Sometimes Mr. +Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go out for a ramble +in the day-time; but more frequently it would be in the evening, after +the hour of "retiring," as bed-time was elegantly termed by the young +ladies of the Apollinean Institute. He would then not unfrequently walk +out alone in the common roads, or climb up the sides of The Mountain, +which seemed to be one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it was +impossible to follow him with the eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, +gnawing suspicion that somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster +might meet Elsie, whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this +he was not able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present +plans, and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk one +evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. Presently +a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a wooded bank, some +thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick Venner could see the +interior of the chamber, and watch the master as he sat at his desk, the +light falling strongly upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript +before him. Dick contemplated him very long in this attitude. The sense +of watching his every motion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was +delicious. How little the master was thinking what eyes were on him!</p> + +<p>Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he chose, +he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in a more +solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an evening or +two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he sat at his +desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be very little +difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, silence is always +preferable to noise, and there is a great difference in the marks left +by different casualties. Very likely nothing would come of all this +espionage; but, at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man you +want to have in your power is to learn his habits.</p> + +<p>Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful +and moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. It +was the working of her jealousy against that young school-girl to whom +the master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the heiress of +the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to exasperate her +irritable nature against him, and in this way to render her more +accessible to his own advances? It was difficult to influence her at +all. She endured his company without seeming to enjoy it. She watched +him with that strange look of hers, sometimes as if she were on her +guard against him, sometimes as if she would like to strike at him as in +that fit of childish passion. She ordered him about with a haughty +indifference which reminded him of his own way with the dark-eyed women +whom he had known so well of old. All this added a secret pleasure to +the other motives he had for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He +knew she brooded silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that +she fed on it, as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her +veins,--and that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself +was not likely the second time to be the object, or in some deadly +vengeance wrought secretly, against which he would keep a sharp +look-out, so far as he was concerned, she had no outlet for her +dangerous, smouldering passions.</p> + +<p>Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, there +is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to listen to +her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental,--then, +if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few heartfuls of wild blood +in her, and you have done her a wrong,--double-bolt the door which she +may enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,--look twice before you taste +of any cup whose draught the shadow of her hand may have darkened!</p> + +<p>But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives in +the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is tired, +she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of coffee +from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment.</p> + +<p>So, if she can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her +wickedness will run off through her throat or the tips of her fingers. +How many tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades +and strenuous bravuras! How many murders are executed in double-quick +time upon the keys which stab the air with their dagger-strokes of +sound! What would our civilization be without the piano? Are not Erard +and Broadwood and Chickering the true humanizers of our time? Therefore +do I love to hear the all-pervading <i>tum tum</i> jarring the walls of +little parlors in houses with double door-plates on their portals, +looking out on streets and courts which to know is to be unknown, and +where to exist is not to live, according to any true definition of +living. Therefore complain I not of modern degeneracy, when, even from +the open window of the small unlovely farm-house, tenanted by the +hard-handed man of bovine flavors and the flat-patterned woman of +broken-down countenance, issue the same familiar sounds. For who knows +that Almira, but for these keys, which throb away her wild impulses in +harmless discords, would not have been floating, dead, in the brown +stream which runs through the meadows by her father's door,--or living, +with that other current which runs beneath the gas-lights over the slimy +pavement, choking with wretched weeds that were once in spotless flower?</p> + +<p>Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner life +in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as common +articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be in action. +Watch her well by day and by night, Old Sophy! watch her well! or the +long line of her honored name may close in shame, and the stately +mansion of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till its roof is +buried in its cellar!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br><br> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> +<br> + +<h2>ON HIS TRACKS.</h2> + +<p>"Abel!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?"</p> + +<p>Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will you" +did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of rounding +the corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the personal +independence of an American citizen.</p> + +<p>The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. His +face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the +Doctor's eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which looked +as if he had something to communicate.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest happened +daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' the gate on +that queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very +slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. +He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn +to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a +pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be +all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' +raoun' the Institoot for, after folks is abed."</p> + +<p>"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor.</p> + +<p>"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be +pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' +want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me +like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits +ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know what +hurts ye."</p> + +<p>"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any such +weapon about him?"</p> + +<p>"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks kin' +o' dangerous. May-be he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't say that +he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raoun' jest 'z ef he +wuz spyin' somebody; 'n' somehaow I caan't help mistrustin' them +Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caa'n't keep the run o' this chap all the +time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown't the mansion-haouse +knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody."</p> + +<p>The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his private +detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in +the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from +the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. +He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a +shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the +schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had +cautioned Mr. Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt an interest in the +young man,--a student of his own profession, an intelligent and +ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been thrown by accident +into the companionship or the neighborhood of two person, one of whom he +knew to be dangerous, and the other he believed instinctively might be +capable of crime.</p> + +<p>The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of +seeing Old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen. +He began talking with her as a physician; he wanted to know how her +rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw though all that with her +little beady black eyes. It was something quite different he had come +for, and Old Sophy answered very briefly for her aches and ails.</p> + +<p>"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the Lord's +doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sh'n't be long roun' this kitchen. +It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it's our Elsie,--it's the baby, as we +use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen year ago, 'n' +her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where is she? Let me see +her!'--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run then,--'n' got the coral +necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, 'n' then showed her to her +mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, 'n' looked, 'n' then put out +her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the necklace,--'n' fell right back on +her piller, as white as though she was laid out to bury?"</p> + +<p>The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He had +never chosen to let Old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious +reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual fears and +prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it.</p> + +<p>"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief pause.</p> + +<p>The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply.</p> + +<p>The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the +glasses through which he now saw her.</p> + +<p>Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision.</p> + +<p>"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from +the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three +times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!"</p> + +<p>"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in +his tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a +certain tendency to belief in the superstition to which the +question refers.</p> + +<p>"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, as +if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it was +somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' +people,--like the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor +chil', 'n' take care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared she'll +never live to see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick."</p> + +<p>Poor Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not +unnaturally, somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of the +Second-Advent preachers had been about, and circulated their predictions +among the kitchen-population of Rockland. This was the way in which it +happened that she mingled her fears in such a strange manner with their +doctrines.</p> + +<p>The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, but +it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in the +household different from common?"</p> + +<p>Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, when +she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her +infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of +observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather +looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor +was a mighty conjuror, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She +had relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the +Doctor was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them +through all their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She +had but one real object of affection in the world,--this child that she +had tended from infancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick +round her; how soon they would break upon her, and blight or destroy +her, no one could tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue of +terrors that might not come upon the household at any moment. Her own +wits had sharpened themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her +face had forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to +its features.</p> + +<p>"Doctor," Old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by night +and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked him. He +giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I know it make +him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he needn' feel as if I +didn' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as much as a member o' +the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody."</p> + +<p>Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to Mr. +Richard Venner might perhaps go a little farther than the Christian +limit she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather was in the +habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the last enemy he +had bagged, and that her grandmother's teeth were filed down to points, +so that they were as sharp as a shark's.</p> + +<p>"What is it that you have seen about Mr. Richard Venner that gives you +such a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"What I' seen 'bout Dick Venner?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell y' +what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that's what he wan's; 'n' +he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as I hate him! +He wan's to marry our Elsie, 'n' live here in the big house, 'n' have +nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch Massa Venner 'n' see how long +'t 'll take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die fas' 'nuff, help him some way +t' die fasser!--Come close up t' me, Doctor! I wan' t' tell you +somethin' I tol' th' minister t'other day. Th' minister, he come down +'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, +'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie,--but he didn' tell nobody what to +do to stop all what I been dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to +me, Doctor!"</p> + +<p>The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman.</p> + +<p>"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's long 's she lives! +Nobody mus'n' never live with Elsie but Ol' Sophy; 'n' Ol' Sophy won't +never die 's long 's Elsie's alive to be took care of. But I 's feared, +Doctor, I 's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. The' 's a +young gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of 'em tells +me,--'n' she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she talks about him +when she's asleep sometimes. She mus'n' never marry nobody, Doctor! If +she do, he die, certain!"</p> + +<p>"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the +Doctor said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from Dick."</p> + +<p>"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but Ol' Sophy. She no like any +other creatur' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' marry one +man cos she love him, she marry another man cos she hate him."</p> + +<p>"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it."</p> + +<p>"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said Old Sophy, with a flash +of strange intelligence in her eyes.</p> + +<p>The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could not +know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange +superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had +better follow Sophy's lead and find out what she meant.</p> + +<p>"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. "You +don't mean that she has any ugly thing about her, except--you +know--under the necklace?"</p> + +<p>The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her darling.</p> + +<p>"I didn' say she had nothin'--but jes' that--you know. My beauty have +anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever had a +shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't like no +other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh like other +women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as other women.--Do +you know that young gen'l'm'n up at the school, Doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young man, +handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell me, +Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to fall in +love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?"</p> + +<p>"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a little to +the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all."</p> + +<p>"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she +would have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, if +anybody can."</p> + +<p>"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live wi' +Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but Ol' Sophy, +I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, if Dick +Venner die? He wan's to marry our Elsie so's to live in the big house +'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the chists full +o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes! That's what Dick wan's. An' he hates +Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marries Elsie, she'll make him +die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her 'n' hang her, or he'll +get mad with her 'n' choke her.--Oh, I know his chokin' tricks!--he don' +leave his keys roun' for nothin'!"</p> + +<p>"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that."</p> + +<p>So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his +chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it +to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of +inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather +thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, +which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at +least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search; but Old Sophy considered +that a game of life and death was going on in the household, and that +she was bound to look out for her darling.</p> + +<p>The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of information. +Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use this +mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was certainly +very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom of his trunk. +The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something about the <i>lasso</i> and +the <i>lariat</i> and the <i>bolas</i>, and had an indistinct idea that they had +been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or private revenge; but they +were essentially a huntsman's implements, after all, and it was not very +strange that this young man had brought one of them with him. Not +strange, perhaps, but worth noting.</p> + +<p>"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, he +never let nobody else have her. Oh, Dick's a dark man, Doctor! I know +him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunnin'. I think +he mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,--come in +softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I hear the +cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Venner, when he comes up +in his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean mischief to +somebody. I no like his looks these las' days.--Is that a very pooty +gen'l'm'n up at the school-house, Doctor?"</p> + +<p>"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?"</p> + +<p>"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus'n' never marry nobody,--but, +oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little how it +would ha' been, if the Lord hadn' been so hard on Elsie."</p> + +<p>She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left her +a moment to her thoughts.</p> + +<p>"And how does Mr. Dudley Venner take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Massa Venner, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, as +Ol' Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, 'n' +set by her sometime when she 'sleep; I come to her in th' mornin' 'n' +help her put on her things."--Then, in a whisper,--"Doctor, Elsie lets +Ol' Sophy take off that necklace for her. What you think she do, 'f +anybody else tech it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her hands, Doctor!"--The old woman's +significant pantomime must be guessed at.</p> + +<p>"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Venner thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry Elsie."</p> + +<p>"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout +what goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you +know,--sort o' giv' up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say +'Yes, yes.' Dick always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. One +time I thought Massa Venner b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to Elsie; but +now he don' seem to take much notice;--he kin' o' stupid-like 'bout sech +things. It's trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Venner bright man +naterally,--'n' he's got a great heap o' books. I don' think Massa +Venner never been jes' heself sence Elsie's born. He done all he know +how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a great deal. You men-folks don' know +nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' 'f you knowed all the young gals +that ever lived, y' wouldn' know nothin' 'bout our Elsie."</p> + +<p>"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. Venner +has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has any notion +that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels safe to have +him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him."</p> + +<p>"Lor' bless you, Doctor, Massa Venner no more idee 'f any mischief 'bout +Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long wi' +us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' ol' +family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby,--y' +never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care for +nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. The +fus' year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the window +'n' look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the baby's neck +'n' say, '<i>It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it?</i>' 'n' then go down in the study +'n' walk 'n' walk, 'n' then kneel down 'n' pray. Doctor, there was two +places in the old carpet that was all threadbare, where his knees had +worn 'em. An sometimes,--you remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up +into The Mountain 'n' be gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he +could find up there.--Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them +days!--An' by-'n'-by he grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, +'n' 't las' he got's quiet 's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I +think he's got religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's +goin' on, 'n' I don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' +happens;--for the' 's somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day +doesn' come to stop it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my +poor Elsie, my baby that the Lord hasn' took care of like all his +other childer."</p> + +<p>The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal about +them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her own. Let +her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a look-out +elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know at once. +Send up one of the men-servants, and he would come down at a +moment's warning.</p> + +<p>There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the Doctor +was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He rode +straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had a brief +conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his personal +interests.</p> + +<p>That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place of +his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night Mr. +Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back among +the fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a dozen +of it.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br><br> +<h2>A PLEA FOR FREEDOM FROM SPEECH AND FIGURES +OF SPEECH-MAKERS.</h2> +<br> + +<p>I observe, Messieurs of the "Atlantic," that your articles are commonly +written in the imperial style; but I must beg allowance to use the first +person singular. I cannot, like old Weller, spell myself with a We. Ours +is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the +worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal +pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. +Other tongues have, or pretend, a greater modesty.</p> + +<h2>I.</h2> + +<p>What a noble letter it is! In it every reader sees himself as in a +glass. As for me, without my I-s, I should be as poorly off as the great +mole of Hadrian, which, being the biggest, must be also, by parity of +reason, the blindest in the world. When I was in college, I confess I +always liked those passages best in the choruses of the Greek drama +which were well sprinkled with <i>ai ai</i>, they were so grandly simple. The +force of great men is generally to be found in their intense +individuality,--in other words, it is all in their I. The merit of this +essay will be similar.</p> + +<p>What I was going to say is this.</p> + +<p>My mind has been much exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, +which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun +to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and +Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human +habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind. We had hitherto got on very +well in Chesumpscot, having caught a trick of silence, perhaps from the +fish which we cured, <i>more medicorum</i>, by laying them out. But this +summer some misguided young men among us got up a lecture-association. +Of course it led to a general quarrel; for every pastor in the town +wished to have the censorship of the list of lecturers. A certain number +of the original projectors, however, took the matter wholly into their +own hands, raised a subscription to pay expenses, and resolved to call +their lectures "The Universal Brotherhood Course,"--for no other reason, +that I can divine, but that they had set the whole village by the ears. +They invited that distinguished young apostle of Reform, Mr. Philip +Vandal, to deliver the opening lecture. He has just done so, and, from +what I have heard about his discourse, it would have been fitter as the +introductory to a nunnery of Kilkenny cats than to anything like +universal brotherhood. He opened our lyceum as if it had been an oyster, +without any regard for the feelings of those inside. He pitched into the +world in general, and all his neighbors past and present in particular. +Even the babe unborn did not escape some unsavory epithets in the way of +vaticination. I sat down, meaning to write you an essay on "The Right of +Private Judgment as distinguished from the Right of Public +Vituperation"; but I forbear. It may be that I do not understand the +nature of philanthropy.</p> + +<p>Why, here is Philip Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that +he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of +them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is +worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (<i>a +knurly</i>) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway +once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's shop. I like dealers in +out-of-the-way things,--traders in bigotry and virtue are too +common,--and so I went in. The gem of the collection was a terrier,--a +perfect beauty, uglier than philanthropy itself, and hairier, as a +Cockney would say, than the 'ole British hairystocracy. "A'n't he a +stunner?" said my disrespectable friend, the master of the shop. "Ah, +you should see him worry a rat! He does it like a puffic Christian!" +Since then, the world has been divided for me into Christians and +perfect Christians; and I find so many of the latter species in +proportion to the former, that I begin to pity the rats. They (the rats) +have at least one virtue,--they are not eloquent.</p> + +<p>It is, I think, a universally recognized truth of natural history, that +a young lady is sure to fall in love with a young man for whom she feels +at first an unconquerable aversion; and it must be on the same principle +that the first symptoms of love for our neighbor almost always manifest +themselves in a violent disgust at the world in general, on the part of +the apostles of that gospel. They give every token of hating their +neighbors consumedly; <I>argal</I>, they are going to be madly enamored +of them. Or, perhaps, this is the manner in which Universal Brotherhood +shows itself in people who wilfully subject themselves to infection as a +prophylactic. In the natural way we might find the disease inconvenient +and even expensive; but thus vaccinated with virus from the udders +(whatever they may be) that yield the (butter-)milk of human kindness, +the inconvenience is slight, and we are able still to go about our +ordinary business of detesting our brethren as usual. It only shows that +the milder type of the disease has penetrated the system, which will +thus be enabled to out-Jenneral its more dangerous congener. Before long +we shall have physicians of our ailing social system writing to the +"Weekly Brandreth's Pill" somewhat on this wise:--"I have a very marked +and hopeful case in Pequawgus Four Corners. Miss Hepzibah Tarbell, +daughter of that arch-enemy of his kind, Deacon Joash T., attended only +one of my lectures. In a day or two the symptoms of eruption were most +encouraging. She has already quarrelled with all her family,--accusing +her father of bigamy, her uncle Benoni of polytheism, her brother Zeno +C. of aneurism, and her sister Eudoxy Trithemia of the variation of the +magnetic needle. If ever hopes of seeing a perfect case of Primitive +Christian were well-founded, I think we may entertain them now."</p> + +<p>What I chiefly object to in the general denunciation sort of reformers +is that they make no allowance for character and temperament. They wish +to repeal universal laws, and to patch our natural skins for us, as if +they always wanted mending. That while they talk so much of the godlike +nature of man, they should so forget the human natures of men! The +Flathead Indian squeezes the child's skull between two boards till it +shapes itself into a kind of gambrel-roof against the rain,--the +readiest way, perhaps, of uniforming a tribe that wear no clothes. But +does he alter the inside of the head? Not a hair's-breadth. You remember +the striking old gnomic poem that tells how Aaron, in a moment of +fanatical zeal against that member by which mankind are so readily led +into mischief, proposes a rhinotomic sacrifice to Moses? What is the +answer of the experienced lawgiver? +<br><br> + "Says Moses to Aaron,<br> + ''Tis the fashion to wear 'em!'"<br> +<br> +Shall we advise the Tadpole to get his tail cut off, as a badge of the +reptile nature in him, and to achieve the higher sphere of the Croakers +at a single hop? Why, it is all he steers by; without it, he would be as +helpless as a compass under the flare of Northern Lights; and he no +doubt regards it as a mark of blood, the proof of his kinship with the +preadamite family of the Saurians. Shall we send missionaries to the +Bear to warn him against raw chestnuts, because they are sometimes so +discomforting to our human intestines, which are so like his own? One +sermon from the colic were worth the whole American Board.</p> + +<p>Moreover, as an author, I protest in the name of universal Grub Street +against a unanimity in goodness. Not to mention that a Quaker world, all +faded out to an autumnal drab, would be a little tedious,--what should +we do for the villain of our tragedy or novel? No rascals, no +literature. You have your choice. Were we weak enough to consent to a +sudden homogeneousness in virtue, many industrious persons would be +thrown out of employment. The wife and mother, for example, with as +indeterminate a number of children as the Martyr Rogers, who visits me +monthly,--what claim would she have upon me, were not her husband +forever taking to drink, or the penitentiary, or Spiritualism? The +pusillanimous lapse of her lord into morality would not only take the +very ground of her invention from under her feet, but would rob her and +him of an income that sustains them both in blissful independence of the +curse of Adam. But do not let us be disheartened. Nature is strong; she +is persistent; she completes her syllogism after we have long been +feeding the roots of her grasses, and has her own way in spite of us. +Some ancestral Cromwellian trooper leaps to life again in Nathaniel +Greene, and makes a general of him, to confute five generations of +Broadbrims. The Puritans were good in their way, and we enjoy them +highly as a preterite phenomenon: but they were <i>not</i> good at cakes and +ale, and that is one reason why they are a preterite phenomenon.</p> + +<p>I suppose we are all willing to let a public censor like P.V. run amuck +whenever he likes,--so it be not down our street. I confess to a good +deal of tolerance in this respect, and, when I live in Number 21, have +plenty of stoicism to spare for the griefs of the dwellers in No. 23. +Indeed, I agreed with our young Cato heartily in what he said about +Statues. We must have an Act for the Suppression, either of Great Men, +or else of Sculptors. I have not quite made up my mind which are the +greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of +both. They used to be <i>rare</i>, (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett,) +but nowadays they are overdone. I am half-inclined to think that the +sculptors club together to write folks up during their lives in the +newspapers, quieting their consciences with the hope of some day making +them look so mean in bronze or marble as to make all square again. Or do +we really have so many? Can't they help growing twelve feet high in this +new soil, any more than our maize? I suspect that Posterity will not +thank us for the hereditary disease of Carrara we are entailing on him, +and will try some heroic remedy, perhaps lithotripsy.</p> + +<p>Nor was I troubled by what Mr. Vandal said about the late Benjamin +Webster. I am not a Boston man, and have, therefore, the privilege of +thinking for myself. Nor do I object to his claiming for women the right +to make books and pictures and (shall I say it?) statues,--only this +last becomes a grave matter, if we are to have statues of all the great +women, too! To be sure, there will not be the trousers-difficulty,--at +least, not at present; what we may come to is none of my affair. I even +go beyond him in my opinions on what is called the Woman Question. In +the gift of speech, they have always had the advantage of us; and though +the jealousy of the other sex have deprived us of the orations of +Xantippe, yet even Demosthenes does not seem to have produced greater +effects, if we may take the word of Socrates for it,--as I, for one, +very gladly do.</p> + +<p>No,--what I complain of is not the lecturer's opinions, but the +eloquence with which he expressed them. He does not like statues better +than I do; but is it possible that he fails to see that the one nuisance +leads directly to the other, and that we set up three images of Talkers +for one to any kind of man who was useful in his generation? Let him +beware, or he will himself be petrified after death. Boston seems to be +specially unfortunate. She has more statues and more speakers than any +other city on this continent. I have with my own eyes seen a book called +"The Hundred Boston Orators." This would seem to give her a fairer title +to be called the <i>tire</i> than the <i>hub</i> of creation. What with the +speeches of her great men while they are alive, and those of her +surviving great men about those aforesaid after they are dead, and those +we look forward to from her <i>ditto ditto</i> yet to be upon her <i>ditto +ditto</i> now in being, and those of her paulopost <i>ditto ditto</i> upon her +<i>ditto ditto</i> yet to be, and those--But I am getting into the house +that Jack built. And yet I remember once visiting the Massachusetts +State-House and being struck with the Pythagorean fish hung on high in +the Representatives' Chamber, the emblem of a silence too sacred, as +would seem, to be observed except on Sundays. Eloquent Philip Vandal, I +appeal to you as a man and a brother, let us two form (not an +Antediluvian, for there are plenty, but) an Antidiluvian Society against +the flood of milk-and-water that threatens the land. Let us adopt as our +creed these two propositions:--</p> + +<p>I. <i>Tongues were given us to be held.</i></p> + +<p>II. <i>Dumbness sets the brute below the man: Silence elevates the man +above the brute.</i></p> + +<p>Every one of those hundred orators is to me a more fearful thought than +that of a hundred men gathering samphire. And when we take into account +how large a portion of them (if the present mania hold) are likely to be +commemorated in stone or some even more durable material, the conception +is positively stunning. Let us settle all scores by subscribing to a +colossal statue of the late Town-Crier in bell-metal, with the +inscription, "VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL," as a comprehensive tribute to +oratorical powers in general. <i>He</i>, at least, never betrayed his +clients. As it is, there is no end to it. We are to set up Horatius Vir +in effigy for inventing the Normal Schoolmaster, and by-and-by we shall +be called on to do the same ill-turn for Elihu Mulciber for getting +uselessly learned (as if any man had ideas enough for twenty languages!) +without any schoolmaster at all. We are the victims of a droll +antithesis. Daniel would not give in to Nebuchadnezzar's taste in +statuary, and we are called on to fall down and worship an image of +Daniel which the Assyrian monarch would have gone to grass again sooner +than have it in his back-parlor. I do not think lions are agreeable, +especially the shaved-poodle variety one is so apt to encounter;--I met +one once at an evening party. But I would be thrown into a den of them +rather than sleep in the same room with that statue. Posterity will +think we cut pretty figures indeed in the monumental line! Perhaps there +is a gleam of hope and a symptom of convalescence in the fact that the +Prince of Wales, during his late visit, got off without a single speech. +The cheerful hospitalities of Mount Auburn were offered to him, as to +all distinguished strangers, but nothing more melancholy. In his case I +doubt the expediency of the omission. Had we set a score or two of +orators on him and his suite, it would have given them a more +intimidating notion of the offensive powers of the country than West +Point and all the Navy-Yards put together.</p> + +<p>In the name of our common humanity, consider, too, what shifts our +friends in the sculpin line (as we should call them in Chesumpscot) are +put to for originality of design, and what the country has to pay for +it. The Clark Mills (that turns out equestrian statues as the Stark +Mills do calico-patterns) has pocketed fifty thousand dollars for making +a very dead bronze horse stand on his hind-legs. For twenty-five cents I +have seen a man at the circus do something more wonderful,--make a very +living bay horse dance a redowa round the amphitheatre on his (it occurs +to me that <i>hind-legs</i> is indelicate) posterior extremities to the +wayward music of an out-of-town (<i>Scotice</i>, out-o'-toon) band. Now, I +will make a handsome offer to the public. I propose for twenty-five +thousand dollars to suppress my design for an equestrian statue of a +distinguished general officer as he <i>would have</i> appeared at the Battle +of Buena Vista. This monument is intended as a weathercock to crown the +new dome of the Capitol at Washington. By this happy contrivance, the +horse will be freed from the degrading necessity of touching the earth +at all,--thus distancing Mr. Mills by two feet in the race for +originality. The pivot is to be placed so far behind the middle of the +horse, that the statue, like its original, will always indicate which +way the wind blows by going along with it. The inferior animal I have +resolved to model from a spirited saw-horse in my own collection. In +this way I shall combine two striking advantages. The advocates of the +Ideal in Art cannot fail to be pleased with a charger which embodies, as +it were, merely the abstract notion or quality, Horse, and the attention +of the spectator will not be distracted from the principal figure. The +material to be pure brass. I have also in progress an allegorical group +commemorative of Governor Wise. This, like-Wise, represents only a +potentiality. I have chosen, as worthy of commemoration, the moment when +and the method by which the Governor meant to seize the Treasury at +Washington. His Excellency is modelled in the act of making one of his +speeches. Before him a despairing reporter kills himself by falling on +his own steel pen; a broken telegraph-wire hints at the weight of the +thoughts to which it has found itself inadequate; while the Army and +Navy of the United States are conjointly typified in a horse-marine who +flies headlong with his hands pressed convulsively over his ears. I +think I shall be able to have this ready for exhibition by the time Mr. +Wise is nominated for the Presidency,--certainly before he is elected. +The material to be plaster, made of the shells of those oysters with +which Virginia shall have paid her public debt. It may be objected, that +plaster is not durable enough for verisimilitude, since bronze itself +could hardly be expected to outlast one of the Governor's speeches. But +it must be remembered that his mere effigy cannot, like its prototype, +have the pleasure of hearing itself talk; so that to the mind of the +spectator the oratorical despotism is tempered with some reasonable hope +of silence. This design, also, is intended only <i>in terrorem</i>, and will +be suppressed for an adequate consideration.</p> + +<p>I find one comfort, however, in the very hideousness of our statues. The +fear of what the sculptors will do for them after they are gone may +deter those who are careful of their memories from talking themselves +into greatness. It is plain that Mr. Caleb Cushing has begun to feel a +wholesome dread of this posthumous retribution. I cannot in any other +way account for that nightmare of the solitary horseman on the edge of +the horizon, in his Hartford Speech. His imagination is infected with +the terrible consciousness, that Mr. Mills, as the younger man, will, in +the course of Nature, survive him, and will be left loose to seek new +victims of his nefarious designs. Formerly the punishment of the wooden +horse was a degradation inflicted on private soldiers only; but Mr. +Mills (whose genius could make even Pegasus look wooden, in whatever +material) flies at higher game, and will be content with nothing short +of a general. Mr. Cushing advises extreme measures. He counsels us to +sell our real estate and stocks, and to leave a country where no man's +reputation with posterity is safe, being merely as clay in the hands of +the sculptor. To a mind undisturbed by the terror natural in one whose +military reputation insures his cutting and running, (I mean, of course, +in marble and bronze,) the question becomes an interesting one,--To +whom, in case of a general exodus, shall we sell? The statues will have +the land all to themselves,--until the Aztecs, perhaps, repeopling their +ancient heritage, shall pay divine honors to these images, whose +ugliness will revive the traditions of the classic period of Mexican +Art. For my own part, I never look at one of them now without thinking +of at least one human sacrifice.</p> + +<p>I doubt the feasibility of Mr. Cushing's proposal, and yet something +ought to be done. We must put up with what we have already, I suppose, +and let Mr. Webster stand threatening to blow us all up with his pistol +pointed at the elongated keg of gunpowder on which his left hand +rests,--no bad type of the great man's state of mind after the +nomination of General Taylor, or of what a country member would call a +penal statue. But do we reflect that Vermont is half marble, and that +Lake Superior can send us bronze enough for regiments of statues? I go +back to my first plan of a prohibitory enactment. I had even gone so far +as to make a rough draught of an Act for the Better Observance of the +Second Commandment; but it occurred to me that convictions under it +would be doubtful, from the difficulty of satisfying a jury that our +graven images did really present a likeness to any of the objects +enumerated in the divine ordinance. Perhaps a double-barrelled statute +might be contrived that would meet both the oratorical and the +monumental difficulty. Let a law be passed that all speeches delivered +more for the benefit of the orator than that of the audience, and all +eulogistic ones of whatever description, be pronounced in the chapel of +the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and all statues be set up within the grounds +of the Institution for the Blind. Let the penalty for infringement in +the one case be to read the last President's Message, and in the other +to look at the Webster statue one hour a day, for a term not so long as +to violate the spirit of the law forbidding cruel and unusual +punishments.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is too much to expect of our legislators that they should +pass so self-denying an ordinance. They might, perhaps, make all oratory +but their own penal, and then (who knows?) the reports of their debates +might be read by the few unhappy persons who were demoniacally possessed +by a passion for that kind of thing, as girls are sometimes said to be +by an appetite for slate-pencils. <i>Vita brevis, lingua longa</i>. I protest +that among law-givers I respect Numa, who declared, that, of all the +Camenae, Tacita was most worthy of reverence. The ancient Greeks also +(though they left too much oratory behind them) had some good notions, +especially if we consider that they had not, like modern Europe, the +advantage of communication with America. Now the Greeks had a Muse of +Beginning, and the wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how +hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more +excellent Muse of Leaving-off. The Spartans, I suspect, found her out +and kept her selfishly to themselves. She were indeed a goddess to be +worshipped, a true Sister of Charity among that loquacious sisterhood!</p> + +<p>Endlessness is the order of the day. I ask you to compare Plutarch's +lives of demigods and heroes with our modern biographies of deminoughts +and zeroes. Those will appear but tailors and ninth-parts of men in +comparison with these, every one of whom would seem to have had nine +lives, like a cat, to justify such prolixity. Yet the evils of print are +as dust in the balance to those of speech.</p> + +<p>We were doing very well in Chesumpscot, but the Lyceum has ruined all. +There are now two debating-clubs, seminaries of multiloquence. A few of +us old-fashioned fellows have got up an opposition club and called it +"The Jolly Oysters." No member is allowed to open his mouth except at +high-tide by the calendar. We have biennial festivals on the evening of +election-day, when the constituency avenges itself in some small measure +on its Representative elect by sending a baker's dozen of orators to +congratulate him.</p> + +<p>But I am falling into the very vice I condemn,--like Carlyle, who has +talked a quarter of a century in praise of holding your tongue. And yet +something should be done about it. Even when we get one orator safely +under-ground, there are ten to pronounce his eulogy, and twenty to do it +over again when the meeting is held about the inevitable statue. I go to +listen: we all go: we are under a spell. 'Tis true, I find a casual +refuge in sleep; for Drummond of Hawthornden was wrong when he called +Sleep the child of Silence. Speech begets her as often. But there is no +sure refuge save in Death; and when my life is closed untimely, let +there be written on my headstone, with impartial application to these +Black Brunswickers mounted on the high horse of oratory and to our +equestrian statues,--</p> + +<p><i>Os sublime</i> did it!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2> +<br> + +<p><i>Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita</i>. Vol. I, Containing, +I. <i>Opus Tertium</i>,--II. <i>Opus Minus</i>,--III. <i>Compendium Philosophiae</i>. +Edited by J.S. BREWER, M.A., Professor of English Literature, King's +College, London, and Reader at the Rolls. Published by the Authority of +the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction +of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and +Roberts. 1859. 8vo. pp. c., 573.</p> + +<p>Sir John Romilly has shown good judgment in including the unpublished +works of Roger Bacon in the series of "Chronicles and Memorials of Great +Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," now in course of +publication under his direction. They are in a true sense important +memorials of the period at which they were written, and, though but +incidentally illustrating the events of the time, they are of great +value in indicating the condition of thought and learning as well as the +modes of mental discipline and acquisition during the +thirteenth century.</p> + +<p>The memory of Roger Bacon has received but scant justice. Although long +since recognized as one of the chief lights of England during the Middle +Ages, the clinging mist of popular tradition has obscured his real +brightness and distorted its proportions, while even among scholars he +has been more known by reputation than by actual acquaintance with his +writings. His principal work, his "Opus Majus," was published for the +first time in London in 1733, in folio, and afterwards at Venice in +1750, in the same form. Down to the publication of the volume before us, +it was the only one of his writings of much importance which had been +printed complete, if indeed it is to be called complete,--the Seventh +Part having been omitted by the editor, Dr. Jebb, and never having since +been published.</p> + +<p>The facts known concerning Roger Bacon's life are few, and are so +intermingled with tradition that it is difficult wholly to separate them +from it. Born of a good family at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, near the +beginning of the thirteenth century, he was placed in early youth at +Oxford, whence, after completing his studies in grammar and logic, "he +proceeded to Paris," says Anthony Wood, "according to the fashion +prevalent among English scholars of those times, especially among the +members of the University of Oxford." Here, under the famous masters of +the day, he devoted himself to study for some years, and made such +progress that he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity. Returning to +Oxford, he seems soon to have entered into the Franciscan Order, for the +sake of securing a freedom from worldly cares, that he might the more +exclusively give himself to his favorite pursuits. At various times he +lectured at the University. He spent some later years out of England, +probably again in Paris. His life was embittered by the suspicions felt +in regard to his studies by the brethren of his order, and by their +opposition, which proceeded to such lengths that it is said he was cast +into prison, where, according to one report, he died wretchedly. However +this may have been, his death took place before the beginning of the +fourteenth century. The scientific and experimental studies which had +brought him into ill-favor with his own order, and had excited the +suspicion against him of dealing in magic and forbidden arts, seem to +have sown the seed of the popular traditions which at once took root +around his name. Friar Bacon soon became, and indeed has remained almost +to the present day, a half-mythical character. To the imagination of the +common people, he was a great necromancer; he had had dealings with the +Evil One, who had revealed many of the secrets of Nature to him; he had +made a head of brass that could speak and foretell future events; and to +him were attributed other not less wonderful inventions, which seem to +have formed a common stock for popular legends of this sort during the +Middle Ages, and to have been ascribed indiscriminately to one +philosopher or another in various countries and in various times.<a name="FNanchor9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> The +references in our early literature to Friar Bacon, as one who had had +familiarity with spirits and been a master in magic arts, are so +numerous as to show that the belief in these stories was wide-spread, +and that the real character of the learned Friar was quite given over to +oblivion. But time slowly brings about its revenges; and the man whom +his ignorant and stupid fellows thought fit to hamper and imprison, and +whom popular credulity looked upon with that half-horror and +half-admiration with which those were regarded who were supposed to have +put their souls in pawn for the sake of tasting the forbidden fruit, is +now recognized not only as one of the most profound and clearest +thinkers of his time, but as the very first among its experimental +philosophers, and as a prophet of truths which, then neglected and +despised, have since been adopted as axioms in the progress of science. +"The precursor of Galileo," says M. Hauréau, in his work on Scholastic +Philosophy, "he learned before him how rash it is to offend the +prejudices of the multitude, and to desire to give lessons to the +ignorant."</p> + +<p>The range of Roger Bacon's studies was encyclopedic, comprehending all +the branches of learning then open to scholars. Brucker, in speaking of +him in his History of Philosophy, has no words strong enough to express +his admiration for his abilities and learning. "Seculi sui indolem +multum superavit," "vir summus, tantaque occultioris philosophiae +cognitione et experientia nobilis, ut merito Doctoris Mirabilis titulum +reportaverit."<a name="FNanchor10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> The logical and metaphysical studies, in the +intricate subtilties of which most of the schoolmen of his time involved +themselves, presented less attraction to Bacon than the pursuits of +physical science and the investigation of Nature. His genius, displaying +the practical bent of his English mind, turning with weariness from the +endless verbal discussions of the Nominalists and Realists, and +recognizing the impossibility of solving the questions which divided the +schools of Europe into two hostile camps, led him to the study of +branches of knowledge that were held in little repute. He recognized the +place of mathematics as the basis of exact science, and proceeded to the +investigation of the facts and laws of optics, mechanics, chemistry, and +astronomy. But he did not limit himself to positive science; he was at +the same time a student of languages and of language, of grammar and of +music. He was versed not less in the arts of the <i>Trivium</i> than in the +sciences of the Quadrivium.<a name="FNanchor11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a></p> + +<p>But in rejecting the method of study then in vogue, and in opposing the +study of facts to that of questions which by their abstruseness fatigued +the intellect, which were of more worth in sharpening the wit than in +extending the limits of knowledge, and which led rather to vain +contentions than to settled conclusions,--in thus turning from the +investigation of abstract metaphysics to the study of Nature, Roger +Bacon went so far before his age as to condemn himself to solitude, to +misappreciation, and to posthumous neglect. Unlike men of far narrower +minds, but more conformed to the spirit of the times, he founded no +school, and left no disciples to carry out the system which he had +advanced, and which was one day to have its triumph. At the end of the +thirteenth century the scholastic method was far from having run its +career. The minds of men were occupied with problems which it alone +seemed to be able to resolve, and they would not abandon it at the will +of the first innovator. The questions in dispute were embittered by +personal feeling and party animosities. Franciscans and Dominicans were +divided by points of logic not less than by the rules of their +orders.<a name="FNanchor12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> Ignorance and passion alike gave ardor to discussion, and it +was vain to attempt to convince the heated partisans on one side or the +other, that the truths they sought were beyond the reach of human +faculties, and that their dialectics and metaphysics served to bewilder +more than to enlighten the intellect. The disciples of subtile +speculatists like Aquinas, or of fervent mystics like Bonaventura, were +not likely to recognize the worth and importance of the slow processes +of experimental philosophy.</p> + +<p>The qualities of natural things, the limits of intellectual powers, the +relations of man to the universe, the conditions of matter and spirit, +the laws of thought, were too imperfectly understood for any man to +attain to a comprehensive and correct view of the sources and methods of +study and discovery of the truth. Bacon shared in what may he called, +without a sneer, the childishnesses of his time, childishnesses often +combined with mature powers and profound thought. No age is fully +conscious of its own intellectual disproportions; and what now seem mere +puerilities in the works of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were perhaps +frequently the result of as laborious effort and as patient study as +what we still prize in them for its manly vigor and permanent worth. In +a later age, the Centuries of the "Sylva Sylvarum" afford a curious +comment on the Aphorisms of the "Novum Organum."</p> + +<p>The "Opus Majus" of Bacon was undertaken in answer to a demand of Pope +Clement IV. in 1266, and was intended to contain a review of the whole +range of science, as then understood, with the exception of logic. +Clement had apparently become personally acquainted with Bacon, at the +time when, as legate of the preceding Pope, he had been sent to England +on an ineffectual mission to compose the differences between Henry III. +and his barons, and he appears to have formed a just opinion of the +genius and learning of the philosopher.</p> + +<p>The task to which Bacon had been set by the Papal mandate was rapidly +accomplished, in spite of difficulties which might have overcome a less +resolute spirit; but the work extended to such great length in his +hands, that he seems to have felt a not unnatural fear that Clement, +burdened with the innumerable cares of the Pontificate, would not find +leisure for its perusal, much less for the study which some part of it +demanded. With this fear, fearful also that portions of his work might +be deficient in clearness, and dreading lest it might be lost on its way +to Rome, he proceeded to compose a second treatise, called the "Opus +Minus," to serve as an abstract and specimen of his greater work, and to +embrace some additions to its matter. Unfortunately, but a fragment of +this second work has been preserved, and this fragment is for the first +time published in the volume just issued under the direction of the +Master of the Rolls. But the "Opus Minus" was scarcely completed before +he undertook a third work, to serve as an introduction and preamble to +both the preceding. This has been handed down to us complete, and this, +too, is for the first time printed in the volume before us. We take the +account of it given by Professor Brewer, the editor, in his +introduction. +<br><br> + "Inferior to its predecessors in the importance<br> + of its scientific details and the illustration<br> + it supplies of Bacon's philosophy, it is<br> + more interesting than either, for the insight<br> + it affords of his labors, and of the numerous<br> + obstacles he had to contend with in the execution<br> + of his work. The first twenty chapters<br> + detail various anecdotes of Bacon's personal<br> + history, his opinions on the state of<br> + education, the impediments thrown in his<br> + way by the ignorance, the prejudices, the<br> + contempt, the carelessness, the indifference<br> + of his contemporaries. From the twentieth<br> + chapter to the close of the volume he pursues<br> + the thread of the Opus Majus, supplying what<br> + he had there omitted, correcting and explaining<br> + what had been less clearly or correctly<br> + expressed in that or in the Opus Minus. In<br> + Chapter LII. he apologizes for diverging from<br> + the strict line he had originally marked out,<br> + by inserting in the ten preceding chapters his<br> + opinions on three abstruse subjects, Vacuum,<br> + Motion, and Space, mainly in regard to their<br> + spiritual significance. 'As these questions,'<br> + he says,' are very perplexing and difficult, I<br> + thought I would record what I had to say<br> + about them in some one of my works. In the<br> + Opus Majus and Opus Minus I had not studied<br> + them sufficiently to prevail on myself to<br> + commit my thoughts about them to writing;<br> + and I was glad to omit them, owing to the<br> + length of those works, and because I was<br> + much hurried in their composition.' From the<br> + fifty-second chapter to the close of the volume<br> + he adheres to his subject without further digression,<br> + but with so much vigor of thought<br> + and freshness of observations, that, like the<br> + Opus Minus, the Opus Tertium may be fairly<br> + considered an independent work."--pp.<br> + xliv-xlv.<a name="FNanchor13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a></p> + +<p>The details which Bacon gives of his personal history are of special +interest as throwing light upon the habits of life of a scholar in the +thirteenth century. Their autobiographic charm is increased by their +novelty, for they give a view of ways of life of which but few +particulars have been handed down.</p> + +<p>Excusing himself for the delay which had occurred, after the reception +of the Pope's letter, before the transmission of the writings he had +desired, Bacon says that he was strictly prohibited by a rule of his +Order from communicating to others any writing made by one of its +members, under penalty of loss of the book, and a diet for many days of +bread and water. Moreover, a fair copy could not be made, supposing that +he succeeded in writing, except by scribes outside of the Order; and +they might transcribe either for themselves or others, and through their +dishonesty it very often happened that books were divulged at Paris.</p> + +<p>"Then other far greater causes of delay occurred, on account of which I +was often ready to despair; and a hundred times I thought to give up the +work I had undertaken; and, had it not been for reverence for the Vicar +of the only Saviour, and [regard to] the profit to the world to be +secured through him alone, I would not have proceeded, against these +hindrances, with this affair, for all those who are in the Church of +Christ, however much they might have prayed and urged me. The first +hindrance was from those who were set over me, to whom you had written +nothing in my favor, and who, since I could not reveal your secret +[commission] to them, being bound not to do so by your command of +secrecy, urged me with unutterable violence, and with other means, to +obey their will. But I resisted, on account of the bond of your precept, +which obliged me to your work, in spite of every mandate of my +superiors....</p> + +<p>"But I met also with another hindrance, which was enough to put a stop +to the whole matter, and this was the want of [means to meet] the +expense. For I was obliged to pay out in this business more than sixty +livres of Paris,<a name="FNanchor14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> the account and reckoning of which I will set forth +in their place hereafter. I do not wonder, indeed, that you did not +think of these expenses, because, sitting at the top of the world, you +have to think of so great and so many things that no one can estimate +the cares of your mind. But the messengers who carried your letters were +careless in not making mention to you of these expenses; and they were +unwilling to expend a single penny, even though I told them that I would +write to you an account of the expenses, and that to every one of them +should be returned what was his. I truly have no money, as you know, nor +can I have it, nor consequently can I borrow, since I have nothing +wherewith to repay. I sent then to my rich brother, in my country, who, +belonging to the party of the king, was exiled with my mother and my +brothers and the whole family, and oftentimes being taken by the enemy +redeemed himself with money, so that thus being ruined and impoverished, +he could not assist me, nor even to this day have I had an answer +from him.</p> + +<p>"Considering, then, the reverence due to you, and the nature of your +command, I solicited many and great people, the faces of some of whom +you know well, but not their minds; and I told them that a certain +affair of yours must he attended to by me in France, (but I did not +disclose to them what it was,) the performance of which required a large +sum of money. But how often I was deemed a cheat, how often repulsed, +how often put off with empty hope, how often confused in myself, I +cannot express. Even my friends did not believe me, because I could not +explain to them the affair; and hence I could not advance by this way. +In distress, therefore, beyond what can be imagined, I compelled +serving-men and poor to expend all that they had, to sell many things, +and to pawn others, often at usury; and I promised them that I would +write to you every part of the expenses, and would in good faith obtain +from you payment in full. And yet, on account of the poverty of these +persons, I many times gave up the work, and many times despaired and +neglected to proceed; and indeed, if I had known that you would not +attend to the settling of these accounts, I would not for the whole +world have gone on,--nay, rather, I would have gone to prison. Nor could +I send special messengers to you for the needed sum, because I had no +means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing +the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on +account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of +expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by +ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all +these things, so great a delay has occurred in this matter."<a name="FNanchor15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a></p> + +<p>There is a touching simplicity in this account of the trials by which he +was beset, and it rises to dignity in connection with a sentence which +immediately follows, in which he says, the thought of "the advantage of +the world excited me, and the revival of knowledge, which now for many +ages has lain dead, vehemently urged me forward." Motives such as these +were truly needed to enable him to make head against such difficulties.</p> + +<p>The work which he accomplished, remarkable as it is from its intrinsic +qualities, is also surprising from the rapidity with which it was +performed, in spite of the distractions and obstacles that attended it. +It would seem that in less than two years from the date of Clement's +letter, the three works composed in compliance with its demand were +despatched to the Pope. Bacon's diligence must have been as great as his +learning. In speaking, in another part of the "Opus Tertium," of the +insufficiency of the common modes of instruction, he gives incidentally +an account of his own devotion to study. "I have labored much," he says, +"on the sciences and languages; it is now forty years since I first +learned the alphabet, and I have always been studious; except two years +of these forty, I have been always engaged in study; and I have expended +much, [in learning,] as others generally do; but yet I am sure that +within a quarter of a year, or half a year, I could teach orally, to a +man eager and confident to learn, all that I know of the powers of the +sciences and languages; provided only that I had previously composed a +written compend. And yet it is known that no one else has worked so hard +or on so many sciences and tongues; for men used to wonder formerly that +I kept my life on account of my excessive labor, and ever since I have +been as studious as I was then, but I have not worked so hard, because, +through my practice in knowledge, it was not needful."<a name="FNanchor16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> Again he +says, that in the twenty years in which he had specially labored in the +study of wisdom, neglecting the notions of the crowd, he had spent more +than two thousand pounds [livres] in the acquisition of secret books, +and for various experiments, instruments, tables, and other things, as +well as in seeking the friendship of learned men, and in instructing +assistants in languages, figures, the use of instruments and tables, and +many other things. But yet, though he had examined everything that was +necessary for the construction of a preliminary work to serve as a guide +to the wisdom of philosophy, though he knew how it was to be done, with +what aids, and what were the hindrances to it, still he could not +proceed with it, owing to the want of means. The cost of employing +proper persons in the work, the rarity and costliness of books, the +expense of instruments and of experiments, the need of infinite +parchment and many scribes for rough copies, all put it beyond his power +to accomplish. This was his excuse for the imperfection of the treatise +which he had sent to the Pope, and this was a work worthy to be +sustained by Papal aid.<a name="FNanchor17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p> + +<p>The enumeration by Bacon of the trials and difficulties of a scholar's +life at a time when the means of communicating knowledge were difficult, +when books were rare and to be obtained only at great cost, when the +knowledge of the ancient languages was most imperfect, and many of the +most precious works of ancient philosophy were not to be obtained or +were to be found only in imperfect and erroneous translations, depicts a +condition of things in vivid contrast to the present facilities for the +communication and acquisition of learning, and enables us in some degree +to estimate the drawbacks under which scholars prosecuted their studies +before the invention of printing. That with such impediments they were +able to effect so much is wonderful; and their claim on the gratitude +and respect of their successors is heightened by the arduous nature of +the difficulties with which they were forced to contend. The value of +their work receives a high estimate, when we consider the scanty means +with which it was performed.</p> + +<p>Complaining of the want of books, Bacon says,--"The books on philosophy +by Aristotle and Avicenna, by Seneca and Tully and others, cannot be had +except at great cost, both because the chief of them are not translated +into Latin, and because of others not a copy is to be found in public +schools of learning or elsewhere. For instance, the most excellent books +of Tully De Republica are nowhere to be found, so far as I can hear, and +I have been eager in the search for them in various parts of the world +and with various agents. It is the same with many other of his books. +The books of Seneca also, the flowers of which I have copied out for +your Beatitude, I was never able to find till about the time of your +mandate, although I had been diligent in seeking for them for twenty +years and more."<a name="FNanchor18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> Again, speaking of the corruption of translations, +so that they are often unintelligible, as is especially the case with +the books of Aristotle, he says that "there are not four Latins [that +is, Western scholars] who know the grammar of the Hebrews, the Greeks, +and the Arabians; for I am well acquainted with them, and have made +diligent inquiry both here and beyond the sea, and have labored much in +these things. There are many, indeed, who can speak Greek and Arabic and +Hebrew, but scarcely any who know the principles of the grammar so as to +teach it, for I have tried very many."<a name="FNanchor19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a></p> + +<p>In his treatise entitled "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," which is +printed in this volume for the first time, he adds in relation to this +subject,--"Teachers are not wanting, because there are Jews everywhere, +and their tongue is the same in substance with the Arabic and the +Chaldean, though they differ in mode.... Nor would it be much, for the +sake of the great advantage of learning Greek, to go to Italy, where the +clergy and the people in many places are purely Greek; moreover, bishops +and archbishops and rich men and elders might send thither for books, +and for one or for more persons who know Greek, as Lord Robert, the +sainted Bishop of Lincoln,<a name="FNanchor20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> did indeed do,--and some of those [whom +he brought over] still survive in England."<a name="FNanchor21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> The ignorance of the +most noted clerks and lecturers of his day is over and over again the +subject of Bacon's indignant remonstrance. They were utterly unable to +correct the mistakes with which the translations of ancient works were +full. "The text is in great part horribly corrupt in the copy of the +Vulgate at Paris, ...and as many readers as there are, so many +correctors, or rather corruptors, ...for every reader changes the text +according to his fancy."<a name="FNanchor22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> Even those who professed to translate new +works of ancient learning were generally wholly unfit for the task. +Hermann the German knew nothing of science, and little of Arabic, from +which he professed to translate; but when he was in Spain, he kept +Saracens with him who did the main part of the translations that he +claimed. In like manner, Michael Scot asserted that he had made many +translations; but the truth was, that a certain Jew named Andrew worked +more than he upon them.<a name="FNanchor23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> William Fleming was, however, the most +ignorant and most presuming of all.<a name="FNanchor24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> "Certain I am that it were +better for the Latins that the wisdom of Aristotle had not been +translated, than to have it thus perverted and obscured, ...so that the +more men study it the less they know, as I have experienced with all who +have stuck to these books. Wherefore my Lord Robert of blessed memory +altogether neglected them, and proceeded by his own experiments, and +with other means, until he knew the things concerning which Aristotle +treats a hundred thousand times better than he could ever have learned +them from those perverse translations. And if I had power over these +translations of Aristotle, I would have every copy of them burned; for +to study them is only a loss of time and a cause of error and a +multiplication of ignorance beyond telling. And since the labors of +Aristotle are the foundation of all knowledge, no one can estimate the +injury done by means of these bad translations."<a name="FNanchor25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p> + +<p>Bacon had occasion for lamenting not only the character of the +translations in use, but also the fact that many of the most important +works of the ancients were not translated at all, and hence lay out of +the reach of all but the rare scholars, like himself and his friend +Grostête, who were able, through their acquaintance with the languages +in which they were written, to make use of them, provided manuscripts +could be found for reading. "We have few useful works on philosophy in +Latin. Aristotle composed a thousand volumes, as we read in his Life, +and of these we have but three of any notable size, namely,--on Logic, +Natural History, and Metaphysics; so that all the other scientific works +that he composed are wanting to the Latins, except some tractates and +small little books, and of these but very few. Of his Logic two of the +best books are deficient, which Hermann had in Arabic, but did not +venture to translate. One of them, indeed, he did translate, or caused +to be translated, but so ill that the translation is of no sort of value +and has never come into use. Aristotle wrote fifty excellent books about +Animals, as Pliny says in the eighth book of his Natural History, and I +have seen them in Greek, and of these the Latins have only nineteen +wretchedly imperfect little books. Of his Metaphysics the Latins read +only the ten books which they have, while there are many more; and of +these ten which they read, many chapters are wanting in the translation, +and almost infinite lines. Indeed, the Latins have nothing worthy; and +therefore it is necessary that they should know the languages, for the +sake of translating those things that are deficient and needful. For, +moreover, of the works on secret sciences, in which the secrets and +marvels of Nature are explored, they have little except fragments here +and there, which scarcely suffice to excite the very wisest to study and +experiment and to inquire by themselves after those things which are +lacking to the dignity of wisdom; while the crowd of students are not +moved to any worthy undertaking, and grow so languid and asinine over +these ill translations, that they lose utterly their time and study and +expense. They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not +care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly +multitude."<a name="FNanchor26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> + +<p>These passages may serve to show something of the nature of those +external hindrances to knowledge with which Bacon himself had had to +strive, which he overcame, and which he set himself with all his force +to break down, that they might no longer obstruct the path of study. +What scholar, what lover of learning, can now picture to himself such +efforts without emotion,--without an almost oppressive sense of the +contrast between the wealth of his own opportunities and the penury of +the earlier scholar? On the shelves within reach of his hand lie the +accumulated riches of time. Compare our libraries, with their crowded +volumes of ancient and modern learning, with the bare cell of the +solitary Friar, in which, in a single small cupboard, are laid away a +few imperfect manuscripts, precious as a king's ransom, which it had +been the labor of years to collect. This very volume of his works, a +noble monument of patient labor, of careful investigation, of deep +thought, costs us but a trivial sum; while its author, in his poverty, +was scarcely able, without begging, to pay for the parchment upon which +he wrote it, as, uncheered by the anticipation that centuries after his +death men would prize the works he painfully accomplished, he leaned +against his empty desk, half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset +him. All honor to him! honor to the schoolmen of the Middle Ages! to the +men who kept the traditions of wisdom alive, who trimmed the wick of the +lamp of learning when its flame was flickering, and who, when its light +grew dim and seemed to be dying out, supplied it with oil hardly +squeezed by their own hands, drop by drop, from the scanty olives which +they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days +learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who +should be worthy to be put into comparison with the philosopher of the +thirteenth century?</p> + +<p>The general scheme of Bacon's system of philosophy was at once simple +and comprehensive. The scope of his thought had a breadth uncommon in +his or in any time. In his view, the object of all philosophy and human +learning was to enable men to attain to the wisdom of God; and to this +end it was to be subservient absolutely, and relatively so far as +regarded the Church, the government of the state, the conversion of +infidels, and the repression of those who could not be converted. All +wisdom was included in the Sacred Scriptures, if properly understood and +explained. "I believe," said he, "that the perfection of philosophy is +to raise it to the state of a Christian law." Wisdom was the gift of +God, and as such it included the knowledge of all things in heaven and +earth, the knowledge of God himself, of the teachings of Christ, the +beauty of virtue, the honesty of laws, the eternal life of glory and of +punishment, the resurrection of the dead, and all things else.<a name="FNanchor27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a></p> + +<p>To this end all special sciences were ordained. All these, properly +speaking, were to be called speculative; and though they each might be +divided into two parts, the practical and the speculative, yet one +alone, the most noble and best of all, in respect to which there was no +comparison with the others, was in its own nature practical: this was +the science of morals, or moral philosophy. All the works of Art and +Nature are subservient to morals, and are of value only as they promote +it. They are as nothing without it; as the whole wisdom of philosophy is +as nothing without the wisdom of the Christian faith. This science of +morals has six principal divisions. The first of these is theological, +treating of the relations of man to God and to spiritual things; the +second is political, treating of public laws and the government of +states; the third is ethical, treating of virtue and vice; the fourth +treats of the revolutions of religious sects, and of the proofs of the +Christian faith.</p> + +<p>"This is the best part of all philosophy." Experimental science and the +knowledge of languages come into use here. The fifth division is +hortatory, or of morals as applied to duty, and embraces the art of +rhetoric and other subsidiary arts. The sixth and final division treats +of the relations of morals to the execution of justice.<a name="FNanchor28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> Under one or +other of these heads all special sciences and every branch of learning +are included.</p> + +<p>Such, then, being the object and end of all learning, it is to be +considered in what manner and by what methods study is to be pursued, to +secure the attainment of truth. And here occurs one of the most +remarkable features of Bacon's system. It is in his distinct statement +of the prime importance of experiment as the only test of certainty in +the sciences. "However strong arguments may be, they do not give +certainty, apart from positive experience of a conclusion." "It is the +prerogative of experiment to test the noble conclusions of all sciences +which are drawn from arguments." All science is ancillary to it.<a name="FNanchor29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> And +of all branches of learning, two are of chief importance: languages are +the first gate of wisdom; mathematics the second.<a name="FNanchor30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> By means of +foreign tongues we gain the wisdom which men have collected in past +times and other countries; and without them the sciences are not to be +pursued, for the requisite books are wanting in the Latin tongue. Even +theology must fail without a knowledge of the original texts of the +Sacred Writings and of their earliest expositors. Mathematics are of +scarcely less importance; "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know +any other physical science,--what is more, cannot discover his own +ignorance or find its proper remedies." "The sciences cannot be known by +logical and sophistical arguments, such as are commonly used, but only +by mathematical demonstrations."<a name="FNanchor31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> But this view of the essential +importance of these two studies did not prevent Bacon from rising to the +height from which he beheld the mutual importance and relations of all +knowledge. We do not know where to find a clearer statement of the +connection of the sciences than in the following words:--"All sciences +are connected, and support each other with mutual aid, as parts of the +same whole, of which each performs its work, not for itself alone, but +for the others as well: as the eye directs the whole body, and the foot +supports the whole; so that any part of knowledge taken from the rest is +like an eye torn out or a foot cut off."<a name="FNanchor32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a></p> + +<p>Such, then, in brief, appears to have been Bacon's general system of +philosophy. He has nowhere presented it in a compact form; and his style +of writing is often so corrupt, and his use of terms so inexact, that +any exposition of his views, exhibiting them in a methodical +arrangement, is liable to the charge of possessing a definiteness of +statement beyond that which his opinions had assumed in his own mind. +Still, the view that has now been given of his philosophy corresponds as +nearly as may be with the indications afforded by his works. The details +of his system present many points of peculiar interest. He was not +merely a theorist, with speculative views of a character far in advance +of those of the mass of contemporary schoolmen, but a practical +investigator as well, who by his experiments and discoveries pushed +forward the limits of knowledge, and a sound scholar who saw and +displayed to others the true means by which progress in learning was to +be secured. In this latter respect, no parts of his writings are more +remarkable than those in which he urges the importance of philological +and linguistic studies. His remarks on comparative grammar, on the +relations of languages, on the necessity of the study of original texts, +are distinguished by good sense, by extensive and (for the time) exact +scholarship, and by a breadth of view unparalleled, so far as we are +aware, by any other writer of his age. The treatise on the Greek +Grammar--which occupies a large portion of the incomplete "Compendium +Studii Philosophiae," and which is broken off in the middle by the +mutilation of the manuscript--contains, in addition to many curious +remarks illustrative of the learning of the period, much matter of +permanent interest to the student of language. The passages which we +have quoted in regard to the defects of the translations of Greek +authors show to how great a degree the study of Greek and other ancient +tongues had been neglected. Most of the scholars of the day contented +themselves with collecting the Greek words which they found interpreted +in the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Origen, Martianus Capella, +Boëthius, and a few other later Latin authors; and were satisfied to use +these interpretations without investigation of their exactness, or +without understanding their meaning. Hugo of Saint Victor, (Dante's "Ugo +di Sanvittore è qui con elli,") one of the most illustrious of Bacon's +predecessors, translates, for instance, <i>mechanica</i> by <i>adulterina</i>, as +if it came from the Latin <i>moecha</i>, and derives <i>economica</i> from +<i>oequus</i>, showing that he, like most other Western scholars, was +ignorant even of the Greek letters.<a name="FNanchor33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a> Michael Scot, in respect to +whose translations Bacon speaks with merited contempt, exhibits the +grossest ignorance, in his version from the Arabic of Aristotle's +History of Animals, for example, a passage in which Aristotle speaks of +taming the wildest animals, and says, "Beneficio enim mitescunt, veluti +crocodilorum genus afficitur erga sacerdotem a quo enratur ut alantur," +("They become mild with kind treatment, as crocodiles toward the priest +who provides them with food,") is thus unintelligibly rendered by him: +"Genus autem karoluoz et hirdon habet pacem lehhium et domesticatur cum +illo, quoniam cogitat de suo cibo." <a name="FNanchor34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> Such a medley makes it certain +that he knew neither Greek nor Arabic, and was willing to compound a +third language, as obscure to his readers as the original was to him. +Bacon points out many instances of this kind; and it is against such +errors--errors so destructive to all learning--that he inveighs with the +full force of invective, and protests with irresistible arguments. His +acquirements in Greek and in Hebrew prove that he had devoted long labor +to the study of these languages, and that he understood them far better +than many scholars who made more pretence of learning. Nowhere are the +defects of the scholarship of the Middle Ages more pointedly and ably +exhibited than in what he has said of them. But, although his +knowledge in this field was of uncommon quality and amount, it does not +seem to have surpassed his acquisitions in science. "I have attempted," +he says in a striking passage, "with great diligence, to attain +certainty as to what is needful to be known concerning the processes of +alchemy and natural philosophy and medicine.... And what I have written +of the roots [of these sciences] is, in my judgment, worth far more than +all that the other natural philosophers now alive suppose themselves to +know; for in vain, without these roots, do they seek for branches, +flowers, and fruit. And here I am boastful in words, but not in my soul; +for I say this because I grieve for the infinite error that now exists, +and that I may urge you [the Pope] to a consideration of the truth."<a name="FNanchor35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> +Again he says, in regard to his treatise "De Perspectiva," or On +Optics,--"Why should I conceal the truth? I assert that there is no one +among the Latin scholars who could accomplish, in the space of a year, +this work; no, nor even in ten years."<a name="FNanchor36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> In mathematics, in chemistry, +in optics, in mechanics, he was, if not superior, at least equal, to the +best of his contemporaries. His confidence in his own powers was the +just result of self-knowledge and self-respect. Natural genius, and the +accumulations of forty years of laborious study pursued with a method +superior to that which guided the studies of others, had set him at the +head of the learned men of his time; and he was great enough to know and +to claim his place. He had the self-devotion of enthusiasm, and its +ready, but dignified boldness, based upon the secure foundation +of truth.</p> + +<p>In spite of the very imperfect style in which he wrote, and the usually +clumsy and often careless construction of his sentences, his works +contain now and then noble thoughts expressed with simplicity and force. +"Natura est instrumentum Divinae operationis," might be taken as the +motto for his whole system of natural science. In speaking of the value +of words, he says,--"Sed considerare debemus quod verba habent maximam +potestatem, et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta sunt +per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo +maxime delectatur." In the "Opus Tertium," at the point where he begins +to give an abstract of his "Opus Majus," he uses words which remind one +of the famous "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit." He +says,--"Cogitavi quod intellectus humanus habet magnam debilitationem ex +se.... Et ideo volui excludere errorum corde hominis impossible est +ipsum videre veritatem." This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's +"errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post +alios, si mens sibi permittatur." Such citations of passages remarkable +for thought or for expression might be indefinitely extended, but we +have space for only one more, in which the Friar attacks the vices of +the Roman court with an energy that brings to mind the invectives of the +greatest of his contemporaries. "Curia Romana, quae solebat et debet +regi sapientia Dei, nunc depravatur.... Laceratur enim illa sedes sacra +fraudibus et dolis injustorum. Pent justitia; pax omnis violatur; +infinita scandala suscitantur. Mores enim sequuntur ibidem +perversissimi; regnat superbia, ardet avaritia, invidia corrodit +singulos, luxuria diffamat totam illam curiam, gula in omnibus +dominatur." It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger +Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be +driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed +tightly within.</p> + +<p>There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to +discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with +him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the +most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of +tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation +to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to +discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The +popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in +two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and +on the Nullity of Magic,"<a name="FNanchor37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> in one of which he describes some of its +qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its composition +under an enigma.<a name="FNanchor38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> He had made experiments with Greek fire and the +magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power; +and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that +magnified and diminished. It was no wonder that a man who knew and +employed such wonderful things, who was known, too, to have sought for +artificial gold, should gain the reputation of a wizard, and that his +books should be looked upon with suspicion. As he himself says,--"Many +books are esteemed magic, which are not so, but contain the dignity of +knowledge." And he adds,--"For, as it is unworthy and unlawful for a +wise man to deal with magic, so it is superfluous and unnecessary."<a name="FNanchor39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a></p> + +<p>There is a passage in this treatise "On the Nullity of Magic" of +remarkable character, as exhibiting the achievements, or, if not the +actual achievements, the things esteemed possible by the inventors of +the thirteenth century. There is in it a seeming mixture of fancy and of +fact, of childish credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of +mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the +progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after +Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by +what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and +inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's +truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken his dreams for facts. As it +stands, it is one of the most curious existing illustrations of the +state of physical science in the Middle Ages. It runs as follows:--"I +will now, in the first place, speak of some of the wonderful works of +Art and Nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and methods of +them, in which there is nothing magical, so that it may be seen how +inferior and worthless all magic power is, in comparison with these +works. And first, according to the fashion and rule of Art alone. Thus, +machines can be made for navigation without men to row them; so that +ships of the largest size, whether on rivers or the sea, can be carried +forward, under the guidance of a single man, at greater speed than if +they were full of men [rowers]. In like manner, a car can be made which +will move, without the aid of any animal, with incalculable impetus; +such as we suppose the scythed chariots to have been which were +anciently used in battle. Also, machines for flying can be made, so that +a man may sit in the middle of the machine, turning an engine, by which +wings artificially disposed are made to beat the air after the manner of +a bird in flight. Also, an instrument, small in size, for raising and +depressing almost infinite weights, than which nothing on occasion is +more useful: for, with an instrument of three fingers in height, and of +the same width, and of smaller bulk, a man might deliver himself and his +companions from all danger of prison, and could rise or descend. Also, +an instrument might be easily made by which one man could draw to +himself a thousand men by force and against their will, and in like +manner draw other things. Instruments can be made for walking in the sea +or in rivers, even at the bottom, without bodily risk: for Alexander the +Great made use of this to see the secrets of the sea, as the Ethical +Astronomer relates. These things were made in ancient times, and are +made in our times, as is certain; except, perhaps, the machine for +flying, which I have not seen, nor have I known any one who had seen +it, but I know a wise man who thought to accomplish this device. And +almost an infinite number of such things can be made; as bridges across +rivers without piers or any supports, and machines and unheard-of +engines." Bacon goes on to speak of other wonders of Nature and Art, to +prove, that, to produce marvellous effects, it is not necessary to +aspire to the knowledge of magic, and ends this division of his subject +with words becoming a philosopher:--"Yet wise men are now ignorant of +many things which the common crowd of students [<i>vulgus studentium</i>] +will know in future times."<a name="FNanchor40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a></p> + +<p>It is much to be regretted that Roger Bacon does not appear to have +executed the second and more important part of his design, namely, "to +assign the causes and methods" of these wonderful works of Art and +Nature. Possibly he was unable to do so to his own satisfaction; +possibly he may upon further reflection have refrained from doing so, +deeming them mysteries not to be communicated to the vulgar;--"for he +who divulges mysteries diminishes the majesty of things; wherefore +Aristotle says that he should be the breaker of the heavenly seal, were +he to divulge the secret things of wisdom."<a name="FNanchor41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> However this may have +been, we may safely doubt whether the inventions which he reports were +in fact the result of sound scientific knowledge, whether they had +indeed any real existence, or whether they were only the half-realized +and imperfect creations of the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming +of things to come.</p> + +<p>The matters of interest in the volume before us are by no means +exhausted, but we can proceed no farther in the examination of them, and +must refer those readers who desire to know more of its contents to the +volume itself. We can assure them that they will find it full of vivid +illustrations of the character of Bacon's time,--of the thoughts of men +at an epoch of which less is commonly known than of periods more +distant, but less connected by intellectual sympathy and moral relations +with our own. But the chief interest of Bacon's works lies in their +exhibition to us of himself, a man foremost in his own time in all +knowledge, endowed by Nature with a genius of peculiar force and +clearness of intuition, with a resolute energy that yielded to no +obstacles, with a combination so remarkable of the speculative and the +practical intellect as to place him in the ranks of the chief +philosophers to whom the progress of the world in learning and in +thought is due. They show him exposed to the trials which the men who +are in advance of their contemporaries are in every age called to meet, +and bearing these trials with a noble confidence in the final prevalence +of the truth,--using all his powers for the advantage of the world, and +regarding all science and learning of value only as they led to +acquaintance with the wisdom of God and the establishment of Christian +virtue. He himself gives us a picture of a scholar of his times, which +we may receive as a not unworthy portrait of himself. "He does not care +for discourses and disputes of words, but he pursues the works of +wisdom, and in them he finds rest. And what others dim-sighted strive to +see, like bats in twilight, he beholds in its full splendor, because he +is the master of experiments; and thus he knows natural things, and the +truths of medicine and alchemy, and the things of heaven as well as +those below. Nay, he is ashamed, if any common man, or old wife, or +soldier, or rustic in the country knows anything of which he is +ignorant. Wherefore he has searched out all the effects of the fusing of +metals, and whatever is effected with gold and silver and other metals +and all minerals; and whatever pertains to warfare and arms and the +chase he knows; and he has examined all that pertains to agriculture, +and the measuring of lands, and the labors of husbandmen; and he has +even considered the practices and the fortune-telling of old women, and +their songs, and all sorts of magic arts, and also the tricks and +devices of jugglers; so that nothing which ought to be known may lie hid +from him, and that he may as far as possible know how to reject all that +is false and magical. And he, as he is above price, so does he not value +himself at his worth. For, if he wished to dwell with kings and princes, +easily could he find those who would honor and enrich him; or, if he +would display at Paris what he knows through the works of wisdom, the +whole world would follow him. But, because in either of these ways he +would be impeded in the great pursuits of experimental philosophy, in +which he chiefly delights, he neglects all honor and wealth, though he +might, when he wished, enrich himself by his knowledge."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p><i>Popular Music of the Olden Time</i>. A Collection of Ancient Songs, +Ballads, and Dance-Tunes, Illustrative of the National Music of England. +With Short Introductions to the Different Reigns, and Notices of the +Airs from Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Also, a +Short Account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappel, F.S.A. The whole of the +Airs harmonized by G. A. McFarren. 2 vols. pp. 384, 439. London: Cramer, +Beale, & Chappell. New York: Webb & Allen.</p> + +<p>In tracing the history of the English nation, no line of investigation +is more interesting, or shows more clearly the progress of civilization, +than the study of its early poetry and music. Sung alike in the royal +palaces and in the cottages and highways of the nation, the ballads and +songs reflect most accurately the manners and customs, and not a little +of the history of the people; while, as indicating the progress of +intellectual culture, the successive changes in language, and the steady +advance of the science of music, and of its handmaid, poetry, they +possess a value peculiarly their own.</p> + +<p>The industry and learning of Percy, Warton, and Ritson have rendered a +thorough acquaintance with early English poetry comparatively easy; +while in the work whose comprehensive title heads this article the +research of Chappell presents to us all that is valuable of the "Popular +Music of the Olden Time," enriched by interesting incidents and +historical facts which render the volumes equally interesting to the +general reader and to the student in music. Chappell published his +collection of "National English Airs" about twenty years ago. Since that +time, he tells us in his preface, the increase of material has been so +great, that it has been advisable to rewrite the entire work, and to +change the title, so that the present edition has all the freshness of a +new publication, and contains more than one hundred and fifty +additional airs.</p> + +<p>The opening chapters are devoted to a concise historical account of +English minstrelsy, from the earliest Saxon times to its gradual +extinction in the reigns of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth; and while +presenting in a condensed form all that is valuable in Percy and others, +the author has interwoven in the narrative much curious and interesting +matter derived from his own careful studies. Much of romantic interest +clusters around the history of the minstrels of England. They are +generally supposed to have been the successors of the ancient bards, who +from the earliest times were held in the highest veneration by nearly +all the people of Europe, whether of Celtic or Gothic origin. According +to Percy, "Their skill was considered as something divine; their persons +were deemed sacred; their attendance was solicited by kings; and they +were everywhere loaded with honors and rewards." Our Anglo-Saxon +ancestors, on their migration into Britain, retained their veneration +for poetry and song, and minstrels continued in high repute, until their +hold upon the people gradually yielded to the steady advance of +civilization, the influence of the printing-press, and the consequent +diffusion of knowledge. It is to be borne in mind that the name, +minstrel, was applied equally to those who sang, and accompanied their +voices with the harp, or some other instrument, and to those who were +skilled in instrumental music only. The harp was the favorite and indeed +the national instrument of the Britons, and its use has been traced as +far back as the first invasion of the country by the Saxons. By the laws +of Wales, no one could pretend to the character of a freeman or +gentleman, who did not possess or could not play upon a harp. Its use +was forbidden to slaves; and a harp could not be seized for debt, as the +simple fact of a person's being without one would reduce him to an +equality with a slave. Other instruments, however, were in use by the +early Anglo-Saxons, such as the Psaltery, the Fiddle, and the Pipe. The +minstrels, clad in a costume of their own, and singing to their quaint +tunes the exploits of past heroes or the simple love-songs of the times, +were the favorites of royalty, and often, and perhaps usually, some of +the better class held stations at court; and under the reigns of Henry +I. and II., Richard I., and John, minstrelsy flourished greatly, and +the services of the minstrels were often rated higher than those of the +clergy. These musicians seem to have had easy access to all places and +persons, and often received valuable grants from the king, until, in the +reign of Edward II., (1315,) such privileges were claimed by them, that +a royal edict became necessary to prevent impositions and abuses.</p> + +<p>In the fourteenth century music was an almost universal accomplishment, +and we learn from Chaucer, in whose poetry much can be learned of the +music of his time, that country-squires could sing and play the lute, +and even "songes make and well indite." From the same source it appears +that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady +was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion +to her proficiency in this art. In those days the bass-viol +(<i>viol-de-gamba</i>) was a popular instrument, and was played upon by +ladies,--a practice which in these modern times would be considered a +violation of female propriety, and even then some thought it "an +unmannerly instrument for a woman." In Elizabeth's time vocal music was +held in the highest estimation, and to sing well was a necessary +accomplishment for ladies and gentlemen. A writer of 1602 says to the +ladies, "It shall be your first and finest praise to sing the note of +every new fashion at first sight." That some of the fair sex may have +carried their musical practice too far, like many who have lived since +then, is perhaps indicated in some verses of that date which run in the +following strain:-- +<br><br> + "This is all that women do:<br> + Sit and answer them that woo;<br> + Deck themselves in new attire,<br> + To entangle fresh desire;<br> + After dinner sing and play,<br> + Or, dancing, pass the time away."</p> + +<p>To many readers one of the most interesting features of Chappell's work +will be the presentation of the original airs to which were sung the +ballads familiar to us from childhood, learned from our English and +Scotch ancestors, or later in life from Percy's "Reliques" and other +sources; and the musician will detect, in even the earliest +compositions, a character and substance, a beauty of cadence and +rhythmic ideality, which render in comparison much of our modern +song-music tamer, if possible, than it now seems. Here are found the +original airs of "Agincourt," "All in the Downs," "Barbara Allen," "The +Barley-Mow," "Cease, rude Boreas," "Derry Down," "Frog he would a-wooing +go," "One Friday morn when we set sail," "Chanson Roland," "Chevy +Chace," and scores of others which have rung in our ears from +nursery-days.</p> + +<p>The ballad-mongers took a wide range in their writings, and almost every +subject seems to have called for their rhymes. There is a curious little +song, dating back to 1601, entitled "O mother, a Hoop," in which the +value of hoop-skirts is set forth by a fair damsel in terms that would +delight a modern belle. It commences thus:-- +<br><br> + "What a fine thing have I seen to-day!<br> + O mother, a Hoop!<br> + I must have one; you cannot say Nay;<br> + O mother, a Hoop!"</p> + +<p>Another stanza shows the practical usefulness of the hoop:-- +<br><br> + "Pray, hear me, dear mother, what I have been taught:<br> + Nine men and nine women o'erset in a boat;<br> + The men were all drowned, but the women did float,<br> + And by help of their hoops they all safely got out."</p> + +<p>The fashion for hoops was revived in 1711, in which year was published +in England "A Panegyrick upon the Late, but most Admirable Invention of +the Hoop-Pettycoat." A few years later, (1726,) in New England, a +three-penny pamphlet was issued with the title, "Hoop Petticoats +Arraigned and Condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God," by which +it would seem that our worthy ancestors did not approve of the fashion. +In 1728 we find <i>hoop-skirts</i> and <i>negro girls</i> and other "chattels" +advertised for sale in the same shop!</p> + +<p>The celebrated song, "Tobacco is an Indian weed," is traced to George +Withers, of the time of James I. Perhaps no song has been more +frequently "reset"; but the original version, as is generally the case, +is the best.</p> + +<p>One of the most satisfactory features of Chappell's work is the +thoroughness with which he traces the origin of tunes, and his acute +discrimination and candid judgment. As an instance of this may be +mentioned his article on "God save the Queen"; and wherever we turn, we +find the same evidence of honest investigation. So far as is possible, +he has arranged his airs and his topics chronologically, and presented a +complete picture of the condition of poetry and music during the reigns +of the successive monarchs of England. The musician will find these +volumes invaluable in the pursuit of his studies, the general reader +will be interested in the well-drawn descriptions of men, manners, and +customs, and the antiquary will pore over the pages with a keen delight.</p> + +<p>The work is illustrated with several specimens of the early style of +writing music, the first being an illuminated engraving and fac-simile +of the song, "Sumer is icumen in,"--the earliest secular composition, in +parts, known to exist in any country, its origin being traced back to +1250. It should have been mentioned before this that the very difficult +task of reducing the old songs to modern characters and requirements, +and harmonizing them, has been most admirably done by McFarren, who has +thus made intelligible and available what would otherwise be valuable +only as curiosities.</p> + +<p>1. <i>Folk-Songs</i>. Selected and edited by John Williamson Palmer, M.D. +Illustrated with Original Designs. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861. +Small folio. pp. xxiii., 466.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Loves and Heroines of the Poets</i>. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. +New York: Derby & Jackson. 1861. Quarto, pp. xviii., 480.</p> + +<p>3. <i>A Forest Hymn</i>. By William Cullen Bryant. With Illustrations of John +A. Hows. New York: W. A. Townsend & Co. 1861. Small quarto, pp. 32.</p> + +<p>We have no great liking for illustrated books. Poems, to be sure, often +lend themselves readily to the pencil; but, in proportion as they stand +in need of pictures, they fall short of being poetry. We have never yet +seen any attempts to help Shakspeare in this way that were not as +crutches to an Indian runner. To illustrate poetry truly great in itself +is like illuminating to show off a torchlight-procession. We doubt if +even Michel Angelo's copy of Dante was so great a loss as has sometimes +been thought. We have seen missals and other manuscripts that were truly +<i>illuminated</i>,-- +<br><br> + "laughing leaves<br> + That Franco of Bologna's pencil limned ";<br> +<br> +but the line of those artists ended with Frà Angelico, whose works are +only larger illuminations in fresco and on panel. In those days some +precious volume became the Laura of a poor monk, who lavished on it all +the poetry of his nature, all the unsatisfied longing of a lifetime. +Shut out from the world, his single poem or book of saintly legends was +the window through which he looked back on real life, and he stained its +panes with every brightest hue of fancy and tender half-tint of reverie. +There was, indeed, a chance of success, when the artist worked for the +love of it, gave his whole manhood to a single volume, and mixed his +life with his pigments. But to please yourself is a different thing from +pleasing Tom, Dick, and Harry, which is the problem to be worked out by +whoever makes illustrations to be multiplied and sold by thousands. In +Dr. Palmer's "Folk-Songs," if we understand his preface rightly, the +artists have done their work for love, and it is accordingly much better +done than usual. The engravings make a part of the page, and the +designs, with few exceptions, are happy. Numerous fac-similes of +handwriting are added for the lovers of autographs; and in point of +printing, it is beyond a question the handsomest and most tasteful +volume ever produced in America. The Riverside Press may fairly take +rank now with the classic names in the history of the art. But it is for +the judgment shown in the choice of the poems that the book deserves its +chief commendation. Our readers do not need to be told who Dr. Palmer +is, or that one who knows how to write so well himself is likely to know +what good writing is in others. We have never seen so good and choice a +<i>florilegium</i>. The width of its range and its catholicity may be +estimated by its including William Blake and Dibdin, Bishop King and Dr. +Maginn. It would be hard to find the person who would not meet here a +favorite poem. We can speak from our own knowledge of the length of +labor and the loving care that have been devoted to it, and the result +is a gift-book unique in its way and suited to all seasons and all +tastes. Nor has the binding (an art in which America is far behind-hand) +been forgotten. The same taste makes itself felt here, and Matthews of +New York has seconded it with his admirable workmanship.</p> + +<p>In Mr. Stoddard's volume we have a poet selecting such poems as +illustrate the loves of the poets. It is a happy thought happily +realized. With the exception of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso, the choice +is made from English poets, and comes down to our own time. It is a book +for lovers, and he must be exacting who cannot find his mistress +somewhere between the covers. The selection from the poets of the +Elizabethan and Jacobian periods is particularly full; and this is as it +should be; for at no time was our language more equally removed from +conventionalism and commonplace, or so fitted to refine strength of +passion with recondite thought and airy courtliness of phrase. The book +is one likely to teach as well as to please; for, though everybody knows +how to fall in love, few know how to love. It is a mirror of womanly +loveliness and manly devotion. Mr. Stoddard has done his work with the +instinct of a poet, and we cordially commend his truly precious volume +both to those +<br><br> + "who love a coral lip<br> + And a rosy cheek admire,"<br> +<br> +and to those who +<br><br> + "Interassured of the mind,<br> + Are careless, eyes, lips, hands, to miss";<br> +<br> +for both likings will find satisfaction here. The season of gifts comes +round oftener for lovers than for less favored mortals, and by means of +this book they may press some two hundred poets into their service to +thread for the "inexpressive she" all the beads of Love's rosary. The +volume is a quarto sumptuous in printing and binding. Of the plates we +cannot speak so warmly.</p> + +<p>The third book on our list deserves very great praise. Bryant's noble +"Forest Hymn" winds like a river through edging and overhanging +greenery. Frequently the designs are rather ornaments to the page than +illustrations of the poem, and in this we think the artist is to be +commended. There is no Birket Foster-ism in the groups of trees, but +honest drawing from Nature, and American Nature. The volume, we think, +marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, +and may challenge comparison with that of any other country. Many of the +drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the +same time.</p> + +<p><i>The Works of Lord Bacon</i>, etc., etc. Vols. XI. and XII. Boston: Brown & +Taggard. 1860.</p> + +<p>We have already spoken of the peculiar merits which make the edition of +Messrs. Heath and Spedding by far the best that exists of Lord Bacon's +Works. It only remains to say, that the American reprint has not only +the advantage of some additional notes contributed by Mr. Spedding, but +that it is more convenient in form, and a much more beautiful specimen +of printing than the English. A better edition could not be desired. The +two volumes thus far published are chiefly filled with the "Life of +Henry VII." and the "Essays"; and readers who are more familiar with +these (as most are) than with the philosophical works will see at once +how much the editors have done in the way of illustration and +correction.</p> + +<br> + +<p>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS +<br> +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</p> + +<p>Poems. By Sarah Gould. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 32mo. Blue and gold. +pp. 180. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Miss Gilbert's Career. An American Story. By J.G. Holland. New York. +Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. 476. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Curiosities of Natural History. Second Series. By Francis T. Buckland, +M.A. New York. Rudd & Carleton, 12mo. pp. 441. $1.25.</p> + +<p>A Course of Six Lectures on the Various Forces of Matter, and their +Relations to each other. By Michael Faraday, D.C.L., F.R.S. Edited by +William Crookes, F.C.S. New York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. 198. +60 cts.</p> + +<p>A History and Analysis of the Constitution of the United States; with a +Full Account of the Confederations which preceded it, etc., etc. By +Nathaniel C. Towle. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. 12mo. pp. 444. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The History of Putnam and Marshall Counties, Illinois. By Henry A. Ford +Lacon. Published by the Author. 24mo. pp. 162. 25 cts.</p> + +<p>My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life. By Pisistratus Caxton. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 589, 581. $2.00.</p> + +<p>Woods and Waters; or, The Saranacs and Racket; with Map of the Route, +and Nine Illustrations on Wood. By Alfred B. Street. New York. M. +Doolady. 12mo. pp. 345. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The Lost Hunter. A Tale of Early Times. By John T. Adams. New York. M. +Doolady. 12mo. pp. 462. $1.25.</p> + +<p>History of Latin Christianity; including that of the Popes to the +Pontificate of Nicolas V. By Henry Hart Milman, D.D. Vol. I. 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Illustrated. New York. W.A. +Townsend & Co. 8vo. pp. 32. $3.00.</p> + +<p>The Great Preparation; or, Redemption draweth nigh. By Rev. John +Cumming, D.D. First Series. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. +258. $1.00.</p> + +<p>The Moral History of Women. From the French of Ernest Legouvé. +Translated by J.W. Palmer, M.D. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. +343. $1.00.</p> + +<p>May Coverley, the Young Dressmaker. Boston. J.E. Tilton & Co. 18mo. pp. +258. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Paul Blake; or, The Story of a Boy's Perils in the Islands of Corsica +and Monte Christo. By Alfred Elwes. New York. Thomson Brothers. 18mo. +pp. 383. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Little by Little; or, The Cruise of the Fly-away. A Story for Young +Folks. By Oliver Optic. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, Lee, & Co. 18mo. pp. +280. 63 cts.</p> + +<p>Logic in Theology, and other Essays. By Isaac Taylor. With a Sketch of +the Life of the Author, and a Catalogue of his Writings, New York. +William Gowans. 12mo. pp. 297. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The Illustrated Annual Register of Rural Affairs, for 1861. Albany. +Luther Tucker & Son. 12mo. paper, pp. 124. 25 cts.</p> + +<p>Harrington. A Story of True Love. By the Author of "What Cheer," etc. +Boston. Thayer & Eldridge. 12mo. pp. 556. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Analysis of the Cartoons of Raphael. New York. Charles B. Norton. 16mo. +pp. 141. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Home Ballads and Poems. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. pp. 207. 75 cts.</p> + +<p>Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the Fine Arts. By Mrs. +Jameson. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. Blue and Gold. pp. 483. 75 cts.</p> + +<br> + +<p>FOOTNOTES:</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a><br> Some time after, the Bey of Tunis ordered Eaton to send his +ship, the Gloria, with despatches to the United States. Eaton sent her +to Leghorn, and sold her at a loss. "The flag of the United States," he +wrote, "has never been seen floating in the service of a Barbary pirate +under my agency."</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a><br> The Administration was saturated with this petty parsimony, +as may be seen in an extract from a letter written by Madison to Eaton, +announcing the approach of Dale and his ships:--"The present moment is +peculiarly favorable for the experiment, not only as it is a provision +against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with +all the rest of the world, <i>and as the force employed would, if at home, +be at nearly the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners</i>." +Linkum Fidelius has given the Jeffersonian plan of making war in +two lines:-- +<br><br> + "We'll blow the villains all sky-high,<br> + But do it with e-co-no-my."<br> + +<p><a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a><br> About this time came Meli-Meli, Ambassador from Tunis, in +search of an indemnity and the frigate.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a><br>Massachusetts gave him ten thousand acres, to be selected +by him or by his heirs, in any of the unappropriated land of the +Commonwealth in the District of Maine. Act Passed March 3d, 1806</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a><br> He remained in Sicily until 1809, when he was offered the +Beyship of Derne by his brother. He accepted it; two years later, fresh +troubles drove him again into exile. He died in great poverty at Cairo. +Jusuf reigned until 1832, and abdicated in favor of a son. A grandson of +Jusuf took up arms against the new Pacha. The intervention of the Sultan +was asked; a corps of Turkish troops entered Tripoli, drove out both +Pachas, and reannexed the Regency to the Porte.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor6">[6]</a><br> The scene of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated retreat from the +British. A place of frequent resort for Federal editors in those days.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor7">[7]</a><br> In attempting to describe my own sensations, I labor under +the disadvantage of speaking mostly to those who have never experienced +anything of the kind. Hence, what would he perfectly clear to myself, +and to those who have passed through a similar experience, may be +unintelligible to the former class. The Spiritualists excuse the +crudities which their Plato, St. Paul, and Shakspeare utter, by +ascribing them to the imperfection of human language; and I may claim +the same allowance in setting forth mental conditions of which the mind +itself can grasp no complete idea, seeing that its most important +faculties are paralyzed during the existence of those conditions.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor8">[8]</a><br> The recent experiments in Hypnotism, in France, show that a +very similar psychological condition accompanies the trance produced by +gazing fixedly upon a bright object held near the eyes. I have no doubt, +in fact, that it belongs to every abnormal state of the mind.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor9">[9]</a><br> See <i>The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon containing the +Wonderful Things that he did in his Life, also the Manner of his Death; +with the Lives and Deaths of the Conjurors Bungye and Vandermast</i>. +Reprinted in Thom's <i>Early English Romances</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor10">[10]</a><br> <i>Historia Crit. Phil</i>. Period. II. Pars II. Liber II. Cap. +iii. Section 23.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor11">[11]</a><br> A barbarous distich gives the relations of these two +famous divisions of knowledge in the Middle Ages:-- +<br><br> + "<i>Gramm</i> loquitur, <i>Dia</i> verba docet, <i>Rhet</i> verba colorat,<br> + <i>Mus</i> canit, <i>Ar</i> numerat, <i>Geo</i> ponderat, <i>Ast</i><br> + colit astra."<br> + +<p><a name="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor12">[12]</a><br> See Hauréau, <i>De la Philosophie Scolastique</i>, II. 284-5.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor13">[13]</a><br> Mr. Brewer has in most respects performed his work as +editor in a satisfactory manner. The many difficulties attending the +deciphering of the text of ill-written manuscripts and the correction of +the mistakes of ignorant scribes have been in great part overcome by his +patience and skill. Some passages of the text, however, require further +revision. The Introduction is valuable for its account of existing +manuscripts, but its analysis of Bacon's opinions is unsatisfactory. Nor +are the translations given in it always so accurate as they should be. +The analyses of the chapters in side-notes to the text are sometimes +imperfect, and do not sufficiently represent the current of Bacon's +thought; and the volume stands in great need of a thorough Index. This +omission is hardly to be excused, and ought at once to be supplied in a +separate publication.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor14">[14]</a><br> This sum was a large one. It appears that the necessaries +of life were cheap and luxuries dear at Paris during the thirteenth +century. Thus, we are told, in the year 1226, a house sold for forty-six +livres; another with a garden, near St. Eustache, sold for two hundred +livres. This sum was thought large, being estimated as equal to 16,400 +francs at present. Sixty livres were then about five thousand francs, or +a thousand dollars. Lodgings at this period varied from 5 to 17 livres +the year. An ox was worth 1 livre 10 sols; a sheep, 6 sols 3 deniers. +Bacon must at some period of his life have possessed money, for we find +him speaking of having expended two thousand livres in the pursuit of +learning. If the comparative value assumed be correct, this sum +represented between $30,000 and $40,000 of our currency.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor15">[15]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. iii. pp. 15-17.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor16">[16]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. xx. p. 65.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor17">[17]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Capp. xvi., xvii. Roger Bacon's urgency to +the Pope to promote the works for the advancement of knowledge which +were too great for private efforts bears a striking resemblance to the +words addressed for the same end by his great successor, Lord Bacon, to +James I. "Et ideo patet," says the Bacon of the thirteenth century, +"quod scripta, principalia de sapientia philosophiae non possunt fieri +ab uno homine, nec a pluribus, nisi manus praelatorum et principum +juvent sapientes cum magna virtute." "Horum quos enumeravimus omnium +defectuum remedia," says the Bacon of the seventeenth century, " +...opera sunt vere basilica; erga quae privati alicujus conatus et +industria fere sic se habent ut Mercurius in bivio, qui digito potest in +viam intendere, pedem inferre non potest."--<i>De Aug. Scient</i>. Lib. II. +<i>Ad Regem Suum</i>. +<br><br> +A still more remarkable parallelism is to be found in the following +passages. "Nam facile est dicere, fiant scripture completae de +scientiis, sed nunquam fuerunt apud Latinos aliquae condignae, nec +fient, nisi aliud consilium habeatur. Et nullus sufficeret ad hoc, nisi +dominus papa, vel imperator, aut aliquis rex magnificus, sicut est +dominus rex Franciae. Aristoteles quidem, auctoritate et auxiliis regum, +et maxime Alexandri, fecit in Graeco quae voluit, et multis millibus +hominum usus est in experientia scientiarum, et expensis copiosis, sicut +historiae narrant." (<i>Opus Tertium</i>, Cap. viii.) Compare with this the +following passage from the part of the <i>De Augmentis</i> already +cited:--"Et exploratoribus ac speculatoribus Naturae satisfaciendum de +expensis suis; alias de quamplurimis scitu dignissimis nunquam fiemus +certiores. Si enim Alexander magnam vim pecuniae suppeditavit +Aristoteli, qua conduceret venatores, aucupes, piscatores et alios, quo +instructior accederet ad conscribendam historiam animalium; certe majus +quiddam debetur iis, qui non in saltibus naturae pererrant, sed in +labyrinthis artium viam sibi aperiunt." +<br><br> +Other similar parallelisms of expression on this topic are to be found +in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in +the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have +been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these +two great philosophers borrowed his famous doctrine of "Idols" from the +classification of the four chief hindrances to knowledge by his +predecessor. But the supposition wants foundation, and there is no +reason to suppose that Lord Bacon was acquainted with the works of the +Friar. The Rev. Charles Forster, in his <i>Mahometanism Unveiled</i>, a work +of some learning, but more extravagance, after speaking of Roger Bacon +as "strictly and properly an experimentalist of the Saracenic school," +goes indeed so far as to assert that he "was the undoubted, though +unowned, original when his great namesake drew the materials of his +famous experimental system." (Vol. II. pp. 312-317.) But the +resemblances in their systems, although striking in some particulars, +are on the whole not too great to be regarded simply as the results of +corresponding genius, and of a common sense of the insufficiency of the +prevalent methods of scholastic philosophy for the discovery of truth +and the advancement of knowledge. "The same sanguine and sometimes rash +confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for +experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning +pervade both works," the <i>Opus Majus</i> and the <i>Novum Organum</i>.--Hallam, +<i>Europe during the Middle Ages</i>, III. 431. See also Hallam, <i>Literature +of Europe</i>, I. 113; and Mr. Ellis's Preface to the <i>Novum Organum</i>, p. +90, in the first volume of the admirable edition of the <i>Works of Lord +Bacon</i> now in course of publication.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor18">[18]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. xv. pp. 55, 56.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor19">[19]</a><br> <i>Id</i>. Cap. x. p. 33.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor20">[20]</a><br> The famous Grostête,--who died in 1253. "Vir in Latino et +Graeco peritissimus," says Matthew Paris.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor21">[21]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. vi.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor22">[22]</a><br> <i>Opus Minus</i>, p. 330.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor23">[23]</a><br> This was Michael Scot the Wizard, who would seem to have +deserved the place that Dante assigned to him in the <i>Inferno</i>, if not +from his practice of forbidden arts, at least from his corruption of +ancient learning in his so-called translations. Strange that he, of all +the Schoolmen, should have been honored by being commemorated by the +greatest poet of Italy and the greatest of his own land! In the Notes to +the <i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>, his kinsman quotes the following lines +concerning him from Satchell's poem on <i>The Right Honorable Name +of Scott</i>:-- +<br><br> + "His writing pen did seem to me to be<br> + Of hardened metal like steel or acumie;<br> + The volume of [his book] did seem so large to me<br> + As the Book of Martyrs and Turks Historie."<br> + +<p><a name="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor24">[24]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. viii. p. 472.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor25">[25]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. viii. p. 469.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor26">[26]</a><br> <i>Comp. Studii Phil</i>. Cap. viii. p. 473.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor27">[27]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>, Cap. xxiv. pp. 80-82.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor28">[28]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Capp. xiv., xv., pp. 48-53.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor29">[29]</a><br> <i>Id</i>. Cap. xiii. pp. 43-44.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor30">[30]</a><br> <i>Id</i>. Cap. xxviii. p. 102.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor31">[31]</a><br> <i>Opus Majus</i>. pp. 57, 64.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor32">[32]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. iv. p. 18.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor33">[33]</a><br> See Hauréau: <i>Nouvel Examen de l'Édition des Oeuvres de +Hugues de Saint-Victor.</i> Paris, 1869. p. 52.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor34">[34]</a><br> Jourdain: <i>Recherches sur les Traductions Latines +d'Aristote</i>. Paris, 1819. p. 373.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor35">[35]</a><br> <i>Opus Tertium</i>. Cap. xii. p. 42.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor36">[36]</a><br> <i>Id. Cap. ii. p. 14</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor37">[37]</a><br> Reprinted in the Appendix to the volume edited by +Professor Brewer. A translation of this treatise was printed at London +as early as 1597; and a second version, "faithfully translated out of +Dr. Dee's own copy by T. M.," appeared in 1659.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor38">[38]</a><br> "Sed tamen sal petræ LURU VOPO VIR CAN UTRIET sulphuris; +et sic facies tonitruum et coruscationem, si scias artificium. Videas +tamen utrum loquar ænigmate aut secundum veritatem." (p. 551.) One is +tempted to read the last two words of the dark phrase as phonographic +English, or, translating the <i>vir</i>, to find the meaning to be, "O man! +you can try it."</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor39">[39]</a><br> This expression is similar in substance to the closing +sentences of Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse at Montpellier on the Powder +of Sympathy, in 1657. "Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and +faint-heartedness, or rather, a gross weakness of the Understanding, to +pretend any effects of charm or magick herein, or to confine all the +actions of Nature to the grossness of our Senses, when we have not +sufficiently consider'd nor examined the true causes and principles +whereon 'tis fitting we should ground our judgment: we need not have +recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties. +<br><br> +"'Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.'"</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor40">[40]</a><br> <i>Nullity of Magic</i>, pp. 532-542.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor41">[41]</a><br> <i>Comp. Stud. Phil.</i> p. 416.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<pre> + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, NO. 38, DECEMBER, 1860*** + +******* This file should be named 11465-h.txt or 11465-h.zip ******* + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/6/11465">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/6/11465</a> + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 5, 2004 [eBook #11465] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, NO. +38, DECEMBER, 1860*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Sheila Vogtmann, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS + +VOL. VI.--DECEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVIII + + + + + + + +THE UNITED STATES AND THE BARBARY STATES. + +Speak of the relations between the United States and the Barbary +Regencies at the beginning of the century, and most of our countrymen +will understand the War with Tripoli. Ask them about that Yankee crusade +against the Infidel, and you will find their knowledge of it limited to +Preble's attack. On this bright spot in the story the American mind is +fixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twenty +years. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes the +shape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to pay +tribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle in +the maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patriotic +delusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha was +simply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason; +but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to. + +The burning of the Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are much +too fine a subject for rhetorical pyrotechnics to have escaped lecturers +and orators of the Fourth-of-July school. We have all heard, time and +again, how Preble, Decatur, Trippe, and Somers cannonaded, sabred, and +blew up these pirates. We have seen, in perorations glowing with pink +fire, the Genius of America, in full naval uniform, sword in hand, +standing upon a quarter-deck, his foot upon the neck of a turbaned Turk, +while over all waves the flag of Freedom. + +The Moorish sketch is probably different. In it, Brother Jonathan must +appear with his liberty-cap in one hand and a bag of dollars in the +other, bowing humbly before a well-whiskered Mussulman, whose shawl is +stuck full of poniards and pistols. The smooth-faced unbeliever begs +that his little ships may be permitted to sail up and down this coast +unmolested, and promises to give these and other dollars, if his +Highness, the Pacha, will only command his men to keep the peace on the +high-seas. This picture is not so generally exhibited here; but it is +quite as correct as the other, and as true to the period. + +The year after Preble's recall, another New-England man, William Eaton, +led an army of nine Americans from Egypt to Derne, the easternmost +province of Tripoli,--a march of five hundred miles over the Desert. He +took the capital town by storm, and would have conquered the whole +Regency, if he had been supplied with men and money from our fleet. +"Certainly," says Pascal Paoli Peek, a non-commissioned officer of +marines, one of the nine, "certainly it was one of the most +extraordinary expeditions ever set on foot." Whoever reads the story +will be of the same opinion as this marine with the wonderful name. +Never was the war carried into Africa with a force so small and with +completer success. Yet Eaton has not had the luck of fame. He was nearly +forgotten, in spite of a well-written Life by President Felton, in +Sparks's Collection, until a short time since; when he was placed before +the public in a somewhat melodramatic attitude, by an article in a New +York pictorial monthly. It is not easy to explain this neglect. We know +that our Temple of Fame is a small building as yet, and that it has a +great many inhabitants,--so many, indeed, that worthy heroes may easily +be overlooked by visitors who do not consult the catalogue. But a man +who has added a brilliant page to the _Gesta Dei per Novanglos_ deserves +a conspicuous niche. A brief sketch of his doings in Africa will give a +good view of the position of the United States in Barbary, in the first +years of the Republic. + +Sixty years ago, civilized Europe not only tolerated the robbery, the +murder, and the carrying into captivity of her own people, but actually +recognized this triple atrocity as a privilege inherent to certain +persons of Turkish descent and Mahometan religion inhabiting the +northern coast of Africa. England or France might have put them down by +a word long before; but, as the corsairs chiefly ravaged the defenceless +coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, the two great powers had no +particular interest in crushing them. And there was always some jealous +calculation of advantage, some pitiful project of turning them to future +account, which prevented decisive action on the part of either nation. +Then the wars which followed the French Revolution kept Europe busy at +home and gave the Barbary sailors the opportunity of following their +calling for a few years longer with impunity. The English, with large +fleets and naval stations in the Mediterranean, had nothing to fear from +them, and were, probably, not much displeased with the contributions +levied upon the commerce of other nations. Barbary piracy was a +protective tax in favor of British bottoms. French merchantmen kept at +home. Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland tried to outbid one another +for the favor of the Dey, Bey, and Pacha, and were robbed and enslaved +whenever it suited the interests of their Highnesses. The Portuguese +kept out of the Mediterranean, and protected their coast by guarding the +Straits of Gibraltar. + +Not long before the French Revolution, a new flag in their waters had +attracted the greedy eyes of the Barbarians. When they learned that it +belonged to a nation thousands of miles away, once a colony of England, +but now no longer under her protection, they blessed Allah and the +Prophet for sending these fish to their nets; and many Americans were +made to taste the delights of the Patriarchal Institution in the +dockyards of Algiers. As soon as the Federal Government was fairly +established, Washington recommended to Congress to build a fleet for the +protection of citizens in the Mediterranean. But the young nation needed +at first all its strength to keep itself upright at home; and the +opposition party professed a theory, that it would be safer and cheaper +for the United States to give up ships altogether, and to get other +people to carry for them. Consequently the plan of negotiating was +resorted to. Agents were sent to Algiers to ransom the captives and to +obtain a treaty by presents and the payment of a fixed tribute. Such a +treaty was made in the summer of 1796. In March of the succeeding year, +the Dey showed so much ill-temper at the backwardness of our payments, +that Joel Barlow, the American Commissioner, thought it necessary to +soothe his Highness by the promise of a frigate to be built and equipped +in the United States. Thus, with Christian meekness, we furnished the +Mussulman with a rod for our own backs. These arrangements cost the +United States about a million of dollars, all expenses included. + +Having pacified Algiers, Mr. Barlow turned his attention to Tunis. +Instead of visiting the Bey in person, he appointed a European merchant, +named Famin, residing in Tunis, agent to negotiate a treaty for the +United States. Of Famin Mr. Barlow knew nothing, but considered his +French birth and the recommendation of the French Consul for Algiers +sufficient proofs of his qualifications. Besides attending to his own +trade, Monsieur Famin was in the habit of doing a little business for +the Bey, and took care to make the treaty conform to the wishes of his +powerful partner. The United States were to pay for the friendship and +forbearance of Tunis one hundred and seven thousand dollars in money, +jewels, and naval stores. Tunisian cargoes were to be admitted into +American ports on payment of three per cent; the same duty to be levied +at Tunis on American shipments. If the Bey saluted an American +man-of-war, he was to receive a barrel of powder for every gun fired. +And he reserved the right of taking any American ship that might be in +his harbor into his service to carry despatches or a cargo to any port +in the Mediterranean. + +When the treaty reached the United States, the Senate refused to ratify +it. President Adams appointed Eaton, formerly a captain in the army, +Consul for Tunis, with directions to present objections to the articles +on the tariff, salutes, and impressment of vessels. Mr. Cathcart, Consul +for Tripoli, was joined with him in the commission. They sailed in the +United States brig Sophia, in December, 1798, and convoyed the ship Hero +laden with naval stores, an armed brig, and two armed schooners. These +vessels they delivered to the Dey of Algiers "for arrearages of +stipulation and present dues." The offerings of his Transatlantic +tributaries were pleasing to the Dey. He admitted the Consuls to an +audience. After their shoes had been taken en off at the door of the +presence-chamber, they were allowed to advance and kiss his hand. This +ceremony over, the Sophia sailed for Tunis. + +Here the envoys found a more difficult task before them. The Bey had +heard of the ships and cargoes left at Algiers, and asked at once, Where +were all the good things promised to him by Famin? The Consuls presented +President Adam's letter of polite excuses, addressed to the Prince of +Tunis, "the well-guarded city, the abode of felicity." The Bey read it, +and repeated his question,--"Why has the Prince of America not sent the +hundred and seven thousand dollars?" The Consuls endeavored to explain +the dependence of their Bey on his Grand Council, the Senate, which +august body objected to certain stipulations in Famin's treaty. If his +Highness of Tunis would consent to strike out or modify these articles, +the Senate would ratify the treaty, and the President would send the +money as soon as possible. But the Bey was not to be talked over; he +refused to be led away from the main question,--"Where are the money, +the regalia, the naval stores?" He could take but one view of the case: +he had been trifled with; the Prince of America was not in earnest. + +Monsieur Famin, who found himself turned out of office by the +Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises +were insincere, and any expectations built upon them likely to +prove delusive. + +After some weeks spent in stormy negotiations, this modification of the +articles was agreed upon. The duty might be three or three hundred per +cent., if the Consuls wished it, but it should be reciprocal. The Bey +refused to give up the powder: fifteen barrels of powder, he said, might +get him a prize worth a hundred thousand dollars; but salutes were not +to be fired, unless demanded by the Consul on the part of the United +States. The Bey also persisted in his intention of pressing American +vessels into his service; but he waived this claim in the case of +national ships, and promised not to take merchantmen, if he could +possibly do without them. + +Convinced that no better terms could be obtained, Cathcart sailed for +Tripoli, to encounter fresh troubles, leaving Eaton alone to bear the +greediness and insolence of Tunis. The Bey and his staff were legitimate +descendants of the two daughters of the horse-leech; their daily cry +was, "Give! give!" The Bey told Eaton to get him a frigate like the one +built for the Algerines. + +"You will find I am as much to be feared as they. Your good faith I do +not doubt," he added, with a sneer, "but your presents have been +insignificant." + +"But your Highness, only a short time since, received fifty thousand +dollars from the United States." + +"Yes, but fifty thousand dollars are nothing, and you have since altered +the treaty; a new present is necessary; this is the custom." + +"Certainly," chorused the staff; "and it is also customary to make +presents to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary every time the +articles are changed, and also upon the arrival of a new Consul." + +To carry out this doctrine, the Admiral sent for a gold-headed cane, a +gold watch, and twelve pieces of cloth. The Prime Minister wanted a +double-barreled gun and a gold chain. The Aga of the Port said he would +be satisfied with some thing in the jewelry-line, simple, but rich. +Officials of low rank came in person to ask for coffee and sugar. Even +his Highness condescended to levy small contributions. Hearing that +Eaton had a Grecian mirror in his house, he requested that it might be +sent to decorate the cabin of his yacht. + +As month after month passed, and no tribute-ship arrived, the Bey's +threats grew louder and more frequent. At last he gave orders to fit out +his cruisers. Eaton sent letters of warning to the Consuls at Leghorn +and Gibraltar, and prepared to strike his flag. At the last moment the +Hero sailed into port, laden with naval stores such as never before had +been seen in Tunis. The Bey was softened. "It is well," he said; "this +looks a Lotte more like truth; but the guns, the powder, and the jewels +are not on board." + +A letter from Secretary Pickering instructed Eaton to try to divert the +Bey's mind from the jewels; but if that were impossible, to order them +in England, where they could be bought more cheaply; and to excuse the +delay by saying "that the President felt a confidence, that, on further +reflection upon all circumstances in relation to the United States, the +Bey would relinquish this claim, and therefore did not give orders to +provide the present." As the jewels had been repeatedly promised by the +United States, this weak attempt to avoid giving them was quite +consistent with the shabby national position we had taken In the +Mediterranean. It met with the success it deserved. The Bey was much too +shrewd a fellow, especially in the matter of presents, to be imposed +upon by any such Yankee pretences. The jewels were ordered in London, +and, as compensation for this new delay, the demand for a frigate was +renewed. After nearly two years of anxiety, Eaton could write home that +the prospects of peace were good. + +His despatches had not passed the Straits when the Pacha of Tripoli sent +for Consul Cathcart, and swore by "Allah and the head of his son," that, +unless the President would give him two hundred and fifty thousand +dollars for a new treaty, and an annual subsidy of twenty thousand, he +would declare war against the United States. + +These two years of petty humiliations had exasperated Eaton's bold and +fiery temper. He found some relief in horse-whipping Monsieur Famin, who +had been unceasing in his quiet annoyances, and in writing to the +Government at home despatches of a most undiplomatic warmth and +earnestness. From the first, he had advised the use of force. "If you +would have a free commerce in those seas, you must defend it. It is +useless to buy a peace. The more you give, the more the Turks will ask +for. Tribute is considered an evidence of your weakness; and contempt +stimulates cupidity. _Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange_. What are +you afraid of? The naval strength of the Regencies amounts to nothing. +If, instead of sending a sloop with presents to Tunis, you will consign +to me a transport with a thousand trusty marines, well officered, under +convoy of a forty-four-gun frigate, I pledge myself to surprise Porto +Farina and destroy the Bey's arsenal. As to Tripoli, two frigates and +four gun-boats would bring the Pacha to terms. But if you yield to his +new demands, you must make provision to pay Tunis double the amount, and +Algiers in proportion. Then, consider how shameful is your position, if +you submit. 'Tributary to the pitiful sand-bank of Tripoli?' says the +world; and the answer is affirmative, without a blush. Habit reconciles +mankind to everything, even humiliation, and custom veils disgrace. But +what would the world say, if Rhode Island should arm two old +merchantmen, put an Irish renegade into one and a Methodist preacher in +another, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Seignior? The +idea is ridiculous; but it is exactly as consistent as that Tripoli +should say to the American nation,--'Give me tribute, or tremble under +the chastisement of my navy!'" + +This was sharp language for a Consul to hold to a Secretary of State; +but it was as meekly borne as the other indignities which came +from Barbary. + +An occurrence in Algiers completes the picture of "Americans in the +Mediterranean" in the year 1800. In October, the United States ship +Washington, Captain Bainbridge, lay in that port, about to sail for +home. The Dey sent for Consul O'Brien, and laid this alternative before +him: either the Washington should take the Algerine Ambassador to +Constantinople, or he, the Dey, would no longer hold to his friendship +with the United States. O'Brien expostulated warmly, but in vain. He +thought it his duty to submit. The Ambassador, his suite, amounting to +two hundred persons, their luggage and stores, horses, sheep, and horned +cattle, and their presents to the Sultan, of lions, tigers, and +antelopes, were sent on board. The Algerine flag was hoisted at the +main, saluted with seven guns, and the United States ship Washington +weighed anchor for Constantinople. + +Eaton's rage boiled over when he heard of this freak of the Dey. He +wrote to O'Brien,--"I frankly own, I would have lost the peace, and been +myself impaled, rather than have yielded this concession. Will nothing +rouse my country?"[1] + +When the news reached America, Mr. Jefferson was President. He was not +roused. He regretted the affair; but hoped that time, and a more correct +estimate of interest, would produce justice in the Dey's mind; and he +seemed to believe that the majesty of pure reason, more potent than the +music of Orpheus, + + "Dictas ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque + leones," + +would soften piratical Turks. Mr. Madison's despatch to O'Brien on the +subject is written in this spirit. "The sending to Constantinople the +national ship-of-war, the George Washington, by force, under the +Algerine flag, and for such a purpose, has deeply affected the +sensibility, not only of the President, but of the people of the United +States. Whatever temporary effects it may have had favorable to our +interest, the indignity is of so serious a nature, _that it is not +impossible that it may be deemed necessary, on a fit occasion, to revive +the question._ Viewing it in this light, the President wishes that +nothing may be said or done by you that may unnecessarily preclude the +competent authority from animadverting on that transaction in any way +that a vindication of the national honor may be thought to prescribe." + +Times have changed since then, and our national spirit with them. The +Secretary's Quaker-like protest offers a ludicrous contrast to the +wolf-to-lamb swagger of our modern diplomacy. What faithful Democrat of +1801 would have believed that the day would come of the Kostza affair, +of the African right-of-search quarrel, the Greytown bombardment, and +the seizure of Miramon's steamers? + +It is clear that our President and people were in no danger of being led +into acts of undue violence by "deeply affected sensibility" or the +"vindication of the national honor," when a violent blow aimed by the +Pacha of Tripoli at their Mediterranean trade roused them to a show of +self-defence. Early in May he declared war against the United States, +although Consul Cathcart offered him ten thousand dollars to leave the +American flag-staff up for a short time longer. Even then, if Mr. +Jefferson could have consulted no one but himself, not a ship would have +sailed from these shores. But the merchants were too powerful for him; +they insisted upon protection in the Mediterranean. A squadron of three +frigates and a sloop under Commodore Dale was fitted out and despatched +to Gibraltar; and the nations of the earth were duly notified by our +diplomatic agents of our intentions, that they might not be alarmed by +this armada. + +In June of this year a fire broke out in the palace at Tunis, and fifty +thousand stand of arms were destroyed. The Bey sent for Eaton; he had +apportioned his loss among his friends, and it fell to the United States +to furnish ten thousand stand without delay. + +"It is only the other day," said Eaton, "that you asked for eighty +twenty-four pounders. At this rate, when are our payments to have +an end?" + +"Never," was the answer. "The claims we make are such as we receive from +all friendly nations, every two or three years; and you, like other +Christians, will be obliged to conform to it." + +Eaton refused to state the claim to his Government. The Bey said, Very +well, he would write himself; and threatened to turn Eaton out of +the Regency. + +At this juncture Commodore Dale arrived at Gibraltar. The Bey paid us +the compliment of believing that he had not been sent so far for +nothing, and allowed Eaton a few months' respite. + +Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale's hands were +tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of +dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be +accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by +active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure[2] +made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on +this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young +sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep +the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, +captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed +and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on +board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found +it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate +distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according +to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having +gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season +with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all. + +There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public +or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might. +Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis +perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had +measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no +reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his +tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but +did not mollify him. + +"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you +sent to the Dey of Algiers." + +Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we +would fight rather than yield to such extortion. + +The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe. "We find it all puff; we +see how you carry on the war with Tripoli." + +"But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just +received these valuable jewels?" + +"Not at all. We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a +year. You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you +settled the treaty. We have waited all this time, but you have made us +no consideration for this forbearance. Nor have we as yet received any +evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, +notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an +expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us. His Excellency, my +master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take +with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of +friendship." + +Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the +President, if he wanted a frigate. For his part, he would never transmit +so outrageous a demand. "Then," retorted the Bey, "I will send you home, +and the letter with you." + +The letter was composed by the dragoman and forwarded to the United +States, but Eaton was allowed to remain. + +Disgusted with the shameful position of our affairs in the +Mediterranean, Eaton requested Mr. Madison to recall him, unless more +active operations against the enemy should be resolved upon. "I can no +longer talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a +grimace of contempt and ridicule ... The operations of our squadron this +season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as +well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates +with ------ in command ... If further concessions are to be made here, I +desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our +presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his +avarice to new demands." + +The display of latent force by the United States fleet, from which our +Government had expected so much, increased the insolence of the Bey of +Tunis to such a point that Eaton was obliged to withdraw from his post, +and a new war seemed inevitable. The Americans had declared Tripoli +blockaded; but, as their ships were seldom on the coast, little +attention was paid to them. It happened, however, that a Tunisian +vessel, bound for Tripoli, was captured when attempting to enter the +harbor, and declared a prize. Shortly after, Commodore Morris anchored +off Tunis and landed to visit the Consul. The Bey, who held the correct +doctrine on the subject of paper blockades, pronounced the seizure +illegal and demanded restitution. During his stay on shore, the +Commodore had several interviews with the Bey's commercial agent in +relation to this prize question. The behavior of that official was so +offensive that the Commodore determined to go on board his ship without +making the usual farewell visit at Court. As he was stepping into his +boat from the mole, he was arrested by the commercial agent for a debt +of twenty-two thousand dollars, borrowed by Eaton to assist Hamet +Caramanli in his expedition against Tripoli. Eaton remonstrated +indignantly. He alone was responsible for the debt; he had given +abundant security, and was willing to pay handsomely for further +forbearance. In vain; the agent would take nothing but the money. Eaton +hurried to the palace to ask the Bey if this arrest was by his order. +The Bey declined to answer or to interfere. There was no help for it; +the Commodore was caught. To obtain permission to embark, he was obliged +to get the money from the French Consul-General, and to promise +restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at +liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to +protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the +flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him +again to quit his court,--this time peremptorily,--adding, that the +United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial +to Barbary interests." + +Eaton arrived in Boston on the 5th of May, 1803. The same season Preble +sailed into the Mediterranean, with the Constitution, "a bunch of pine +boards," as she was then called in derision, poorly fitted out, and +half-manned; and with three other vessels in no better condition. But +here, at last, was a captain whom no cautious or hesitating instructions +could prevent from doing the work set before him to the best of his +ability. Sword in hand, he maintained the principle of "Death before +tribute," so often and so unmeaningly toasted at home; and it was not +his fault, if he did not establish it. At all events, he restored the +credit of our flag in the Mediterranean. + +When the news reached home of the burning of the Philadelphia, of the +attack of the fireships, and of the bombardment of Tripoli, the blood of +the nation was up. Arch-democratic scruples as to the expediency, +economy, or constitutionality of public armed ships were thenceforth +utterly disregarded. Since then, it has never been a question whether +the United States should have a navy or not. To Preble fairly belongs +the credit of establishing it upon a permanent footing, and of heading +the roll of daring and skilful officers the memory of whose gallantry +pervades the service and renders it more effective than its ships +and its guns. + +The Administration yielded to the popular feeling, and attempted to +claim for themselves the credit of these feats of arms, which they had +neither expected nor desired. A new fleet was fitted out, comprising our +whole navy except five ships. Here again the cloven foot became visible. +Preble, who had proved himself a captain of whom any nation might be +proud, was superseded by Commodore Barron, on a question of seniority +etiquette, which might have been easily settled, had the Government so +wished it. + +Eaton had spent a year at home, urging upon the authorities, whenever +the settlement of his accounts took him to Washington, more effective +measures against Tripoli,--and particularly an alliance with Hamet +Caramanli, the Ex-Pacha, who had been driven from his throne by his +brother Jusuf, a much more able man. In spite of his bitter flings at +their do-nothing policy, the Administration sent him out in the fleet, +commissioned as General Agent for the Barbary Regencies, with the +understanding that he was to join Hamet and assist him in an attack upon +Derne. His instructions were vague and verbal; he had not even a letter +to our proposed ally. Eaton was aware of his precarious position; but +the hazardous adventure suited his enterprising spirit, and he +determined to proceed in it. "If successful, for the public,--if +unsuccessful, for myself," he wrote to a friend, quoting from his +classical reminiscences; "but any personal risk," he added, with a +rhetorical flourish, "is better than the humiliation of treating with a +wretched pirate for the ransom of men who are the rightful heirs +of freedom." + +He sailed in the John Adams, in June, 1804. The President, Congress, +Essex, and Constellation were in company. On the 5th of September the +fleet anchored at Malta. In a few weeks the plan of the expedition was +settled, and the necessary arrangements made, with the consent and under +the supervision of Barron. Eaton then went on board the United States +brig Argus, Captain Isaac Hull, detached specially on this service by +the Commodore, and sailed for Alexandria, to hunt up Hamet and to +replace him upon a throne. + +On the 8th of December, Eaton and his little party, Lieutenant Blake, +Midshipmen Mann and Danielson, of the navy, and Lieutenant O'Bannon of +the marines, arrived in Cairo. Here they learned that Hamet had taken +service with the rebel Mamlouk Beys and was in command of an Arab force +in Upper Egypt. A letter from Preble to Sir Alexander Ball insured the +Americans the hearty good wishes of the English. They were lodged in the +English house, and passed for United States naval officers on a +pleasure-trip. In this character they were presented to the Viceroy by +Dr. Mendrici, his physician, who had known Eaton intimately in Tunis, +and was much interested in this enterprise. The recommendation of the +Doctor obtained a private audience for Eaton. He laid his plans frankly +before his Highness, who listened favorably, assured him of his +approval, and ordered couriers to be sent to Hamet, bearing a letter of +amnesty and permission to depart from Egypt. + +The messengers returned with an answer. The Ex-Pacha was unwilling to +trust himself within the grasp of the Viceroy; he preferred a meeting at +a place near Lake Fayoum, (Maeris,) on the borders of the Desert, about +one hundred and ninety miles from the coast. Regardless of the danger of +travelling in this region of robbery and civil war, Eaton set off at +once, accompanied by Blake, Mann, and a small escort. After a ride of +seventy miles, they fell in with a detachment of Turkish cavalry, who +arrested them for English spies. This accident they owed to the zeal of +the French Consul, M. Drouette, who, having heard that they were on good +terms with the English, thought it the duty of a French official to +throw obstacles in their way. Luckily the Turkish commandant proved to +be a reasonable man. He listened to their story and sent off a courier +to bring Hamet to them. The Pacha soon arrived. He expressed an entire +willingness to be reinstated upon his throne by the Americans, and to do +what he could for himself with his followers and friendly Arab tribes in +the province of Derne. In case of success, he offered brilliant +advantages to the United States. A convention was drawn up in this +sense, signed by him as legitimate Pacha of Tripoli, and by Eaton, as +agent for the United States. + +The original plan was to proceed to Derne in the Argus; but the Turkish +Governor of Alexandria refused to permit so large a force to embark at +that port; and Hamet himself showed a strong disinclination to venture +within the walls of the enemy. The only course left was to march over +the Desert. Eaton adopted it with his usual vigor. The Pacha and his men +were directed to encamp at the English cut, between Aboukir Bay and Lake +Mareotis. Provisions were bought, men enlisted, camels hired, and a few +Arabs collected together by large promises and small gifts. The party, +complete, consisted of the Americans already mentioned, Farquhar, an +Englishman, Pascal Paoli Peck, whose name we take pleasure in writing +again, with six men of his corps, twenty-five artillery-men of all +nations, principally Levanters, and thirty-eight Greeks. The followers +of the Pacha, hired Arabs, camel-drivers, servants, and vagabonds, made +up their number to about four hundred. + +On the 8th of March, 1805, Eaton advanced into the Desert westward, +towards the famous land of Cyrene, like Aryandes the Persian, and Amrou, +general of the Caliph Omar. The little army marched along slowly, "on +sands and shores and desert wildernesses," past ruins of huge +buildings,--relics of three civilizations that had died out,--mostly +mere stones to Eaton, whose mind was too preoccupied by his wild +enterprise to speculate much on what others had done there before him. +Want of water, scarcity of provisions, the lazy dilatoriness of the +Arabs, who had never heard of the American axiom, "Time is money," gave +him enough to think of. But worse than these were the daily outbreaks of +the ill-feeling which always exists between Mussulman and Christian. The +Arabs would not believe that Christians could be true friends to +Mussulmans. They were not satisfied with Eaton's explanations of the +similarity between the doctrines of Islam and of American, but tried +again and again to make him repeat the soul-saving formula, "_Allah +Allah Mohammed ben Allah_", and thus at once prove his sincerity and +escape hell. The Pacha himself, an irresolute, weak man, could not quite +understand why these infidels should have come from beyond the seas to +place him upon a throne. A suspicion lurked in his heart that their real +object was to deliver him to his brother as the price of a peace, and +any occurrence out of the daily routine of the march brought this +unpleasant fancy uppermost in his thoughts. On one point the Mahometan +mind of every class dwelt alway,--"How could Allah permit these dogs, +who followed the religion of the Devil, to possess such admirable +riches?" The Arabs tried hard to obtain a share of them. They yelped +about the Americans for money, food, arms, and powder. Even the brass +buttons of the infidels excited their cupidity. + +Eaton's patience, remarkable in a man of his irascible temper, many +promises, and a few threats, kept the Crescent and the Cross moving on +together in comparative peace until the 8th of April. On that day and +outbreak of ill-temper occurred so violent that the two parties nearly +came to blows. Turks were drawn up on one side, headed by +Hamet,--Americans on the other, with the Greeks and Levanters. Swords +were brandished and muskets pointed, and much abuse discharged. Nothing +but the good sense of one of the Pacha's officers and Eaton's cool +determination prevented the expedition from destroying itself on +the spot. + +Peace was at last restored, and kept until the 15th, when the army +reached the Gulf of Bomba. In this bay, known to the ancients as the +Gulf of Plataea, it is said that the Greeks landed who founded the +colony of Cyrene. Eaton had written to Captain Hull to meet him here +with the Argus, and, relying upon her stores, had made this the place of +fulfilment of many promises. Unfortunately, no Argus was to be seen. Sea +and shore were as silent and deserted as when Battus the Dorian first +saw the port from his penteconters, six hundred years or more before +Christ. A violent tumult arose. The Arabs reproached the Americans +bitterly for the imposture, and declared their intention of deserting +the cause immediately. Luckily, before these wild allies had departed, a +sail appeared upon the horizon; they were persuaded to wait a short time +longer. It was the Argus. Hull had seen the smoke of their fires and +stood in. He anchored before dark; provisions were sent on shore; and +plenty in the camp restored quiet and discipline. + +On the 23d they resumed their march, and on the 25th, at two in the +afternoon, encamped upon a hill overlooking the town of Derne. Deserters +came in with the information that two-thirds of the inhabitants were in +favor of Hamet; but that Hassan Bey, the Governor, with eight hundred +fighting-men, was determined to defend the place; Jusuf had sent fifteen +hundred men to his assistance, who were within three days' march. +Hamet's Arabs seized upon this opportunity to be alarmed. It became +necessary to promise the chiefs two thousand dollars before they would +consent to take courage again. + +Eaton reconnoitred the town. He ascertained that a ten-inch howitzer on +the terrace of the Governor's house was all he had to fear in the way of +artillery. There were eight nine-pounders mounted on a bastion looking +seaward, but useless against a land-attack. Breastworks had been thrown +up, and the walls of houses loopholed for musketry. + +The next day, Eaton summoned Hassan to surrender the place to his +legitimate sovereign, and offered to secure him his present position in +case of immediate submission.. The flag was sent back with the answer, +"My head or yours!" and the Bey followed up this Oriental message by +offering six thousand dollars for Eaton's head, and double the sum, if +he were brought in alive. + +At six o'clock on the morning of the 27th, the Argus, Nautilus, and +Hornet stood in, and, anchoring within a hundred yards of the battery, +silenced it in three-quarters of an hour. At the same time the town was +attacked on one side by Hamet, and on the other by the Americans. A hot +fire of musketry was kept up by the garrison. The Greek artillery-men +shot away the rammer of their only field-piece, after a few discharges, +rendering the gun useless. Finding that a number of his small party were +falling, Eaton ordered a charge, and led it. Dashing through a volley of +bullets, the Christians took the battery in flank, carried it, planted +the American flag, and turned the guns upon the town. Hamet soon cut his +way to the Bey's palace, and drove him to sanctuary to escape being +taken prisoner. After a lively engagement of two hours and a half, the +allies had complete possession of the town. Fourteen of the Christians +had been killed or wounded, three of them American marines. Eaton +himself received a musket-ball in his wrist. + +The Ex-Pacha had scarcely established himself in his new conquest before +Jusuf's army appeared upon the hills near the town. Hassan Bey succeeded +in escaping from sanctuary, and took the command. After several +fruitless attempts to buy over the rebel Arabs, the Bey, on the 13th of +May, made a sudden attack upon the quarter of the town held by Hamet's +forces, and drove all before him as far as the Governor's house; but a +few volleys from the nine-pounders sent him and his troops back at full +speed. Hamet's cavalry pursued, and cut down a great many of them. This +severe lesson made the Bey cautious. Henceforward he kept his men in the +hills, and contented himself with occasional skirmishing-parties. + +After this affair numerous Arabs of rank came over, and things looked +well for the cause of the legitimate Pacha. Eaton already fancied +himself marching into Tripoli under the American flag, and releasing +with his own hands the crew of the Philadelphia. He wrote to Barron of +his success, and asked for supplies of provisions, money, and men. A few +more dollars, a detachment of marines, and the fight was won. His answer +was a letter from the Commodore, informing him, "that the reigning Pacha +of Tripoli has lately made overtures of peace, which the Consul-General, +Colonel Lear, has determined to meet, viewing the present moment +propitious to such a step." With the letter came another from Lear, +ordering Eaton to evacuate Derne. Eaton sent back an indignant +remonstrance, and continued to hold the town. But on the 11th of June +the Constellation came in, bringing the news of the conclusion of peace, +and of the release of the captives, upon payment of sixty thousand +dollars. Colonel Lear wrote, that, by an article of the treaty, Hamet's +wife and children would be restored to him, on condition of his leaving +the Regency. No other provision was made for him. + +When the Ex-Pacha (Ex for the third time) heard that thenceforth he +must depend upon his own resources, he requested that he might be taken +off in the Constellation, as his life would not be safe when his +adherents discovered that his American friends had betrayed him, Eaton +took every precaution to keep the embarkation a secret, and succeeded in +getting all his men safely on board the frigate. He then, the last of +the party, stepped into a small boat, and had just time to save his +distance, when the shore was crowded with the shrieking Arabs. Finding +the Christians out of their reach, they fell upon their tents and +horses, and swept away everything of value. + +It was a rapid change of scene. Six hours before, the little American +party held Derne triumphantly against all comers from Jusuf's dominions, +and Hamet had prospects of a kingdom. Now he was a beggar, on his way to +Malta, to subsist there for a time on a small allowance from the United +States. Even his wife and children were not to be restored to him; for, +in a secret stipulation with the Pacha, Lear had waived for four years +the execution of that article of the treaty. The poor fellow had been +taken up as a convenience, and was dropped when no longer wanted. But he +was only an African Turk, and, although not black, was probably dark +enough in complexion to weaken his claims upon the good feeling and the +good faith of the United States. + +Eaton arrived at home in November of the same year,[3] disgusted with +the officers, civil and naval, who had cut short his successful +campaign, and had disregarded, as of no importance, the engagements he +had contracted with his Turkish ally. His report to the Secretary of the +Navy expressed in the most direct language his opinion of the treaty and +his contempt for the reasons assigned by Lear and Barron for their +sudden action. The enthusiastic welcome he received from his countrymen +encouraged his dissatisfaction. The American people decreed him a +triumph after their fashion,--public dinners, addresses of +congratulation, the title of Hero of Derne. He had shown just the +qualities mankind admire,--boldness, tenacity, and dashing courage. Few +could be found who did not regret that Preble had not been there to help +him onward to Tripoli and to a peace without payments. And as Eaton was +not the man to carry on a war, even of words, without throwing his whole +soul into the conflict, he proclaimed to all hearers that the Government +was guilty of duplicity and meanness, and that Lear was a compound of +envy, treachery, and ignorance. + +But this violence of language recoiled upon himself,-- + + "And so much injured more his side, + The stronger arguments he applied." + +The Administration steadily upheld Lear; and good Democrats, who saw +every measure refracted through the dense medium of party-spirit, of +course defended their leaders, and took fire at Eaton's overbearing +manner and insulting intolerance of their opinions. Thus, although the +general sentiment of the country was strongly in his favor, at +Washington he made many enemies. A resolution was introduced into the +House of Representatives to present him with a medal, or with a sword; +it was violently opposed by John Randolph and others, postponed from +time to time, and never passed. Eaton received neither promotion, nor +pecuniary compensation, nor an empty vote of thanks. He had even great +delay and difficulty in obtaining the settlement of his accounts[4] and +the repayment of the money advanced by him. + +Disappointment, debt, and hard drinking soon brought Eaton's life to a +close. He died in obscurity in 1811. Among his papers was found a list +of officers who composed a Court Martial held in Ohio by General St. +Clair in 1793. As time passed, he had noted in the margin of the paper +the fate of each man. All were either "Dead" or "Damned by brandy." His +friends might have completed the melancholy roll by writing under his +name the same epitaph. + +However wrong Eaton may have been in manners and in morals, he seems to +have been right in complaining of the treatment he received from the +Administration. The organs of the Government asserted that Eaton had +exceeded his instructions, and had undertaken projects the end of which +could not be foreseen,--that the Administration had never authorized +any specific engagement with Hamet, an inefficient person, and not at +all the man he was supposed to be,--and that the alliance with him was +much too expensive and dangerous to justify its further prosecution. +Unfortunately for this view of the case, the dealings of the United +States with Hamet dated back to the beginning of the war with Tripoli. A +diversion in his favor was no new project, but had been considered for +more than three years. Eaton and Cathcart had recommended it in 1801, +and Government approved of the plan. In 1802, when Jusuf Pacha offered +Hamet the Beyship of Benghazi and Derne, to break up these negotiations, +the United States Consuls promised him Jusuf's throne, if he would +refuse the offer, and threatened, if he accepted it, to treat him as an +enemy, and to send a frigate to prevent him from landing at Derne. +Later, when the Bey of Tunis showed some inclination to surrender Hamet +to his brother, the Consuls furnished him with the means of escape to +Malta. In 1803, he crossed over to Derne in an English brig, hoping to +receive assistance from the American fleet; but Commodore Morris left +him to his own resources; he was unable to hold his ground, and fled to +Egypt. All this was so well known at home, that members of the +Opposition in Congress jokingly accused the Administration of +undertaking to decide constitutional questions for the people +of Tripoli. + +Before the news of this flight into Egypt reached the United States, +Eaton had been instructed by the President to take command of an +expedition on the coast of Barbary in connection with Hamet. It had been +determined to furnish a few pieces of field-artillery, a thousand stand +of arms, and forty thousand dollars as a loan to the Pretender. But when +the President heard of Hamet's reverses, he withheld the supplies, and +sent Eaton out as "General Agent for the several Barbary States," +without special instructions. The Secretary of the Navy wrote at the +same time to Commodore Barron:--"With respect to the Ex-Bashaw of +Tripoli, we have no objection to your availing yourself of his +cooperation with you against Tripoli, if you shall, upon a full view of +the subject, after your arrival upon the station, consider his +cooperation expedient. The subject is committed entirely to your +discretion. In such an event, you will, it is believed, find Mr. Eaton +extremely useful to you." + +After Commodore Barron had reached his station, he did consider the +"cooeperation" expedient; and ordered Hull in the Argus to Alexandria +with Eaton in search of Hamet, "the legitimate sovereign of the +reigning Bashaw of Tripoli." If Eaton succeeded in finding the Pacha, +Hull was to carry him and his suite to Derne, "or such other place as +may be determined the most proper for cooeperating with the naval force +under my command against the common enemy ... You may assure the Bashaw +of the support of my squadron at Benghazi or Derne, and that I will take +the most effectual measures with the forces under my command for +cooperating with him against the usurper his brother, and for +reestablishing him in the Regency of Tripoli. Arrangements to this +effect with him are confided to the discretion with which Mr. Eaton is +vested by the Government." + +It would seem from these extracts that Eaton derived full authority from +Barron to act in this matter, independently of his commission as +"General Agent." We do not perceive that he exceeded a reasonable +discretion in the "arrangements" made with Hamet. After so many +disappointments, the refugee could not be expected to leave a +comfortable situation and to risk his head without some definite +agreement as to the future; and the convention made with him by Eaton +did not go beyond what Hamet had a right to demand, or the instructions +of the Commodore,--even in Article II., which was afterward particularly +objected to by the Government. It ran thus:-- + +"The Government of the United States shall use their utmost exertions, +so far as comports with their own honor and interest, their subsisting +treaties, and the acknowledged law of nations, to reestablish the said +Hamet Bashaw in the possession of his sovereignty of Tripoli against the +pretensions of Joseph Bashaw," etc. + +We should add, that Hamet, to satisfy himself of the truth of Eaton's +representations, sent one of his followers to Barron, who confirmed the +treaty; and that the Commodore, when he received Eaton's despatch, +announcing his departure from Aboukir, wrote back a warm approval of his +energy, and notified him that the Argus and the Nautilus would be sent +immediately to Bomba with the necessary stores and seven thousand +dollars in money. Barron added,--"You may depend upon the most active +and vigorous support from the squadron, as soon as the season and our +arrangements will permit us to appear in force before the +enemy's walls." + +So much for Eaton's authority to pledge the faith of the United States. +As to the question of expense: the whole cost of the expedition, up to +the evacuation of Derne, was thirty-nine thousand dollars. Eaton +asserted, and we see no reason to doubt his accuracy, that thirty +thousand more would have carried the American flag triumphantly into +Tripoli. Lear paid sixty thousand for peace. + +Hamet was set on shore at Syracuse with thirty followers. Two hundred +dollars a month were allowed him for the support of himself and of them, +until particular directions should be received from the United States +concerning him. He wrote more than once to the President for relief, +resting his claims upon Eaton's convention and the letter of the +Secretary of State read to him by Consul Cathcart in 1802. In this +letter, the Secretary declared, that, in case of the failure of the +combined attack upon Derne, it would be proper for our Government "to +restore him to the situation from, which he was drawn, or to make some +other convenient arrangement that may be more eligible to him." Hamet +asked that at least the President would restore to him his wife and +family, according to the treaty, and send them all back to Egypt. "I +cannot suppose," he wrote, "that the engagements of an American agent +would be disputed by his Government, ... or that a gentleman has pledged +towards me the honor of his country on purpose to deceive me." + +Eaton presented these petitions to the President and to the public, and +insisted so warmly upon the harsh treatment his ally had received from +the United States, that two thousand four hundred dollars were sent to +him in 1806, and again, in 1807, Davis, Consul for Tripoli, was directed +to insist upon the release of the wife and children. They were delivered +up by Jusuf in 1807, and taken to Syracuse in an American sloop-of-war. +Here ended the relations of the United States with Hamet Caramanli.[5] + +Throughout this whole African chapter, the darling economy of the +Administration was a penny-wise policy which resulted in the usual +failure. Already in 1802, Mr. Gallatin reported that two millions and a +half, in round numbers, had been paid in tribute and presents. The +expense of fitting out the four squadrons is estimated by Mr. Sabine at +three millions and a half. The tribute extorted after 1802 and the cost +of keeping the ships in the Mediterranean amount at the lowest estimate +to two millions more. Most of this large sum might have been saved by +giving an adequate force and full powers to Commodore Dale, who had +served under Paul Jones, and knew how to manage such matters. + +Unluckily for their fame, the Administration was equally parsimonious in +national spirit and pluck, and did their utmost to protect themselves +against the extravagance of such reckless fellows as Preble, Decatur, +and Eaton. In the spring of 1803, while Preble was fitting out his +squadron, Mr. Simpson, Consul at Tangier, was instructed to buy the +good-will of the Emperor of Morocco. He disobeyed his instructions, and +the Emperor withdrew his demands when he saw the American ships. About +the same time, the Secretary of State wrote to Consul Cathcart in +relation to Tripoli:-- + +"It is thought best that you should not be tied down to a refusal of +presents, whether to be included in the peace, or to be made from time +to time during its continuance,--especially as in the latter case the +title to the presents will be a motive to its continuance,--to admit +that the Bashaw shall receive in the first instance, including the +consular present, the sum of $20,000, and at the rate afterwards of +$8,000 or $10,000 a year ... The presents, whatever the amount or +purpose of them, (except the consular present, which, as usual, may +consist of jewelry, cloth, etc.,) must be made in money and not in +stores, to be biennial rather than annual; _and the arrangement of the +presents is to form no part of the public treaty, if a private promise +and understanding can be substituted._" + +After notifying Cathcart of his appointment to Tunis, the Secretary +directs him to evade the thirty-six-gun frigate, and to offer the Bey +ten thousand dollars a year for peace, to be arranged in the same +underhand way. + +Tripoli refused the money; it was not enough. The Bey of Tunis rejected +both the offer and the Consul. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson that he +considered some of Cathcart's expressions insulting, and that he +insisted upon the thirty-six-gun frigate. Mr. Jefferson answered on the +27th of January, 1804, after he knew of the insult to Morris and of the +expulsion of Eaton. Beginning with watery generalities about "mutual +friendships and the interests arising out of them," he regretted that +there should be any misconception of his motives on the part of the Bey. +"Such being our regard for you, it is with peculiar concern I learn from +your letter that Mr. Cathcart, whom I had chosen from a confidence in +his integrity, experience, and good dispositions, has so conducted +himself as to incur your displeasure. In doing this, be assured he has +gone against the letter and spirit of his instructions, which were, that +his deportment should be such as to make known my esteem and respect for +your character both personal and public, and to cultivate your +friendship by all the attentions and services he could render.... In +selecting another character to take the place of Mr. Cathcart, I shall +take care to fix on one who, I hope, will better fulfil the duties of +respect and esteem for you, and who, in so doing only, will be the +faithful representative and organ of our earnest desire that the peace +and friendship so happily subsisting between the two countries may be +firm and permanent." + +Most people will agree with Eaton, that "the spirit which dictated this +answer betrays more the inspiration of Carter's Mountain[6] than of +Bunker Hill." + +Lear, who was appointed Consul-General in 1803, was authorized by his +instructions to pay twenty thousand dollars down and ten thousand a year +for peace, and a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars a man +for ransom. + +When Barron's squadron anchored at Malta, Consul O'Brien came on board +to say that he had offered, by authority, eight thousand dollars a year +to Tunis, instead of the frigate, and one hundred and ten thousand to +Tripoli for peace and the ransom of the crew of the Philadelphia, and +that both propositions had been rejected. + +Finally, after fitting out this fourth squadron, at an expense of one +million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and with Eaton in +possession of Derne, the Administration paid sixty thousand dollars for +peace and ransom, when Preble, ten months previously, could have +obtained both for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thus they +spent two millions to save ninety thousand, and left the principle of +tribute precisely where it was before. + +What makes this business still more remarkable is, that the +Administration knew from the reports of our consuls and from the +experience of our captains that the force of the pirates was +insignificant, and that they were wretched sailors and poor shots. +Sterret took a Tripolitan cruiser of fourteen guns after an engagement +of thirty minutes; he killed or wounded fifty of her crew, and did not +lose a man, nor suffer any material damage in his hull or rigging. There +was no one killed on the American side when Decatur burned the +Philadelphia. The Constitution was under the fire of the Tripolitan +batteries for two hours without losing a man, and was equally fortunate +when she ran in a second time and lay within musket-shot of the mole, +exposed to the fire of the enemy for three-quarters of an hour. These +Tripolitan batteries mounted one hundred and fifteen guns. Three years +later, Captain Ichabod Sheffield, of the schooner Mary Ann, furnished in +person an example of the superiority of the Yankee over the Turk. Consul +Lear had just given forty-eight thousand dollars to the Dey of Algiers, +in full payment of tribute "up to date." Nevertheless, the Mary Ann, of +and from New York to Leghorn, was seized in the Straits of Gibraltar by +an Algerine corsair. A prize-crew of nine Turks was sent on board; the +captain, two men, and a boy left in her to do the work; she was ordered +to Algiers; and the pirate sailed away. Having no instructions from +Washington, Sheffield and his men determined to strike a blow for +liberty, and fixed upon their plan. Algiers was in sight, when Sheffield +hurled the "grains" overboard, and cried that he had struck a fish. Four +Turks, who were on deck, ran to the side to look over. Instantly the +Americans threw three of them into the sea. The others, hearing the +noise, hurried upon deck. In a hand-to-hand fight which followed two +more were killed with handspikes, and the remaining four were +overpowered and sent adrift in a small boat. Sheffield made his way, +rejoicing, to Naples. When the Dey heard how his subjects had been +handled, he threatened to put Lear in irons and to declare war. It cost +the United States sixteen thousand dollars to appease his wrath. + +The cruise of the Americans against Tripoli differed little, except in +the inferiority of their force, from numerous attacks made by European +nations upon the Regencies. Venice, England, France, had repeatedly +chastised the pirates in times past. In 1799, the Portuguese, with one +seventy-four-gun ship, took two Tripolitan cruisers, and forced the +Pacha to pay them eleven thousand dollars. In 1801, not long before our +expedition, the French Admiral Gaunthomme over-hauled two Tunisian +corsairs in chase of some Neapolitan vessels. He threw all their guns +overboard, and bade them beware how they provoked the wrath of the First +Consul by plundering his allies. But all of them left, as we did, the +principle of piracy or payments as they found it. At last this evil was +treated in a manner more creditable to civilization. In 1812, the +Algerines captured an American vessel, and made slaves of the crew. +After the peace with England, in 1815, Decatur, in the Guerriere, sailed +into the Mediterranean, and captured off Cape de Gat, in twenty-five +minutes, an Algerine frigate of forty-six guns and four hundred men. On +board the Guerriere, four were wounded, and no one killed. Two days +later, off Cape Palos, he took a brig of twenty-two guns and one hundred +and eighty men. He then sailed into the harbor of Algiers with his +prizes, and offered peace, which was accepted. The Dey released the +American prisoners, relinquished all claims to tribute in future, and +promised never again to enslave an American. Decatur, on our part, +surrendered his prizes, and agreed to consular presents,--a mitigated +form of tribute, similar in principle, but, at least, with another name. +From Algiers he went to Tunis, and demanded satisfaction of that Regency +for having permitted a British man-of-war to retake in their port two +prizes to Americans in the late war with England. The Bey submitted, and +paid forty-six thousand dollars. He next appeared before Tripoli, where +he compelled the Pacha to pay twenty-six thousand dollars, and to +surrender ten captives, as an indemnity for some breaches of +international law. In fifty-four days he brought all Barbary to +submission. It is true, that, the next spring, the Dey of Algiers +declared this treaty null, and fell back upon the time-honored system of +annual tribute. But it was too late. Before it became necessary for +Decatur to pay him another visit, Lord Exmouth avenged the massacre of +the Neapolitan fishermen at Bona by completely destroying the fleet and +forts of Algiers, in a bombardment of seven hours. Christian prisoners +of every nation were liberated in all the Regencies, and the +slave-system, as applied to white men, finally abolished. + +Preble, Eaton, and Decatur are our three distinguished African officers. +As Barron's squadron did not fire a shot into Tripoli, indeed never +showed itself before that port, to Eaton alone belongs the credit of +bringing the Pacha to terms which the American Commissioner was willing +to accept. The attack upon Derne was the feat of arms of the fourth +year, and finished the war. + +Ours is not a new reading of the earlier relations of the United States +with the Barbary powers. The story can be found in the Collection of +State Papers, and more easily in the excellent little books of Messrs. +Sabine and Felton. But a "popular version" despises documents. Under +the pressure of melodrama, history will drift into Napoleon's "fable +agreed upon"; and if it be true, as Emerson says, that "no anchor, no +cable, no fence, avail to keep a fact a fact," it is not at all likely +that a paper in a monthly magazine will do it. + + + * * * * * + + + +SUNSHINE. + + +I have always worked in the carpet-factories. My father and mother +worked there before me and my sisters, as long as they lived. My sisters +died first;--the one, I think, out of deep sorrow; the other from +too much joy. + +My older sister worked hard, knew nothing else but work, never thought +of anything else, nor found any joy in work, scarcely in the earnings +that came from it. Perhaps she pined for want of more air, shut up in +the rooms all day, not caring to find it in walking or in the fields, or +even in books. Household-work awaited her daily after the factory-work, +and a dark, strange religion oppressed and did not sustain her, Sundays. +So we scarcely wondered when she died. It seemed, indeed, as if she had +died long ago,--as if the life had silently passed away from her, +leaving behind a working body that was glad at last to find a rest it +had never known before. + +My other sister was far different. Very much younger, not even a shadow +of the death that had gone before weighed heavily upon her. Everybody +loved her, and her warm, flashing spirit that came out in her sunny +smile. She died in a season of joy, in the first flush of summer. She +died, as the June flowers died, after their happy summer-day of life. + +At last I was left alone, to plod the same way, every night and +morning,--out with the sunrise from the skirts of the town, over the +bridge across the stream that fell into our great river which has worked +for us so long, to the tall, grim factory-building where my work awaited +me, and home again at night. I lived on in the house we all of us had +lived in. At first it was alone in the wood. But the town crept out to +meet it, and soon but little woodland was left around it. "Gloomy +Robert" they called me, as I walked back and forth upon the same track, +seldom lifting my head to greet friend or stranger. Though I walked over +well-known ground, my thoughts were wandering in strange romances. My +evening-readings furnished the land I lived in,--seldom this Western +home, but the East, from Homer's time to the days of Haroun Alraschid. I +was so faithful at my work that my responsibilities were each year +increased; and though my brain lived in dreams, I had sufficient use of +it for my little needs each day. I never forgot to answer the wants of +the greedy machines while I was within sound of them; but away from them +I forgot all external sight and sound. I can remember in my boyhood once +I was waked from my reveries. I was walking beneath a high stone-wall, +with my eyes and head bent down as usual, when I was roused by a shower +of rose-buds that fell over my shoulders and folded arms. I heard +laughter, and looked up to see a childish face with sunny, golden curls +tumbling over it; and a surprised voice cried out, "Gloomy Robert is +looking up!" The picture of the face hung in my memory long after, with +the sound of the happy voice, as though it came out of another world. +But it remained only a picture, and I never asked myself whether that +sunny face ever made any home happy, nor did I ever listen for that +voice again from behind the high stone-wall. + +Many years of my life passed away. There were changes in the factories. +The machines grew more like human beings, and we men could act more like +machines. There were fewer of us needed; but I still held my place, and +my steadiness gave me a position. + +One day, in the end of May, I was walking early in the morning towards +the factories, as usual, when suddenly there fell across my path a +glowing beam of sunshine that lighted up the grass before me. I stopped +to see how the green blades danced in its light, how the sunshine fell +down the sloping, bank across the stream below. Whirring insects seemed +to be suddenly born in its beam. The stream flowed more gayly, the +flowers on its brim were richer in color. A voice startled me. It was +only that of one of my fellow-workmen, as he shouted, "Look at Gloomy +Robert!--there's a sunbeam in his way, and he stumbles over it!" It was +really so. I had stumbled over a beam of sunlight. I had never observed +the sunshine before. Now, what life it gave, as it gleamed under the +trees! I kept on my way, but the thought of it followed me all up the +weary stairs into the high room where the great machines were standing +silently. Suddenly, after my work began, through a high narrow window +poured a strip of sunshine. It fell across the colored threads which +were weaving diligently their work. This day the work was of an +unusually artistic nature. We have our own artists in the mills, artists +who must work under severe limitations. Within a certain space their +fancy revels, and then its lines are suddenly cut short. Nature scatters +her flowers as she pleases over the field, does not measure her groups +to see that they stand symmetrically, nor count her several daisies that +they may be sure to repeat themselves in regular order. But our artist +must fit his stems to certain angles so that their lines may be +continuous, constantly repeating themselves, the same group recurring, +yet in a hidden monotony. + +My pattern of to-day had always pleased me, for we had woven many yards +of it before,--the machines and I. There were rich green leaves and +flowers, gay flowers that shone in light and hid themselves in shade, +and I had always admired their grace and coloring. To-day they had +seemed to me cold and dusky. All my ideas that I had gained from +conventional carpet-flowers, which, woven almost beneath my hand, had +seemed to rival Nature's, all these ideas had been suddenly swept away. +My eyes had opened upon real flowers waving in real sunshine; and my +head grew heavy at the sound of the clanking machine weaving out yards +of unsunned flowers. If only that sunshine, I thought, would light up +these green leaves, put a glow on these brilliant flowers, instead of +this poor coloring which tries to look like sunshine, we might rival +Nature. But the moment I was so thinking, the rays of sunlight I have +spoken of fell on the gay threads. They seemed, before my eyes, to seize +upon the poor yellow fibres which were trying to imitate their own glow, +and, winding themselves round them, I saw the shuttle gather these rays +of sunlight into the meshes of its work. I was to stand there till noon. +So, long before I left, the gleam of sunshine had left the narrow window +and was hidden from the rest of the long room by the gray stone-walls of +another building which rose up outside. But as long as they lingered +over the machine that I was watching, I saw, as though human fingers +were placing them there, rays of sunlight woven in among the green +leaves and brilliant flowers. + +After that gleam had gone, my work grew dark and dreary, and, for the +first time, my walls seemed to me like prison-walls. I longed for the +end of my day's work, and rejoiced that the sun had not yet set when I +was free again. I was free to go out across the meadows, up the hills, +to catch the last rays of sunset. Then coming home, I stooped to pick +the flowers which grew by the wayside in the waning light. + +All that June which followed, I passed my leisure hours and leisure days +in the open air, in the woods. I chased the sunshine from the fields in +under the deep trees, where it only flickered through the leaves. I +hunted for flowers, too, beginning with the gay ones which shone with +color. I wondered how it was they could drink in so much of the sun's +glow. Then I fell to studying all the science of color and all the +theories which are woven about it. I plunged into books of chemistry, +to try to find out how it was that certain flowers should choose certain +colors out from the full beam of light. After the long days, I sat late +into the night, studying all that books could tell me. I collected +prisms, and tried, in scattering the rays, to learn the properties of +each several pencil of light. I grew very wise and learned, but never +came nearer the secret I was searching for,--why it was that the Violet, +lying so near the Dandelion, should choose and find such a different +dress to wear. It was not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at +first. My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups. The +Saint-John's-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower. I trained +the vines which had been drooping round our old house,--the gray +time-worn house; the "natural-colored house," the neighbors called it. I +thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be +scarlet, as I trained up the brilliant scarlet trumpet-flower which my +sister had planted long ago. + +So the summer passed away. My companions and neighbors did not wonder +much, that, after studying so many books, I should begin to study +flowers and botany. And November came. My occupation was not yet taken +away, for Golden-Rod and the Asters gleamed along the dusty roadside, +and still underneath the Maples there lay a sunny glow from the yellow +leaves not yet withered beneath them. + +One day I received a summons from our overseer, Mr. Clarkson, to visit +him in the evening. I went, a little disturbed, lest he might have some +complaint to make of the engrossing nature of my present occupations. +This I was almost led to believe, from the way in which he began to +speak to me. His perorations, to be sure, were apt to be far wide of his +subject; and this time, as usual, I could allow him two or three +minutes' talk before it became necessary for me to give him my +attention. + +At last it came out. I was wanted to go up to Boston about a marvellous +piece of carpet which had appeared from our mills. It had lain in the +warehouse some time, had at last been taken to Boston, and a large +portion of it had been sold, the pattern being a favorite one. But +suddenly there had been a change. In opening one of the rolls and +spreading it broadly in the show-room of Messrs. Gobelin's warehouse, it +had appeared the most wonderful carpet that ever was known. A real +sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and +dance among them as on a broad meadow. It shed a radiance which paled +the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high +windows. It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had +been obliged to ask a high price of admission for the many that flocked +to see it. They had eagerly examined the other rolls of carpeting, in +the hope of finding a repetition of the wonder, and were inclined at one +time to believe that this magical effect was owing to a new method of +lighting their apartments. But it was only in this beautiful pattern and +through a certain portion of it that this wonderful appearance was +shown. Some weeks ago they had sent to our agent to ask if he knew the +origin of this wonderful tapestry. He had consulted with the designer of +the pattern, who had first claimed the discovery of the combination of +colors by which such an effect was produced, but he could not account +for its not appearing throughout the whole work. My master had then +examined some of the workmen, and learned, in the midst of his +inquiries, what had been my late occupations and studies. + +"If," he continued, "I had been inclined to apply any of my discoveries +to the work which I superintended, he was willing, and his partners were +willing, to forgive any interference of that sort, of mine, in affairs +which were strictly their own, as long as the discoveries seemed of so +astonishing a nature." + +I am not able to give all our conversation. I could only say to my +employer, that this was no act of mine, though I felt very sure that +the sunshine which astonished them in Messrs. Gobelin's carpet-store was +the very sunbeam that shone through the window of the factory on the +27th of May, that summer. When he asked me what chemical preparation +could insure a repetition of the same wonderful effect, I could only +say, that, if sunlight were let in upon all the machines, through all +the windows of the establishment, a similar effect might be produced. He +stared at me. Our large and substantial mill was overshadowed by the +high stone-walls of the rival company. It had taken a large amount of +capital to raise our own walls; it would take a still larger to induce +our neighbors to remove theirs. So we parted,--my employer evidently +thinking that I was keeping something behind, waiting to make my profit +on a discovery so interesting to him. He called me back to tell me, +that, after working so long under his employ, he hoped I should never be +induced by higher wages or other proffers to leave for any rival +establishment. + +I was not left long in quiet. I received a summons to Boston. Mr. +Stuart, the millionnaire, had bought the wonderful carpet at an immense +price. He had visited our agent himself, had invited the designer to +dinner, and now would not be satisfied until I had made him a visit +in Boston. + +I went to his house. I passed up through broad stairways, and over +carpets such as I had never trod nor woven. I should have liked to +linger and satisfy my eyes with looking at the walls decorated with +paintings, and at the statuary, which seemed to beckon to me like moving +figures. But I passed on to the room where Mr. Stuart and his friends +awaited me. Here the first thing that struck me was the glowing carpet +across which I must tread. It was lying in an oval saloon, which had +been built, they told me, for the carpet itself. The light was admitted +only from the ceiling, which was so decorated that no clear sunlight +could penetrate it; but down below the sunbeams lay flickering in the +meadow of leaves, and shed a warm glow over the whole room. + +But my eyes directly took in many things besides the flowery ground +beneath me. At one end of the room stood a colossal bust of Juno, +smiling grandly and imperturbably, as if she were looking out from the +great far-away past. I think this would have held my looks and my +attention completely, but that Mr. Stuart must introduce me to his +friends. So I turned my glance away; but it was drawn directly towards a +picture which hung before me,--a face that drove away all recollection +of the colossal goddess. The golden hair was parted over a broad brow; +from the gentle, dreamy eyes there came a soft, penetrating glance, and +a vagueness as of fancy rested over the whole face. I scarcely heard a +word that was spoken to me as I looked upon this new charm, and I could +hardly find answers for the questions that surrounded me. + +But I was again roused from my dreamy wonderment by a real form that +floated in and sent away all visions of imagination. "My daughter," said +Mr. Stuart, and I looked up into the same dreamy eyes which had been +winning me in the picture. But these looked far beyond me, over me, +perhaps, or through me,--I could scarcely say which,--and the mouth +below them bent into a welcoming smile. While she greeted the other +guests, I had an opportunity to watch the stately grace of Mr. Stuart's +daughter, who played the part of hostess as one long accustomed to it. + +"A queen!" I had exclaimed to myself, as she entered the room, "and my +Juno!" + +The gentlemen to whom I had been introduced had been summoned earlier, +as in a learned committee, discussing the properties of the new +discovery. After the entrance of the ladies, I was requested to lead +Miss Stuart to dinner, and sat by her side through the clanging of +dishes and a similar clangor of the table-talk of tongues. + +"Speaking of light," said the Professor, turning to me, "why cannot you +bring, by your unknown chemical ways, some real sunlight into our rooms, +in preference to this metallic gas-light?" + +I turned to the windows, before which the servant had just drawn the +heavy, curtains still closer, to shut out the gleams of a glowing sunset +which had ventured to penetrate between its folds. + +"I see your answer," said Miss Stuart. "You wonder, as I do, why a +little piece of artificial sunlight should astonish us so much more than +the cheap sunlight of every day which the children play in on +the Common." + +"I think your method, Mr. Desmond," said the Chemist, "must be some +power you have found of concentrating all the rays of a pencil of light, +disposing in some way of their heating power. I should like to know if +this is a fluid agent or some solid substance." + +"I should like to see," interrupted another gentleman, "the anvil where +Mr. Desmond forges his beams. Could not we get up a party, Miss Stuart, +an evening-party, to see a little bit of sunlight struck out,--on a +moonshiny night, too?" + +"In my lectures on chemistry," began Mr. Jasper. He was interrupted by +Mr. Stuart. + +"You will have to write your lectures over again. Mr. Desmond has +introduced such new ideas upon chemistry that he will give you a chance +for a new course." + +"You forget," said the Chemist, "that the laws of science are the same +and immutable. My lectures, having once been written, are written. I +only see that Mr. Desmond has developed theories which I have myself +laid down. As our friend the Artist will tell us, sunlight is sunlight, +wherever you find it, whether you catch it on a carpet or on a +lady's face." + +"But I am quite ashamed," said Miss Stuart, "that we ladies so seldom +have the sunlight on our faces. I think we might agree to Mr. Green's +proposal to go out somewhere and see where the sunbeams really are made. +We shut them out with our curtains, and turn night into a +make-believe day." + +"But the sun is so trying!" put in Miss Lester. "Just think how much +more becoming candle-light is! There is not one of my dresses which +would stand a broad sunbeam." + +"I see," said Mr. Stuart, "that, when Mr. Desmond has perfected his +studies, we shall be able to roof over the whole of Boston with our +woven sunlight by day and gas-light by night, quite independent of fogs +and uncertain east-winds." + +So much of the dinner-conversation dwelt upon what was supposed to be +interesting to me, and a part of my profession. It was laggingly done; +for presently the talk fell into an easier flow,--a wonder about Mrs. +This, and speculation concerning Mr. That. Mr. Blank had gone to Europe +with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four +elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind. I +was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who +was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day. +In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her +personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her manner +of life, all were pulled to pieces, and discussed, dissected, and +classified, in the same way as I would handle one of the Composite. + +Miss Stuart spoke but little. She fluttered gayly over the livelier +conversation, but seemed glad to fall back into a sort of wearied +repose, where she appeared to be living in a higher atmosphere than the +rest of us. This air of repose the others seemed to be trying to reach, +when they got no farther than dulness; and some of the gentlemen, I +thought, made too great efforts in their attempts to appear bored. +Especially one of them exerted himself greatly to gape so often in the +face of a lady with whom he was striving to keep up an appearance of +conversation, that the exertion itself must have wearied him. + +After the ladies had left, the Chemist seated himself by me, that he +might, as he openly said, get out of me the secret of my sunshine. The +more I disowned the sunshine, the more he felt sure that I possessed +some secret clue to it. I need not say, that, in all my talk with these +gentlemen, I had constantly tried to show that I could claim no +influence in setting the sun's rays among the green carpeted leaves. + +I was urged to stay many days in Boston, was treated kindly, and invited +here and there. I grew to feel almost at home at Mr. Stuart's. He was +pleased to wonder at the education which I had given myself, as he +called it. I sat many long mornings in Miss Stuart's drawing-room, and +she had the power of making me talk of many things which had always been +hidden even from myself. It was hardly a sympathy with me which seemed +to unlock my inner thoughts; it was as though she had already looked +through them, and that I must needs bring them out for her use. That +same glance which I have already spoken of, which seemed to pass over +and through me, invited me to say in words what I felt she was beginning +to read with her eyes. We went together, the day before I was to leave +town, to the Gallery of Paintings. + +As we watched a fine landscape by Kensett, a stream of sunshine rested a +moment on the canvas, giving motion and color, as it were, to the +pictured sunlight. + +Miss Stuart turned to me. + +"Why will you not imprison sunlight in that way, Mr. Desmond? That would +be artistic." + +"You forget," I said, "if I could put the real sunlight into such a +picture, it would no longer be mine; I should be a borrower, not a +creator of light; I should be no more of an artist than I am now." + +"You will always refuse to acknowledge it," she said; "but you can never +persuade me that you have not the power to create a sunbeam. An +imprisoned sunbeam! The idea is absurd." + +"It is because the idea is so absurd," I said, "that, if I felt the +power were mine to imprison sunbeams, I should hardly care to repeat the +effort. The sunshine rests upon the grass, freely we say, but in truth +under some law that prevents its penetrating farther. A sunbeam existing +in the absence of the sun is, of course, an absurdity. Yet they are +there, the sunbeams of last spring, in your oval room, as I saw them one +day in May." + +"Which convinces me," said Miss Stuart, "that you are an artist. That is +not real sunshine. You have created it. You are born for an artist-life. +Do not go back to your drudgery." + +"Daily work," I answered, "must become mechanical work, if we perform it +in a servile way. A lawyer is perhaps inspired, when he is engaged in a +cause on which he thinks his reputation hangs; but, day by day, when he +goes down to the work that brings him his daily bread, he is quite as +likely to call it his drudgery as I my daily toil." + +She left her seat and walked with me towards a painting which hung not +far from us. It represented sunset upon the water. "The tender-curving +lines of creamy spray" were gathering up the beach; the light was +glistening across the waves; and shadows and light almost seemed to move +over the canvas. + +"There," said Miss Stuart, "is what I call work that is worthy. I know +there was inspiration in every touch of the brush. I know there was +happy life in the life that inspired that painting. It is worth while to +live and to show that one has been living in that way." + +"But I think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside +his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it +finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he +went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the +work,--because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy +was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The days of +drudgery hung heavily on the days of inspiration; and it was only when +he carried his heart into the most monotonous part of his work that he +found any inspiration in it, that he could feel he had accomplished +anything." We turned suddenly away into a room where we had not been +before. I could not notice the pictures that covered the walls for the +sake of one to which Miss Stuart led the way. After looking upon that, +there could be no thought of finding out any other. It possessed the +whole room. The inspiration which uplifted the eyes fell over the whole +painting. We looked at it silently, and it was not till we had left the +building that Miss Stuart said,-- + +"We have seen there something which takes away all thought of artist or +style of painting or work. I have never been able to ask myself what is +the color of the eyes of that Madonna, or of her flowing hair, or the +tone of the drapery. I see only an expression that inspires the whole +figure, gives motion to the hands, life to the eyes, thought to the +lips, and soul to the whole being." + +"The whole inspiration, the whole work," I said, "is far above us. It is +quite above me. No, I am not an artist; my fingers do not tingle for the +brush. This is an inspiration I cannot reach; it floats above me. It +moves and touches me, but shows me my own powerlessness." + +I left Boston. I went back to winter, to my old home, to my every-day's +work. My work was not monotonous; or if one tone did often recur in it, +I built upon it, out of my heart and life, full chords of music. The +vision of Margaret Stuart came before my eyes in the midst of all +mechanical labor, in all the hours of leisure, in all the dreams of +night. My life, indeed, grew more varied than ever; for I found myself +more at ease with those around me, finding more happiness than I had +ever found before in my intercourse with others. I found more of myself +in them, more sympathy in their joy or sorrow, myself more of an equal +with those around me. + +The winter months passed quickly away. Mr. Clarkson frequently showed +his disappointment because the mills no longer produced the wonder of +last year. For me, it had almost passed out of my thoughts. It seemed +but a part of the baser fabric of that vision where Margaret Stuart +reigned supreme. I saw no way to help him; but more and more, daily, +rejoiced in the outer sunshine of the world, in the fresh, glowing +spring, in the flowers of May. So I was surprised again, when, near the +close of May, after a week of stormy weather, the sunlight broke through +the window where it had shone the year before. It hung a moment on the +threads of work,--then, seeming to spurn them, fell upon the ground. + +We were weaving, alas! a strange "arabesque pattern," as it was called, +with no special form,--so it seemed to my eyes,--bringing in gorgeous +colors, but set in no shape which Nature ever produced, either above the +earth or in metals or crystals hid far beneath. How I reproached myself, +on Mr. Clarkson's account, that I had not interceded, just for this one +day of sunshine, for some pattern that Nature might be willing to +acknowledge! But the hour was past, I knew it certainly, when the next +day the sun was clouded, and for many days we did not see its +face again. + +So the time passed away. Another summer came along, and another glowing +autumn, and that winter I did not go to Boston. Mr. Clarkson let me fall +back again into my commonplace existence. I was no longer more than one +of the common workmen. Perhaps, indeed, he looked upon, me with a +feeling of disappointment, as though a suddenly discovered diamond had +turned to charcoal in his hands. Sometimes he consulted me upon chemical +matters, finding I knew what the books held, but evidently feeling a +little disturbed that I never brought out any hidden knowledge. + +This second winter seemed more lonely to me. The star that had shone +upon me seemed farther away than ever. I could see it still. It was +hopelessly distant. My Juno! For a little while I could imagine she was +thinking of me, that my little name might be associated in her memory +with what we had talked of, what we had seen together, with some of the +high things which I knew must never leave her thoughts. But this +glimmering memory of me I knew must have faded away as her life went on, +varied as it was with change of faces, sounds of music, and whirl of +excitement. Then, too, I never heard her name mentioned. She was out of +my circle, as far away from my sphere as the heroines of those old +romances that I had read so long ago; but more life-like, more warm, +more sunny was her influence still. It uplifted my work, and crowned my +leisure with joy. I blessed the happy sunshine of that 27th of May, +which in a strange way had been the clue that led to my knowledge +of her. + +The longest winter-months melt away at last into spring, and so did +these. May came with her promises and blights of promise. Recalling, +this time, how sunshine would come with the latter end of May through +the dark walls, I begged of Mr. Clarkson that a favorite pattern of mine +might be put upon the looms. Its design was imagined by one of my +companions in my later walks. He was an artist of the mills, and had +been trying to bring within the rigid lines that were required some of +the grace and freedom of Nature. He had scattered here some water-lilies +among broad green leaves. My admiration for Nature, alas! had grown only +after severe cultivation among the strange forms which we carpet-makers +indulge in with a sort of mimicry of Nature. So I cannot be a fair judge +of this, even as a work of art. I see sometimes tapestries in a meadow +studded with buttercups, and I fancy patterns for carpets when I see a +leaf casting its shadow upon a stone. So I may be forgiven for saying +that these water-lilies were dear to me as seeming like Nature, as they +were lying upon their green leaves. + +Mr. Clarkson granted my request, and for a few days, this pattern was +woven by the machine. These trial-days I was excited from my usual +calmness. The first day the sunshine did not reach the narrow window. +The second day we had heavy storm and rain. But the third day, not far +from the expected hour, the sunshine burst through the little space. It +fell upon my golden threads; it seemed directly to embrace them +joyously, to encircle them closely. The sunlight seemed to incorporate +itself with the woolly fibre, to conceal itself among the work where the +shuttle chose to hide it. I fancied a sort of laughing joy, a clatter +and dash in the machinery itself, as though there were a happy time, +where was usually only a monotonous whirl. I could scarcely contain +myself till noon. + +When I left my room, I found, on inquiry, that Mr. Clarkson was not in +the building, and was to be away all day. I went out into the air for a +free breath, and looked up into the glowing sky, yet was glad to go back +again to my machines, which I fancied would greet me with an unwonted +joy. But, as I passed towards the stairway, I glanced into one of the +lower rooms, where some of the clerks were writing. I fancied Mr. +Clarkson might be there. There were women employed in this room, and +suddenly one who was writing at a desk attracted my attention. I did not +see her face; but the impression that her figure gave me haunted me as I +passed on. Some one passing me saw my disturbed look. + +"What have you seen? a ghost?" he asked. + +"Who is writing in that room? Can you tell me?" I said. + +"You know them all," was his answer, "except the new-comer, Miss Stuart. +Have not you heard the talk of her history,--how the father has failed +and died and all that, and how the daughter is glad enough to get work +under Mr. Clarkson's patronage?" + +The bell was ringing that called me, and I could not listen to more. My +brain was whirling uncertainly, and I doubted if I ought to believe my +ears. I went back to my work more dazed and bewildered than ever in my +youthful days. I forgot the wonder of the morning. It was quite +outshone by the wonder of the afternoon. I longed for my hour of +release. I longed for a time for thought,--to learn whether what had +been told me could be true. When the time came, I hastened down-stairs; +but I found the door of the office closed. Its occupants had all gone. I +hastened through the village, turned back again, and on the bridge over +the little stream met Margaret Stuart. She was the same. It made no +difference what were her surroundings, she was the same; there was the +same wonderful glance, the same smile of repose. It made no difference +where or how I met her, she ruled me still. She greeted me with the same +air and manner as in her old home when I saw her first. + +She told me afterwards of the changes and misfortunes of the past year, +of her desire for independence, and how she found she was little able to +uphold it herself. + +"Some of my friends," she said, "were very anxious I should teach +singing,--I had such a delicious voice, which had been so well +cultivated. I could sing Italian opera-songs and the like. But I found I +could only sing the songs that pleased me, and it was doubtful whether +they would happen to suit the taste or the voice of those I should try +to teach. For, I must confess it, I have never cultivated my voice +except for my own pleasure, and never for the sake of the art. I did try +to teach music a little while, and, oh, it was hopeless! I remembered +some of our old talks about drudgery, and thought it had been a happy +thing for me, if I had ever learned how to drudge over anything. What I +mean is, I have never learned how to go through a monotonous duty, how +to give it an inspiration which would make it possible or endurable. It +would have been easier to summon up all my struggling for the sake of +one great act of duty. I did not know how to scatter it over work day +after day the same. Worse than all, in spite of all my education, I did +not know enough of music to teach it." + +She went on, not merely this evening, but afterwards, to tell me of the +different efforts she had made to earn a living for herself with the +help of kind friends. + +"At last," she said, "I bethought me of my handwriting, of the 'elegant' +notes which used to receive such praise; and when I met Mr. Clarkson one +day in Boston, I asked him what price he would pay me for it. I will +tell you that he was very kind, very thoughtful for me. He fancied the +work he had to offer would be distasteful to me; but he has made it as +agreeable, as easy to be performed, as can be done. My aunt was willing +to come here with me. She has just enough to live upon herself, and we +are likely to live comfortably together here. So I am trying that sort +of work you praised so much when you were with me; and I shall be glad, +if you can go on and show me what inspiration can bring into it." + +So day after day I saw her, and evening after evening we renewed the old +talks. The summer passed on, and the early morning found her daily at +her work, every day pursuing an unaccustomed labor. Her spirit seemed +more happy and joyous than ever. She seemed far more at home than in the +midst of crowded streets and gay, brilliant rooms. Her expression was +more earnest and spiritual than ever,--her life, I thought, gayer +and happier. + +So I thought till one evening, when we had walked far away down the +little stream that led out of the town. We stopped to look into its +waters, while she leaned against the trunk of a tree overshadowed it. We +watched the light and shade that nickered below, the shadow of the +clover-leaves, of the long reeds that hung almost across the stream. The +quiet was enhanced by the busy motion below, the bustle of little animal +life, the skimming of the water-insects, the tender rustling of the +leaves, and the gentle murmuring of the stream itself. Then I looked at +her, from the golden hair upon her head down to its shadow in the brook +below. I saw her hands folded over each other, and, suddenly, they +looked to me very thin and white and very weary. I looked at her again, +and her whole posture was one of languor and weariness,--the languor of +the body, not a weariness of the soul. There was a happy smile on the +lips, and a gleam of happiness from under the half-closed eyes. But, oh, +so tired and faint did the slender body look that I almost feared to see +the happier spirit leave it, as though it were incumbered by something +which could not follow it. + +"Margaret!" I exclaimed. "You are wearing yourself away. You were never +made for such labor. You cannot learn this sort of toil. You are of the +sunshine, to play above the dusty earth, to gladden the dreary places. +Look at my hands, that are large for work,--at my heavy shoulders, +fitted to bear the yoke. Let me work for us both, and you shall still be +the inspiration of my work, and the sunshine that makes it gold. The +work we talked of is drudgery for you; you cannot bear it." + +I think she would not agree to what I said about her work. She "had +began to learn how to find life in every-day work, just as she saw a new +sun rise every day." But she did agree that we would work together, +without asking where our sunshine came from, or our inspiration. + +So it was settled. And her work was around and within the old +"natural-colored" house, whose walls by this time were half-embowered in +vines. There was gay sunshine without and within. And the lichen was +yellow that grew on the deeply sloping roof, and we liked to plant +hollyhocks and sunflowers by the side of the quaint old building, while +scarlet honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers and gay convolvuli gladdened +the front porch. + +There was but one question that was left to be disputed between us. +Margaret still believed I was an artist, all-undeveloped. + +"Those sunbeams"-- + +"I had nothing to do with them. They married golden threads that seemed +kindred to them." + +"It is not true. Sunbeams cannot exist without the sun. Your magnetic +power, perhaps, attracted the true sunbeam, and you recreated others." + +She fancies, if I would only devote myself to Art, I might become an +American Murillo, and put a Madonna upon canvas. + +But before we carried the new sunshine into the old house, I had been +summoned again by Mr. Clarkson. Another wonderful piece of carpeting had +gone out from the works, discovered by our agent before it had left our +warehouse. It was the Water-Lily pattern,--lilies sitting among green +leaves with sunshine playing in and out and among them. So dazzling it +seemed, that it shed a light all round the darkened walls of the +warehouse. It was priceless, he thought, a perfect unique. Better, +almost, that never such a pattern should appear again. It ought to +remain the only one in the world. + +And it did so remain. The rival establishment built a new chimney to +their mill, which shut out completely all sunshine or hope of sunshine +from our narrow windows. This was accomplished before the next May, and +I showed Mr. Clarkson how utterly impossible it was for the most +determined sunbeam ever to mingle itself with our most inviting fabrics. +Mr. Clarkson pondered a long time. We might build our establishment a +story higher; we might attempt to move it. But here were solid changes, +and the hopes were uncertain. Affairs were going on well, and the +reputation of the mills was at its height. And the carpets of sunshine +were never repeated. + + + * * * * * + + + +THE TWO TONGUES. + + +Whoever would read a profound political pamphlet under the guise of a +brilliant novel may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay +overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the +curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the _proletaire_ +in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness, +and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober truth of present +history. And we are often tempted to bind up the novel of the dashing +Parliamenteer with our copy of "Ivanhoe," that we may thus have, side by +side, from the pens of the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli and Sir +Walter Scott, the beginning and the end of these eight hundred years of +struggle between Norman rule and Saxon endurance. For let races and +families change as they will, there have ever been in England two +nations; and the old debate of Wamba and Gurth in the forest-glade by +Rotherwood is illustrated by the unconscious satires of last week's +"Punch." In Chartism, Reform-Bills, and Strikes, in the etiquette which +guards the Hesperides of West-End society, in the rigid training which +stops many an adventurer midway in his career, are written the old +characters of the forest-laws of Rufus and the Charter of John. Races +and families change, but the distinction endures, is stamped upon all +things pertaining to both. + +We in America, who boast our descent from this matrimony of Norman and +Saxon, claim also that we have blent the features of the two into one +homogeneous people. In this country, where the old has become new, and +the new is continually losing its raw lustre before the glitter of some +fresher splendor, the traces of the contest are all but obliterated. +Only our language has come to us with the brand of the fatherland upon +it. In our mother-tongue prevails the same principle of dualism, the +same conflict of elements, which not all the lethean baptism of the +Atlantic could wash out. The two nations of England survive in the two +tongues of America. + +We beg the reluctant reader not to prematurely pooh-pooh as a "miserable +mouse" this conclusion, thinking that we are only serving up again that +old story of Wamba and Gurth with an added _sauce-piquante_ from Dean +Trench. We admit that we allude to that original composition of English +past and present from a Latin and a Teutonic stock. But that is to us +not an ultimate, but a primal fact. It is the premise from which we +propose to trace out the principle now living and working in our present +speech. We commence our history with that strife of the tongues which +had at the outset also their battle of Hastings, their field of Sanilac. +There began the feud which to-day continues to divide our language, +though the descendants of the primitive stocks are inextricably mingled. + +For it is as in "Sibyl." That novel showed us the peer's descendants at +the workman's forge, while the manufacturer's grandchildren were wearing +the ermine and the strawberry-leaves. There is the constant passing to +and fro across the one border-line which never changes. Dandy Mick and +Devilsdust save a little money and become "respectable." We can follow +out their history after Mr. Disraeli leaves them. They marry Harriet and +Caroline, and contrive to educate a sharp boy or two, who will rise to +become superintendents in the mills and to speculate in cotton-spinning. +They in turn send into trade, with far greater advantages, their sons. +The new generation, still educating, and, faithful to the original +impulse, putting forth its fresh and aspiring tendrils, gets one boy +into the church, another at the bar, and keeps a third at the great +_Rouge-et-Noir_ table of commerce. Some one of their stakes has a run of +luck. Either it is my Lord Eldon who sits on the wool-sack, or the young +curate bids his Oxford laurels against a head-mastership of a public +school and covers his baldness with a mitre, or Jones Lloyd steps from +his back parlor into the carriage which is to take Lord Overstone to the +House of Peers. From the day when young Osborne, the bold London +'prentice, leaped into the Thames to fish up thence his master's +daughter, and brought back, not only the little lady, but the ducal +coronet of Leeds in prospective, to that when Thomas Newcome the elder +walked up to the same London that he might earn the "bloody hand" for +Sir Brian and Sir Barnes, English life has been full of such gallant +achievements. + +So it has been with the words these speak. The phrases of the noble +Canon Chaucer have fallen to the lips of peasants and grooms, while many +a pert Cockney saying has elbowed its sturdy way into her Majesty's High +Court of Parliament. Yet still there are two tongues flowing through our +daily talk and writing, like the Missouri and Mississippi, with distinct +and contrasted currents. + +And this appears the more strikingly in this country, where other +distinctions are lost. We have an aristocracy of language, whose +phrases, like the West-End men of "Sibyl," are effeminate, extravagant, +conventional, and prematurely worn-out. These words represent ideas +which are theirs only by courtesy and conservatism, like the law-terms +of the courts, or the "cant" of certain religious books. We have also a +plebeian tongue, whose words are racy, vigorous, and healthy, but which +men look askance at, when met in polite usage, in solemn literature, and +in sermons. Norman and Saxon are their relative positions, as in the old +time when "Ox" was for the serf who drove a-field the living animal, and +"Beef" for the baron who ate him; but their lineage is counter-crossed +by a hundred, nay, a thousand vicissitudes. + +With this aristocracy of speech we are all familiar. We do not mean with +the speech of our aristocracy, which is quite another thing, but that +which is held appropriate for "great occasions," for public parade, and +for pen, ink, and types. It is cherished where all aristocracies +flourish best,--in the "rural districts." There is a style and a class +of words and phrases belonging to country newspapers, and to the city +weeklies which have the largest bucolic circulation, which you detect in +the Congressional eloquence of the honorable member for the Fifteenth +District, Mass., and in the Common-School Reports of Boston Corner,--a +style and words that remind us of the country gentry whose titles date +back to the Plantagenets. They look so strangely beside the brisk, +dapper curtnesses in which metropolitan journals transact their daily +squabbles! We never write one of them out without an involuntary +addition of quotation-marks, as a New-Yorker puts to his introduction of +his verdant cousin the supplementary, "From the Jerseys." Their +etymological Herald's Office is kept by schoolmasters, and especially +schoolma'ams, or, in the true heraldic tongue, "Preceptresses of +Educational Seminaries." You may find them in Mr. Hobbs, Jr.'s, +celebrated tale of "The Bun-Baker of Cos-Cob," or in Bowline's thrilling +novelette of "Beauty and Booty, or The Black Buccaneer of the Bermudas." +They glitter in the train of "Napoleon and his Marshals," and look down +upon us from the heights of "The Sacred Mountains." + +Occasionally you will find them degraded from their high estate and +fallen among the riff-raff of slang. They become "seedy" words, stripped +of their old meaning, mere _chevaliers d'industrie_, yet with something +of the air noble about them which distinguishes them from the born +"cad." The word "convey" once suffered such eclipse, (we are glad to say +it has come up again,) and consorted, unless Falstaff be mistaken, with +such low blackguards as "nim" and "cog" and "prig" and similar +"flash" terms. + +But we do not propose to linger among the "upper-ten" of the +dictionaries. The wont of such is to follow the law of hereditary +aristocracies: the old blood gets thin, there is no sparkle to the +_sangre azul_, the language dies out in poverty. The strong, new, +popular word forces its way up, is heard at the bar, gets quoted in the +pulpit, slips into the outer ring of good society. King Irving or King +Emerson lays his pen across its shoulder and it rises up ennobled, till +finally it is accepted of the "Atlantic Monthly," and its +court-presentation is complete. + +We have thus indicated the nature of the great contest in language +between the conventional and the idiomatic. Idioms are just what their +name implies. They are the commonalty of language,--private, proletarian +words, who do the work, "_dum alteri tulerunt honores_." They come to us +from all handiworks and callings, where you will always find them at +their posts. Sharp, energetic, incisive, they do the hard labor of +speech,--that of carrying heavy loads of thought and shaping new ideas. + +We think them vulgar at first, and savoring of the shop; but they are +useful and handy, and we cannot do without them. They rivet, they forge, +they coin, they "fire up," "brake up," "switch off," "prospect," "shin" +for us when we are "short," "post up" our books, and finally ourselves, +"strike a lead," "follow a trail," "stand up to the rack," "dicker," +"swap," and "peddle." They are "whole teams" beside the "one-horse" +vapidities which fail to bear our burdens. The Norman cannot keep down +the Saxon. The Saxon finds his Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Now "Mose" brings +his Bowery Boys into our parlor, or Cromwell Judd recruits his Ironsides +from the hamlets of the Kennebec. + +We declare for the proletaires. We vote the working-words ticket. We +have to plead the cause of American idioms. Some of them have, as we +said, good blood in them and can trace their lineage and standing to the +English Bible and Book of Common Prayer; others are "new men," born +under hedge-rows and left as foundlings at furnace-doors. And before we +go farther, we have a brief story to tell in illustration of the +two tongues. + +A case of assault and battery was tried in a Western court. The +plaintiff's counsel informed the jury in his opening, that he was +"prepared to prove that the defendant, a steamboat-captain, menaced his +client, an English traveller, and put him in bodily fear, commanding him +to vacate the avenue of the steamboat with his baggage, or he would +precipitate him into the river." The evidence showed that the captain +called out,--"Stranger, ef you don't tote your plunder off that +gang-plank, I'll spill you in the drink." + +We submit that for terseness and vigor the practitioner at the bar of +the Ohio had the better of the learned counsel who appeared at the bar +of justice, albeit his client was in a Cockney mystification at +the address. + +The illustration will serve our turn. It points to a class of phrases +which are indigenous to various localities of the land, in which the +native thought finds appropriate, bold, and picturesque utterance. And +these in time become incorporate into the universal tongue. Of them is +the large family of political phrases. These are coined in moments of +intense excitement, struck out at white heat, or, to follow our leading +metaphor, like the speakers who use them, come upon the stump in their +shirt-sleeves. Every campaign gives us a new horde. Some die out at +once; others felicitously tickle the public ear and ring far and wide. +They "speak for Buncombe," are Barn-Burners, Old Hunkers, Hard Shells, +Soft Shells, Log-Rollers, Pipe-Layers, Woolly Heads, Silver Grays, +Locofocos, Fire-Eaters, Adamantines, Free Soilers, Freedom Shriekers, +Border Ruffians. They spring from a bon-mot or a retort. The log-cabin +and hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the +Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers +may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious +arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, to transfer the balance of +power to his own party. One of his opponents, poring over the map of the +Commonwealth, was struck by the odd look of the geographical lines +which thus were drawn, curving in and out among the towns and counties. +"It looks," said he, "like a Salamander." "Looks like a _Gerry_-mander!" +ejaculated another; and the term stuck long and closely. + +Now and then you have the aristocratic and democratic sides of an idea +in use at the same time. Those who style themselves "Gentlemen of the +Press" are known to the rest of mankind as "Dead Heads,"--being, for +paying purposes, literally, _capita mortua_. + +So, too, our colleges are provided, over and above the various dead +languages of their classic curriculum, with the two tongues. The one +serves the young gentlemen, especially in their Sophomoric maturity, +with appropriate expressions for their literary exercises and public +flights. The other is for their common talk, tells who "flunked" and was +"deaded," who "fished" with the tutor, who "cut" prayers, and who was +"digging" at home. Each college, from imperial Harvard and lordly Yale +to the freshest Western "Institution," whose three professors fondly +cultivate the same number of aspiring Alumni, has its particular dialect +with its quadrennial changes. The just budded Freshmen of the class of +'64 could hardly without help decipher "The Rebelliad," which in the +Consulship of Plancus Kirkland was the epic of the day. The good old +gentlemen who come up to eat Commencement dinners and to sing with +quavery voices the annual psalm thereafter, are bewildered in the mazes +of the college-speech of their grandsons. Whence come these phrases few +can tell. Like witty Dr. S------'s "quotation," which never was +anything else, they started in life as sayings, springing full-grown, +like Pallas Athene, from the laboring brain of some Olympic Sophister. +Here in the quiet of our study in the country, we wonder if the boys +continue as in our day to "create a shout," instead of "making a call," +upon their lady acquaintances,--if they still use "ponies,"--if they +"group," and get, as we did, "parietals" and "publics" for the same. + +The police courts contribute their quota. Baggage-smashing, +dog-smudging, ring-dropping, watch-stuffing, the patent-safe men, the +confidence men, garroters, shysters, policy-dealers, mock-auction Peter +Funks, bogus-ticket swindlers, are all terms which have more or less +outgrown the bounds of their Alsatia of Thieves' Latin and are known +of men. + +Even the pulpit, with its staid decorums, has its idioms, which it +cannot quite keep to itself. We hear in the religious world of +"professors," and "monthly concerts," (which mean praying, and not +psalmody,) of "sensation-preaching," (which takes the place of the +"painful" preaching of old times,) of "platform-speakers," of +"revival-preachers," of "broad pulpits," and "Churches of the Future," +of the "Eclipse of Faith" and the "Suspense of Faith," of "liberal" +Christians, (with no reference to the contribution-plates,) of +"subjective" and "objective" sermons, "Spurgeonisms," and "businessmen's +meetings." And we can never think without a smile of that gifted genius, +whoever he was, who described a certain public exercise as _"the most +eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience."_ He surely created +a new and striking idiom. + +The boys do, as Young America should, their share. And the sayings of +street urchins endure with singular tenacity. Like their sports, which +follow laws of their own, uninfluenced by meteorological considerations, +tending to the sedentary games of marbles in the cold, chilly spring, +and bursting into base-and foot-ball in the midsummer solstice, strict +tradition hands down from boy to boy the well-worn talk. There are still +"busters," as in our young days, and the ardent youth upon floating +cakes of ice "run bendolas" or "kittly-benders," or simply "benders." In +different latitudes the phrase varies,--one-half of it going to Plymouth +Colony, and the other abiding in Massachusetts Bay. And this tendency to +dismember a word is curiously shown in that savory fish which the +Indian christened "scup-paug." Eastward he swims as "scup," while at the +Manhattan end of the Sound he is fried as "porgie." And apropos of him, +let us note a curious instance of the tenacity of associated ideas. The +street boys of our day and early home were wont to term the _hetairai_ +of the public walks "scup." The young Athenians applied to the classic +courtesans the epithet of [Greek: saperdion], the name of a small fish +very abundant in the Black Sea. Here now is a bit of slang which may +fairly be warranted to keep fresh in any climate. + +But boy-talk is always lively and pointed; not at all precise, but very +prone to prosopopeia; ever breaking out of the bounds of legitimate +speech to invent new terms of its own. Dr. Busby addresses Brown, Jr., +as Brown Secundus, and speaks to him of his "young companions." Brown +himself talks of "the chaps," or "the fellows," who in turn know Brown +only as Tom Thumb. The power of nicknaming is a school-boy gift, which +no discouragement of parents and guardians can crush out, and which +displays thoroughly the idiomatic faculty. For a man's name was once +_his_, the distinctive mark by which the world got at his identity. +Long, Short, White, Black, Greathead, Longshanks, etc., told what a +person in the eyes of men the owner presented. The hereditary or +aristocratic process has killed this entirely. Men no longer make their +names; even the poor foundlings, like Oliver Twist, are christened +alphabetically by some Bumble the Beadle. But the nickname restores his +lost rights, and takes the man at once out of the _ignoble vulgus_ to +give him identity. We recognize this gift and are proud of our +nicknames, when we can get them to suit us. Only the sharp judgment of +our peers reverses our own heraldry and sticks a surname like a burr +upon us. The nickname is the idiom of nomenclature. The sponsorial +appellation is generally meaningless, fished piously out of Scripture or +profanely out of plays and novels, or given with an eye to future +legacies, or for some equally insufficient reason apart from the name +itself. So that the gentleman who named his children One, Two, and +Three, was only reducing to its lowest term the prevailing practice. But +the nickname abides. It has its hold in affection. When the "old boys" +come together in Gore Hall at their semi-centennial Commencement, or the +"Puds" or "Pores" get together after long absence, it is not to inquire +what has become of the Rev. Dr. Heavysterne or his Honor Littleton Coke, +but it is, "Who knows where Hockey Jones is?" and "Did Dandy Glover +really die in India?" and "Let us go and call upon Old Sykes" or "Old +Roots" or "Old Conic-Sections,"--thus meaning to designate +Professor----, LL.D., A.A.S., F.R.S., etc. A college president who had +no nickname would prove himself, _ipso facto_, unfit for his post. It is +only dreadfully affected people who talk of "Tully"; the sensible all +cling to the familiar "Chick-Pea" or Cicero, by which the wart-faced +orator was distinguished. For it is not the boys only, but all American +men, who love nicknames, the idioms of nomenclature. The first thing +which is done, after a nominating convention has made its platform and +balloted for its candidates, is to discover or invent a nickname: Old +Hickory, Tippecanoe, The Little Giant, The Little Magician, The Mill-Boy +of the Slashes, Honest John, Harry of the West, Black Dan, Old Buck, Old +Rough and Ready. A "good name" is a tower of strength and many votes. + +And not only with candidates for office, the spots on whose "white +garments" are eagerly sought for and labelled, but in the names of +places and classes the principle prevails, the democratic or Saxon +tongue gets the advantage. Thus, we have for our states, cities, and +ships-of-war the title of fondness which drives out the legal title of +ceremony. Are we not "Yankees" to the world, though to the diplomatists +"citizens of the United States of America"? We have a Union made up upon +the map of Maine, New Hampshire, etc., to California; we have another in +the newspapers, composed of the Lumber State, the Granite State, the +Green-Mountain State, the Nutmeg State, the Empire State, the Keystone +State, the Blue Hen, the Old Dominion, of Hoosiers, Crackers, Suckers, +Badgers, Wolverines, the Palmetto State, and Eldorado. We have the +Crescent City, the Quaker City, the Empire City, the Forest City, the +Monumental City, the City of Magnificent Distances. We hear of Old +Ironsides sent to the Mediterranean to relieve the Old Tea-Wagon, +ordered home. Everywhere there obtains the Papal principle of taking a +new title upon succeeding to any primacy. The Norman imposed his laws +upon England; the courts, the parish-registers, the Acts of Parliament +were all his; but to this day there are districts of the Saxon Island +where the postman and census-taker inquire in vain for Adam Smith and +Benjamin Brown, but must perforce seek out Bullhead and Bandyshins. So +indomitable is the Saxon. + +We have not done yet with our national idioms. In the seaboard towns +nautical phrases make tarry the talk of the people. "Where be you +a-cruising to?" asks one Nantucket matron of her gossip. "Sniver-dinner, +I'm going to Egypt; Seth B. has brought a letter from Turkey-wowner to +Old Nancy." "Dressed-to-death-and-drawers-empty, don't you see we're +goin' to have a squall? You had better take in your stu'n'-sails." The +good woman was dressed up, intending, "_as soon as ever_ dinner was +over," to go, not to the land of the Pharaohs, but to the negro-quarter +of the town, with a letter which "Seth B." (her son, thus identified by +his middle letter) had brought home from Talcahuana. + +For the rural idioms we refer the reader to the late Sylvester Judd's +"Margaret" and "Richard Edney," and to the Jack Downing Letters. + +The town is not behind the country. For, whatever is the current fancy, +pugilism, fire-companies, racing, railway-building, or the opera, its +idioms invade the talk. The Almighty Dollar of our worship has more +synonymes than the Roman Pantheon had divinities. We are not +"well-informed," but "posted" or "posted up." We are not "hospitably +entreated" any more, but "put through." We do not "meet with +misadventure," but "see the elephant," which we often do through the +Hibernian process of "fighting the tiger." + +Purists deplore this, but it is inevitable; and if one searches beneath +the surface, there is often a curious deposit of meaning, sometimes +auriferous enough to repay our use of cradle and rocker. We "panned +out," the other day, a phrase which gave us great delight, and which +illustrated a fact in New England history worth noting. We were puzzling +over the word "socdollager," which Bartlett, we think, defines as +"Anything very large and striking,"--_Anglice_, a "whopper,"--"also a +peculiar fish-hook." The word first occurs in print, we believe, in Mr. +Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of +Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that +there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon +us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology." +This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or +"j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis, +both because its words were familiar to all without book, and because it +served instead of the chanted creed of their Anglican forefathers. The +last thing, after which nothing could properly follow, the most +important and most conspicuous of all, it represented to our Yankee +Walton the crowning hope of his life,--the big bass, after taking which +he might put hook-and-line on the shelf. By a slight transposition, +natural enough to untrained organs, "doxology" became "socdollager." + +We are not making a dictionary of Americanisms, but merely wandering a +little way into our native forests. We refer to the prevalent habit of +idiomatic speech as a fact that makes part of our literature. It cannot +be ignored, nor do we see how it is to be avoided. It is well, of +course, to retain the sterling classic basis of our speech as we +received it from abroad, and to this all that is best and purest in our +literature past and present will tend. But we hold to no Know-Nothing +platform which denies a right of naturalization to the worthy. As Ruskin +says of the river, that it does not make its bed, but finds it, seeking +out, with infinite pains, its appointed channel, so thought will seek +its expression, guided by its inner laws of association and sympathy. If +the mind and heart of a nation become barbarized, no classic culture can +keep its language from corruption. If its ideas are ignoble, it will +turn to the ignoble and vulgar side of every word in its tongue, it will +affix the mean sense it desires to utter where it had of old no place. +It converts the prince's palace into a stable or an inn; it pulls down +the cathedral and the abbey to use the materials for the roads on which +it tramples. It is good to sanctify language by setting some of its +portions apart for holy uses,--at least, by preserving intact the high +religious association which rests upon it. The same silver may be +moulded to the altar-chalice or the Bacchic goblet; but we touch the one +with reverent and clean hands, while the other is tossed aside in the +madness of the revel. Men clamor for a new version of the Sacred +Scriptures, and profess to be shocked at its plain outspokenness, +forgetting that to the pure all things are pure, and that to the +prurient all things are foul. It was a reverent and a worshipping age +that gave us that treasure, and so long as we have the temper of +reverence and worship we shall not ask to change it. + +And to return once more to our original illustration. We have the two +nations also in us, the Norman and the Saxon, the dominant and the +aspiring, the patrician and the _proletaire_. The one rules only by +right of rule, the other rises only by right of rising. The power of +conservatism perishes, when there is no longer anything to keep; the +might of radicalism overflows into excess, when the proper check is +taken away or degraded. So long as the noble is noble and "_noblesse +oblige_," so long as Church and State are true to their guiding and +governing duties, the elevation of the base is the elevation of the +whole. If the standards of what is truly aristocratic in our language +are standards of nobility of thought, they will endure and draw up to +them, on to the episcopal thrones and into the Upper House of letters, +all that is most worthy. Whatever makes the nation's life will make its +speech. War was once the career of the Norman, and he set the seal of +its language upon poetry. Agriculture was the Saxon's calling, and he +made literature a mirror of the life he led. We in this new land are +born to new heritages, and the terms of our new life must be used to +tell our story. The Herald's College gives precedence to the +Patent-Office, and the shepherd's pipe to the steam-whistle. And since +all literature which can live stands only upon the national speech, we +must look for our hopes of coming epics and immortal dramas to the +language of the land, to its idioms, in which its present soul abides +and breathes, and not to its classicalities, which are the empty shells +upon its barren sea-shore. + + + +MIDSUMMER AND MAY. + +[Continued.] + +II. + +When Miss Kent, the maternal great-aunt of Mr. Raleigh, devised her +property, the will might possibly have been set aside as that of a +monomaniac, but for the fact that he cared too little about anything to +go to law for it, and for the still more important fact that the +heirs-at-law were sufficiently numerous to ingulf the whole property and +leave no ripple to attest its submerged existence, had he done so; and +on deserting it, he was better pleased to enrich the playfellow of his +childhood than a host of unknown and unloved individuals. I cannot say +that he did not more than once regret what he had lost: he was not of a +self-denying nature, as we know; on the contrary, luxurious and +accustomed to all those delights of life generally to be procured only +through wealth. But, for all that, there had been intervals, ere his +thirteen years' exile ended, in which, so far from regret, he +experienced a certain joy at remembrance of this rough and rugged point +of time where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to one of action +and freedom and real life. He had been happy in reaching India before +his uncle's death, in applying his own clear understanding to the +intricate entanglements of the affairs before him, in rescuing his +uncle's commercial good name, and in securing thus for himself a +foothold on the ladder of life, although that step had not occurred to +him till thrust there by the pressure of circumstances. For the rest, I +am not sure that Mr. Raleigh did not find his path suiting him well +enough. There was no longer any charm in home; he was forbidden to think +of it. That strange summer, that had flashed into his life like the +gleam of a carnival-torch into quiet rooms, must be forgotten; the forms +that had peopled it, in his determination, should become shadows. +Valiant vows! Yet there must have come moments, in that long lapse of +days and years, when the whole season gathered up its garments and swept +imperiously through his memory: nights, when, under the shadow of the +Himmaleh, the old passion rose at spring-tide and flooded his heart and +drowned out forgetfulness, and a longing asserted itself, that, if +checked as instantly by honor as despair, was none the less insufferable +and full of pain,--warm, wide, Southern nights, when all the stars, +great and golden, leaned out of heaven to meet him, and all ripe +perfumes, wafted by their own principle of motion, floated in the rich +dusk and laden air about him, and the phantom of snow on topmost heights +sought vainly to lend him its calm. Days also must have showered their +fervid sunshine on him, as he journeyed through plains of rice, where +all the broad reaches whitening to harvest filled him with intense and +bitterest loneliness. What region of spice did not recall the noons when +they two had trampled the sweet-fern on wide, high New England pastures, +and breathed its intoxicating fragrance? and what forest of the tropics, +what palms, what blooms, what gorgeous affluence of color and of growth, +equalled the wood on the lake-shores, with its stately hemlocks, its +joyous birches, its pale-blue, shadow-blanched violets? Nor was this +regret, that had at last become a part of the man's identity, entirely a +selfish one. He had no authority whatever for his belief, yet believe he +did, that, firmly and tenderly as he loved, he was loved, and of the two +fates his was not the harder. But a man, a man, too, in the stir of the +world, has not the time for brooding over the untoward events of his +destiny that a woman has; his tender memories are forever jostled by +cent. per cent.; he meets too many faces to keep the one in constant and +unchanging perpetuity sacredly before his thought. And so it happened +that Mr. Raleigh became at last a silent, keen-eyed man, with the shadow +of old and enduring melancholy on his life, but with no certain +sorrow there. + +In the course of time his business-connections extended themselves; he +was associated with other men more intent than he upon their aim; +although not wealthy, years might make him so; his name commanded +respect. Something of his old indifference lingered about him; it was +seldom that he was in earnest; he drifted with the tide, and, except to +maintain a clear integrity before God and men and his own soul, exerted +scarcely an effort. It was not an easy thing for him to break up any +manner of life; and when it became necessary for one of the firm to +visit America, and he as the most suitable was selected, he assented to +the proposition with not a heart-beat. America was as flat a wilderness +to him as the Desert of Sahara. On landing in India, he had felt like a +semi-conscious sleeper in his dream, the country seemed one of +phantasms: the Lascars swarming in the port,--the merchants wrapped in +snowy muslins, who moved like white-robed bronzes faintly animate,--the +strange faces, modes, and manners,--the stranger beasts, immense, and +alien to his remembrance; all objects that crossed his vision had seemed +like a series of fantastic shows; he could have imagined them to be the +creations of a heated fancy or the weird deceits of some subtle draught +of magic. But now they had become more his life than the scenes which he +had left; this land with its heats and its languors had slowly and +passively endeared itself to him; these perpetual summers, the balms and +blisses of the South, had unconsciously become a need of his nature. One +day all was ready for his departure; and in the clipper ship Osprey, +with a cargo for Day, Knight, and Company, Mr. Raleigh bade farewell +to India. + +The Osprey was a swift sailer and handled with consummate skill, so that +I shall not venture to say in how few days she had weathered the Cape, +and, ploughing up the Atlantic, had passed the Windward Islands, and off +the latter had encountered one of the severest gales in Captain +Tarbell's remembrance, although he was not new to shipwreck. If Mr. +Raleigh had found no time for reflection in the busy current of affairs, +when, ceasing to stand aside, he had mingled in the turmoil and become a +part of the generations of men, he could not fail to find it in this +voyage, not brief at best, and of which every day's progress must assure +him anew toward what land and what people he was hastening. Moreover, +Fate had woven his lot, it seemed, inextricably among those whom he +would shun; for Mr. Laudersdale himself was deeply interested in the +Osprey's freight, and it would be incumbent upon him to extend his +civilities to Mr. Raleigh. But Mr. Raleigh was not one to be cozened by +circumstances more than by men. + +The severity of the gale, which they had met some three days since, had +entirely abated; the ship was laid to while the slight damage sustained +was undergoing repair, and rocked heavily under the gray sky on the +long, sullen swell and roll of the grayer waters. Mr. Raleigh had just +come upon deck at dawn, where he found every one in unaccountable +commotion. "Ship to leeward in distress," was all the answer his +inquiries could obtain, while the man on the topmast was making his +observations. Mr. Raleigh could see nothing, but every now and then the +boom of a gun came faintly over the distance. The report having been +made, it was judged expedient to lower a boat and render her such +assistance as was possible. Mr. Raleigh never could tell how it came to +pass that he found himself one of the volunteers in this +dangerous service. + +The disabled vessel proved to be a schooner from the West Indies in a +sinking condition. A few moments sufficed to relieve a portion of her +passengers, sad wretches who for two days had stared death in the face, +and they pulled back toward the Osprey. A second and third journey +across the waste, and the remaining men prepared to lower the last woman +into the boat, when a stout, but extremely pale individual, who could no +longer contain his frenzy of fear, clambered down the chains and dropped +in her place. There was no time to be lost, and nothing to do but +submit; the woman was withdrawn to wait her turn with the captain and +crew, and the laden boat again labored back to the ship. Each trip in +the heavy sea and the blinding rain occupied no less than a couple of +hours, and it was past noon when, uncertain just before if she might yet +be there, they again came within sight of the little schooner, slowly +and less slowly settling to her doom. As they approached her at last, +Mr. Raleigh could plainly detect the young woman standing at a little +distance from the anxious group, leaning against the broken mast with +crossed arms, and looking out over the weary stretch with pale, grave +face and quiet eyes. At the motion of the captain, she stepped forward, +bound the ropes about herself, and was swung over the side to await the +motion of the boat, as it slid within reach on the top of the long wave, +or receded down its shining, slippery hollow. At length one swell brought +it nearer, Mr. Raleigh's arms snatched the slight form and drew her +half-fainting into the boat, a cloak was tossed after, and one by one +the remainder followed; they were all safe, and some beggared. The bows +of the schooner already plunged deep down in the gaping gulfs, they +pulled bravely away, and were tossed along from billow to billow. + +"You are very uncomfortable, Mademoiselle Le Blanc?" asked the rescued +captain at once of the young woman, as she sat beside him in the +stern-sheets. + +"_Moi?_" she replied. "_Mais non, Monsieur._" + +Mr. Raleigh wrapped the cloak about her, as she spoke. They were +equidistant from the two vessels, neither of which was to be seen, the +rain fell fast into the hissing brine, their fate still uncertain. There +was something strangely captivating and reassuring in this young girl's +equanimity, and he did not cease speculating thereon till they had again +reached the Osprey, and she had disappeared below. + +By degrees the weather lightened; the Osprey was on the wing again, and +a week's continuance of this fair wind would bring them into port. The +next day, toward sunset, as Mr. Raleigh turned about in his regular +pacing of the deck, he saw at the opposite extremity of the ship the +same slight figure dangerously perched upon the taffrail, leaning over, +now watching the closing water, and now eagerly shading her eyes with +her hand to observe the ship which they spoke, as they lay head to the +wind, and for a better view of which she had climbed to this position. +It was not Mr. Raleigh's custom to interfere; if people chose to drown +themselves, he was not the man to gainsay them; but now, as his walk +drew him toward her, it was the most natural thing in the world to pause +and say,-- + +"_Il serait facheux, Mademoiselle, lorsqu' on a failli faire naufrage, +de se noyer_"--and, in want of a word, Mr. Raleigh ignominiously +descended to his vernacular--"with a lee-lurch." + +The girl, resting on the palm of one hand, and unsupported otherwise, +bestowed upon him no reply, and did not turn her head. Mr. Raleigh +looked at her a moment, and then continued his walk. Returning, the +thing happened as he had predicted, and, with a little quick cry, +Mademoiselle Le Blanc was hanging by her hands among the ropes. Reaching +her with a spring, "_Viens, petite!_" he said, and with an effort placed +her on her feet again before an alarm could have been given. + +"_Ah! mais je crus c'en etait fait de moi!_" she exclaimed, drawing in +her breath like a sob. In an instant, however, surveying Mr. Raleigh, +the slight emotion seemed to yield to one of irritation, that she had +been rescued by him; for she murmured quickly, in English, head +haughtily thrown back and eyes downcast,--"Monsieur thinks that I owe +him much for having saved my life!" + +"Mademoiselle best knows its worth," said he, rather amused, and turning +away. + +The girl was still looking down; now, however, she threw after him a +quick glance. + +"_Tenez!_" said she, imperiously, and stepping toward him. "You fancy me +very ungrateful," she continued, lifting her slender hand, and with the +back of it brushing away the floating hair at her temples. "Well, I am +not, and at some time it may be that I prove it. I do not like to owe +debts; but, since I must, I will not try to cancel them with thanks." + +Mr. Raleigh bowed, but said nothing. She seemed to think it necessary to +efface any unpleasant impression, and, with a little more animation and +a smile, added,--"The Captain Tarbell told me your name, Mr. Raleigh, +and that you had not been at home for thirteen years. _Ni moi non +plus_,--at least, I suppose it is home where I am going; yet I remember +no other than the island and my"-- + +And here the girl opened her eyes wide, as if determined that they +should not fill with tears, and looked out over the blue and sparkling +fields around them. There was a piquancy in her accent that made the +hearer wish to hear further, and a certain artlessness in her manner not +met with recently by him. He moved forward, keeping her beside him. + +"Then you are not French," he said. + +"I? Oh, no,--nor Creole. I was born in America; but I have always lived +with mamma on the plantation; _et maintenant, il y a six mois qu'elle +est morte!_" + +Here she looked away again. Mr. Raleigh's glance followed hers, and, +returning, she met it bent kindly and with a certain grave interest upon +her. She appeared to feel reassured, somewhat protected by one so much +her elder. + +"I am going now to my father," she said, "and to my other mother." + +"A second marriage," thought Mr. Raleigh, "and before the orphan's +crapes are"--Then, fearful lest she should read his thought, he +added,--"And how do you speak such perfect English?" + +"Oh, my father came to see us every other year, and I have written home +twice a week since I was a little child. Mamma, too, spoke as much +English as French." + +"I have not been in America for a long time," said Mr. Raleigh, after a +few steps. "But I do not doubt that you will find enjoyment there. It +will be new: womanhood will have little like youth for you; but, in +every event, it is well to add to our experience, you know." + +"What is it like, Sir? But I know! Rows of houses, very counterparts of +rows of houses, and they of rows of houses yet beyond. Just the +toy-villages in boxes, uniform as graves and ugly as bricks"-- + +"Brick houses are not such ugly things. I remember one, low and wide, +possessed of countless gables, covered with vines and shaded with +sycamores; it could not have been so picturesque, if built of the marble +of Paros, and gleaming temple-white through masks of verdure." + +"It seems to me that I, too, remember such a one," said she, dreamily. +"_Mais non, je m'y perds_. Yet, for all that, I shall not find the New +York avenues lined with them." + +"No; the houses there are palaces." + +"I suppose, then, I am to live in a palace," she answered, with a light +tinkling laugh. "That is fine; but one may miss the verandas, all the +whiteness and coolness. How one must feel the roof!" + +"Roofs should be screens, and not prisons, not shells, you think?" said +Mr. Raleigh. + +"At home," she replied, "our houses are, so to say, parasols; in those +cities they must be iron shrouds. _Ainsi soit il!_" she added, and +shrugged her shoulders like a little fatalist. + +"You must not take it with such desperation; perhaps you will not be +obliged to wear the shroud." + +"Not long, to be sure, at first. We go to freeze in the country, a place +with distant hills of blue ice, my old nurse told me,--old Ursule. Oh, +Sir, she was drowned! I saw the very wave that swept her off!" + +"That was your servant?" + +"Yes." + +"Then, perhaps, I have some good news for you. She was tall and large?" + +"_Oui_." + +"Her name was Ursule?" + +"_Oui! je dis que oui!_" + +Mr. Raleigh laughed at her eagerness. "She is below, then," he +said,--"not drowned. There is Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds, will you take this +young lady to her servant, Ursule, the woman you rescued?" + +And Mademoiselle Le Blanc disappeared under that gentleman's escort. + +The ordinary restraints of social life not obtaining so much on board +ship as elsewhere, Mr. Raleigh saw his acquaintance with the pale young +stranger fast ripening into friendliness. It was an agreeable variation +from the monotonous routine of his voyage, and he felt that it was not +unpleasant to her. Indeed, with that childlike simplicity that was her +first characteristic, she never saw him without seeking him, and every +morning and every evening it became their habit to pace the deck +together. Sunrise and twilight began to be the hours with which he +associated her; and it was strange, that, coming, as she did, out of the +full blaze of tropical suns, she yet seemed a creature that had taken +life from the fresh, cool, dewy hours, and that must fairly dissolve +beneath the sky of noon. She puzzled him, too, and he found singular +contradictions in her: to-night, sweetness itself,--to-morrow, petulant +as a spoiled child. She had all a child's curiosity, too; and he amused +himself by seeing, at one time, with what novelty his adventures struck +her, when, at another, he would have fancied she had always held Taj and +Himmaleh in her garden. Now and then, excited, perhaps, by emulation and +wonder, her natural joyousness broke through the usually sad and quiet +demeanor; and she related to him, with dramatic _abandon_, scenes of her +gay and innocent island-life, so that he fancied there was not an +emotion in her experience hidden from his knowledge, till, all-unaware, +he tripped over one reserve and another, that made her, for the moment, +as mysterious a being as any of those court-ladies of ancient _regimes_, +in whose lives there were strange _lacunae_, and spaces of shadow. And a +peculiarity of their intercourse was, that, let her depart in what freak +or perversity she pleased, she seemed always to have a certainty of +finding him in the same mood in which she had left him,--as some bright +wayward vine of Southern forests puts out a tendril to this or that +enticing point, yet, winding back, will find its first support +unchanged. Shut out, as Mr. Raleigh had been, from any but the most +casual female society, he found a great charm in this familiarity, and, +without thinking how lately it had begun or how soon it must cease, he +yielded himself to its presence. At one hour she seemed to him an +impetuous and capricious thing, for whose better protection the accident +of his companionship was extremely fortunate,--at another hour, a woman +too strangely sweet to part with; and then Mr. Raleigh remembered that +in all his years he had really known but two women, and one of these had +not spent a week in his memory. + +Mademoiselle Le Blanc came on deck, one evening, and, wrapping a soft, +thick mantle round her, looked about for a minute, shaded her eyes from +the sunset, meantime, with a slender, transparent hand, bowed to one, +spoke to another, slipped forward and joined Mr. Raleigh, where he +leaned over the ship's side. + +"_Voici ma capote!_" said she, before he was aware of her approach. +"_Ciel! qu'il fait frais!_" + +"We have changed our skies," said Mr. Raleigh, looking up. + +"It is not necessary that you should tell me that!" she replied. "I +shiver all the time. I shall become a little iceberg, for the sake of +floating down to melt off Martinique!" + +"Warm yourself now in the sunset; such a blaze was kindled for the +purpose." + +"Whenever I see a sunset, I find it to be a splendid fact, _une +jouissance vraie, Monsieur_, to think that men can paint,--that these +shades, which are spontaneous in the heavens, and fleeting, can be +rivalled by us and made permanent,--that man is more potent than light." + +"But you are all wrong in your _jouissance_." + +She pouted her lip, and hung over the side in an attitude that it seemed +he had seen a hundred times before. + +"That sunset, with all its breadth and splendor, is contained in every +pencil of light." + +She glanced up and laughed. + +"Oh, yes! a part of its possibilities. Which proves?"-- + +"That color is an attribute of light and an achievement of man." + + "Ca et la, + Toute la journee, + Le vent vain va + En sa tournee," + +hummed the girl, with a careless dismissal of the subject. + +Mr. Raleigh shut up the note-book in which he had been writing, and +restored it to his pocket. She turned about and broke off her song. + +"There is the moon on the other side," she said, "floating up like a +great bubble of light. She and the sun are the scales of a balance, I +think; as one ascends, the other sinks." + +"There is a richness in the atmosphere, when sunset melts into moonrise, +that makes one fancy it enveloping the earth like the bloom on a plum." + +"And see how it has powdered the sea! The waters look like the wings of +the _papillon bleu_." + +"It seems that you love the sea." + +"Oh, certainly. I have thought that we islanders were like those Chinese +who live in great _tanka_-boats on the rivers; only our boat rides at +anchor. To climb up on the highest land, and see yourself girt with +fields of azure enamelled in sheets of sunshine and fleets of sails, and +lifted against the horizon, deep, crystalline, and translucent as a +gem,--that makes one feel strong in isolation, and produces keen races. +Don't you think so?" + +"I think that isolation causes either vivid characteristics or idiocy, +seldom strong or healthy ones; and I do not value race." + +"Because you came from America!"--with an air of disgust,--"where there +is yet no race, and the population is still too fluctuating for the +mould of one." + +"I come from India, where, if anywhere, there is race." + +"But, pshaw! that was not what we were talking about." + +"No, Mademoiselle, we were speaking of an element even more fluctuating +than American population." + +"Of course I love the sea; but if the sea loves me, it is the way a cat +loves the mouse." + +"It is always putting up a hand to snatch you?" + +"I suppose I am sent to Nineveh and persist in shipping for Tarshish. I +never enter a boat without an accident. The Belle Voyageuse met +shipwreck, and I on board. That was anticipated, though, by all the +world; for the night before we set sail,--it was a very murk, hot night, +--we were all called out to see the likeness of a large merchantman +transfigured in flames upon the sky,--spars and ropes and hull one net +and glare of fire." + +"A mirage, probably, from some burning ship at sea." + +"No, I would rather think it supernatural. Oh, it was frightful! Rather +superb, though, to think of such a spectral craft rising to warn us with +ghostly flames that the old Belle Voyageuse was riddled with rats!" + +"Did it burn blue?" asked Mr. Raleigh. + +"Oh, if you're going to make fun of me, I'll tell you nothing more!" + +As she spoke, Capua, who had considered himself, during the many years +of wandering, both guiding and folding star to his master, came up, with +his eyes rolling fearfully in a lively expansion of countenance, and +muttered a few words in Mr. Raleigh's ear, lifting both hands in comical +consternation the while. + +"Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Raleigh, following him, and, meeting +Captain Tarbell at the companion-way, the three descended together. + +Mr. Raleigh was absent some fifteen minutes, at the end of that time +rejoining Mademoiselle Le Blanc. + +"I did not mean to make fun of you," said he, resuming the conversation +as if there had been no interruption. "I was watching the foam the +Osprey makes in her speed, which certainly burns blue. See the flashing +sparks! now that all the red fades from the west, they glow in the moon +like broken amethysts." + +"What did you mean, then?" she asked, pettishly. + +"Oh, I wished to see if the idea of a burning ship was so terrifying." + +"Terrifying? No; I have no fear; I never was afraid. But it must, in +reality, be dreadful. I cannot think of anything else so appalling." + +"Not at all timid?" + +"Mamma used to say, those that know nothing fear nothing." + +"Eminently your case. Then you cannot imagine a situation in which you +would lose self-possession?" + +"Scarcely. Isn't it people of the finest organization, comprehensive, +large-souled, that are capable of the extremes either of courage or +fear? Now I am limited, so that, without rash daring or pale panic, I +can generally preserve equilibrium." + +"How do you know all this of yourself?" he asked, with an amused air. + +"_Il se presentait des occasions_," she replied, briefly. + +"So I presumed," said he. "Ah? They have thrown out the log. See, we +make progress. If this breeze holds!" + +"You are impatient, Mr. Raleigh. You have dear friends at home, whom you +wish to see, who wish to see you?" + +"No," he replied, with a certain bitterness in his tone. "There is no +one to whom I hasten, no one who waits to receive me." + +"No one? But that is terrible! Then why should you wish to hasten? For +me, I would always be willing to loiter along, to postpone home +indefinitely." + +"That is very generous, Mademoiselle." + +"Mr. Raleigh"-- + +"Well?" + +"I wish--please--you must not say Mademoiselle. Nobody will address me +so, shortly. Give me my name,--call me Marguerite. _Je vous en prie_." + +And she looked up with a blush deepening the apple-bloom of her cheek. + +"Marguerite? Does it answer for pearl or for daisy with you?" + +"Oh, they called me so because I was such a little round white baby. I +couldn't have been very precious, though, or she never would have parted +with me. Yes, I wish we might drift on some lazy current for years. I +hate to shorten the distance. I stand in awe of my father, and I do not +remember my mother." + +"Do not remember?" + +"She is so perfect, so superb, so different from me! But she ought to +love her own child!" + +"Her own child?" + +"And then I do not know the customs of this strange land. Shall I be +obliged to keep an establishment?" + +"Keep an establishment?" + +"It is very rude to repeat my words so! You oughtn't! Yes, keep an +establishment!" + +"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle." + +"No, it is I who am rude." + +"Not at all,--but mysterious. I am quite in the dark concerning you." + +"Concerning me?" + +"Ah, Miss Marguerite, it is my turn now." + +"Oh! It must be----This is your mystery, _n'est ce pas?_ Mamma was my +grandmamma. My own mother was far too young when mamma gave her in +marriage; and, to make amends, mamma adopted me and left me her name and +her fortune. So that I am very wealthy. And now shall I keep an +establishment?" + +"I should think not," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile. + +"Do you know, you constantly reassure me? Home grows less and less a +bugbear when you speak of it. How strange! It seems as if I had known +you a year, instead of a week." + +"It would probably take that period of time to make us as well +acquainted under other circumstances." + +"I wish you were going to be with us always. Shall you stay in America, +Mr. Raleigh?" + +"Only till the fall. But I will leave you at your father's door"---- + +And then Mr. Raleigh ceased suddenly, as if he had promised an +impossibility. + +"How long before we reach New York?" she asked. + +"In about nine hours," he replied,--adding, in unconscious undertone, +"if ever." + +"What was that you said to yourself?" she asked, in a light and gayly +inquisitive voice, as she looked around and over the ship. "Why, how +many there are on deck! It is such a beautiful night, I suppose. Eh, +Mr. Raleigh?" + +"Are you not tired of your position?" he asked. "Sit down beside me +here." And he took a seat. + +"No, I would rather stand. Tell me what you said." + +"Sit, then, to please me, Marguerite, and I will tell you what I said." + +She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood of her capote, +with its rich purple, dropping from the fluttering yellow hair that the +moonlight deepened into gold, and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling +with her breath, like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still +warm and soft, with his own, which was icy. She withdrew it, turned her +eyes, whose fair, faint lustre, the pale forget-me-not blue, was +darkened by the antagonistic light to an amethystine shadow, +inquiringly upon him. + +"There is some danger," she murmured. + +"Yes. When you are not a mark for general observation, you shall hear +it." + +"I would rather hear it standing." + +"I told you the condition." + +"Then I shall go and ask Captain Tarbell." + +"And come sobbing back to me for 'reassurance.'" + +"No," she said, quickly, "I should go down to Ursule." + +"Ursule has a mattress on deck; I assisted her up." + +"There is the captain! Now"---- + +He seized her hand and drew her down beside him. For an instant she +would have resisted, as the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks +attested,--and then, with the instinctive feminine baseness that compels +every woman, when once she has met her master, she submitted. + +"I am sorry, if you are offended," said he. "But the captain cannot +attend to you now, and it is necessary to be guarded in movement; for a +slight thing on such occasions may produce a panic." + +"You should not have forced me to sit," said she, in a smothered voice, +without heeding him; "you had no right." + +"This right, that I assume the care of you." + +"Monsieur, you see that I am quite competent to the care of myself." + +"Marguerite, I see that you are determined to quarrel." + +She paused a moment, ere replying; then drew a little nearer and turned +her face toward him, though without looking up. + +"Forgive me, then!" said she. "But I would rather be naughty and +froward, it lets me stay a child, and so you can take me in keeping, and +I need not think for myself at all. But if I act like a woman grown, +then comes all the responsibility, and I must rely on myself, which is +such trouble now, though I never felt it so before,--I don't know why. +Don't you see?" And she glanced at him with her head on one side, and +laughing archly. + +"You were right," he replied, after surveying her a moment; "my +proffered protection is entirely superfluous." + +She thought he was about to go, and placed her hand on his, as it lay +along the side. "Don't leave me," she murmured. + +"I have no intention of leaving you," he said. + +"You are very good. I have never seen one like you. I love you well." +And, bathed in moonlight, she raised her face and her glowing lips +toward him. + +Mr. Raleigh gazed in the innocent eyes a moment, to seek the extent of +her meaning, and felt, that, should he take advantage of her childlike +forgetfulness, he would be only reenacting the part he had so much +condemned in one man years before. So he merely bent low over the hand +that lay in his, raised it, and touched his lips to that. In an instant +the color suffused her face, she snatched the hand away, half rose +trembling from her seat, then sank into it again. + +"_Soit, Monsieur!_" she exclaimed, abruptly. "But you have not told me +the danger." + +"It will not alarm you now?" he replied, laughing. + +"I have said that I am not a coward." + +"I wonder what you would think of me when I say that without doubt I +am." + +"You, Mr. Raleigh?" she cried, astonishment banishing anger. + +"Not that I betray myself. But I have felt the true heart-sinking. Once, +surprised in the centre of an insurrection, I expected to find my hair +white as snow, if I escaped." + +"Your hair is very black. And you escaped?" + +"So it would appear." + +"They suffered you to go on account of your terror? You feigned death? +You took flight?" + +"Hardly, neither." + +"Tell me about it," she said, imperiously. + +Though Mr. Raleigh had exchanged the singular reserve of his youth for a +well-bred reticence, he scarcely cared to be his own hero. + +"Tell me," said she. "It will shorten the time; and that is what you are +trying to do, you know." + +He laughed. + +"It was once when I was obliged to make an unpleasant journey into the +interior, and a detachment was placed at my service. We were in a +suspected district quite favorable to their designs, and the commanding +officer was attacked with illness in the night. Being called to his +assistance, I looked abroad and fancied things wore an unusual aspect +among the men, and sent Capua to steal down a covered path and see if +anything were wrong. Never at fault, he discovered a revolt, with intent +to murder my companion and myself, and retreat to the mountains. Of +course there was but one thing to do. I put a pistol in my belt and +walked down and in among them, singled out the ringleader, fixed him +with my eye, and bade him approach. My appearance was so sudden and +unsuspected that they forgot defiance." + +"_Bien_, but I thought you were afraid." + +"So I was. I could not have spoken a second word. I experienced intense +terror, and that, probably, gave my glance a concentration of which I +was unaware and by myself incapable; but I did not suffer it to waver; I +could not have moved it, indeed; I kept it on the man while he crept +slowly toward me. I shall never forget the horrible sensation. I did not +dare permit myself to doubt his conquest; but if I had failed, as I then +thought, his approach was like the slow coil of a serpent about me, and +it was his glittering eyes that had fixed mine, and not mine his. At my +feet, I commanded him, with a gesture, to disarm. He obeyed, and I +breathed; and one by one they followed his example. Capua, who was +behind me, I sent back with the weapons, and in the morning gave them +their choice of returning to town with their hands tied behind their +backs, or of going on with me and remaining faithful. They chose the +latter, did me good service, and I said nothing about the affair." + +"That was well. But were you really frightened?" + +"So I said. I cannot think of it yet without a slight shudder." + +"Yes, and a rehearsal. Your eyes charge bayonets now. I am not a Sepoy." + +"Well, you are still angry with me?" + +"How can I be angry with you?" + +"How, indeed? So much your senior that you owe me respect, Miss +Marguerite. I am quite old enough to be your father." + +"You are, Sir?" she replied, with surprise. "Why, are you fifty-five +years old?" + +"Is that Mr. Laudersdale's age?" + +"How did you know Mr. Laudersdale Was my father?" + +"By an arithmetical process. That is his age?" + +"Yes; and yours?" + +"Not exactly. I was thirty-seven last August." + +"And will be thirty-eight next?" + +"That is the logical deduction." + +"I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just twice my age." + +"By what courier will you make it reach me?" + +"Oh, I forgot. But--Mr. Raleigh?" "What is it?" he replied, turning to +look at her,--for his eyes had been wandering over the deck. + +"I thought you would ask me to write to you." + +"No, that would not be worth while." + +His face was too grave for her to feel indignation. + +"Why?" she demanded. + +"It would give me great pleasure, without doubt. But in a week you will +have too many other cares and duties to care for such a burden." + +"That shows that you do not know me at all. _Vous en avez use mal avec +moi!_" + +Though Mr. Raleigh still looked at her, he did not reply. She rose and +walked away a few steps, coming back. + +"You are always in the right, and I consequently in the wrong," she +said. "How often to-night have I asked pardon? I will not put up +with it!" + +"We shall part in a few hours," he replied; "when you lose your temper, +I lose my time." + +"In a few hours? Then is the danger which you mentioned past?" + +"I scarcely think so." + +"Now I am not going to be diverted again. What is this dreadful danger?" + +"Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the +port before our situation becomes apparently worse,--that we do not take +to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the +Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several +other becauses,--that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the +captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape"---- + +"_Allez au hut!_" + +"That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of +excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail +into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal." + +"Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?" + +"Yes." + +She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite +faint. Soon recovering herself,-- + +"And what do you think of the mirage now?" she asked. "Where is Ursule? +I must go to her," she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting +to her feet. + +"Shall I accompany you?" + +"Oh, no." + +"She lies on a mattress there, behind that group,"--nodding in the +implied direction; "and it would be well, if you could lie beside her +and get an hour's rest." + +"Me? I couldn't sleep. I shall come back to you,--may I?" And she was +gone. + +Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had left him, when, a +half-hour afterward, she returned. + +"Where is your cloak?" he asked, rising to receive her. + +"I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly." + +"You will not take cold?" + +"I? I am on fire myself." + +"Ah, I see; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you." + +"It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not?--drifting on before +the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire and all red-hot raging +turbulence. Just look up the long sparkling length of these white, full +shrouds, swelling and curving like proud swans, in the gale,--and then +imagine the devouring monster below in his den!" + +"_Don't_ imagine it. Be quiet and sit beside me. Half the night is +gone." + +"I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driving forward to +destruction on fearful breakers, drank and sang and died madly. I wish +the whole ship's company would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or +that we might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance,--dance +wildly into death and daylight." + +"We have nothing to do with death," said Mr. Raleigh. "Our foe is simply +time. You dance, then?" + +"Oh, yes. I dance well,--like those white fluttering butterflies,--as if +I were _au gre du vent_." "That would not be dancing well." + +"It would not be dancing well to _be_ at the will of the wind, but it is +perfection to appear so." + +"The dance needs the expression of the dancer's will. It is breathing +sculpture. It is mimic life beyond all other arts." + +"Then well I love to dance. And I do dance well. Wait,--you shall see." + +He detained her. + +"Be still, little maid!" he said, and again drew her beside him, though +she still continued standing. + +At this moment the captain approached. + +"What cheer?" asked Mr. Raleigh. + +"No cheer," he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger-nails into his +palm. "The planks forward are already hot to the hand. I tremble at +every creak of cordage, lest the deck crash in and bury us all." + +"You have made the Sandy Hook light?" + +"Yes; too late to run her ashore." + +"You cannot try that at the Highlands?" + +"Certain death." + +"The wind scarcely"---- + +"Veered a point I am carrying all sail. But if this tooth of fire gnaws +below, you will soon see the masts go by the board. And then we are +lost, indeed!" + +"Courage! she will certainly hold together till you can hail the +pilots." + +"I think no one need tremble when he has such an instance of +fearlessness before him," replied the captain, bowing to Marguerite; and +turning away, he hid his suspense and pain again under a calm +countenance. + +Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had heard the whole of +the conversation, and he felt the hand in his growing colder as it +continued. He wondered if it were still the same excitement that sent +the alternate flush and pallor up her cheek. She sat down, leaning her +head back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and suffering +the light, fine hair to blow about her temples before the steady breeze. +He bent over to look into her eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless. + +"Marguerite!" he exclaimed. + +She tried to speak, but the teeth seemed to hinder the escape of her +words, and to break them into bits of sound; a shiver shook her from +head to foot. + +"I wonder if this is fear," she succeeded in saying. "Oh, if there were +somewhere to go, something to hide me! A great horror is upon me! I am +afraid! _Seigneur Dieu! Mourir par le feu! Perissons alors au plus +vite!_" And she shuddered, audibly. + +Mr. Raleigh passed his arm about her and gathered her closer to himself. +He saw at once, that, sensitive as she was to every impression, this +fear was a contagious one, a mere gregarian affinity, and that she +needed the preponderating warmth and strength of a protecting presence, +the influence of a fuller vitality. He did not speak, but his touch must +in some measure have counteracted the dread that oppressed her. She +ceased trembling, but did not move. + +The westering moon went to bury herself in banks of cloud; the wind +increasing piped and whistled in strident threatening through the +rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No +murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they +drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one +voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light +was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the +forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. +Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all the people. The +captain's voice thundered through the tumult, and instantly the mates +sprang forward and the jib went crashing overboard. Mr. Raleigh tore his +eyes away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them by chance +on two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with +intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with +hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting +prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat +at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into +file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if +possible, the flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed over +to Ursule. + +The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to the girl a +portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and +rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve +with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and +unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else +broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of +breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place +was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to +leave below the stings of the blistering deck. None waited on the order +of their going, but thronged and sprang precipitately. Ursule was at +once deposited in safety. The captain moved to conduct Marguerite +across, but she drew back and clung to Mr. Raleigh. + +"_J'ai honte_," she said; "_je ne bougerai pas plus tot que vous._" + +The breath of the fierce flames scorched her cheek as she spoke, the +wind of their roaring progress swept her hair. He lifted her over +without further consultation, and still kept her in his care. + +There was a strange atmosphere on board the little vessels, as they +labored about and parted from the doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with +awe and joy at their deliverance; others broke the tense strain of the +last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the panting engines they +answered with waiting heart-beats, as it sent them farther from the +fearful wonder, now blazing in multiplex lines of fire against the gray +horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration of +a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze with him. An hour +silently passed, and as the fiery phantom faded into dawn and distance +she sang sweetly the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another +voice took up the measure, stronger and clearer; those who knew nothing +of the words caught the spirit of the tune; and no choral service ever +pealed up temple-vaults with more earnest accord than that in which this +chant of grateful, exultant devotion now rose from rough-throated men +and weary women in the crisp air and yellowing spring-morning. + +As the moment of parting approached, Marguerite stood with folded hands +before Mr. Raleigh, looking sadly down the harbor. + +"I regret all that," she said,--"these days that seem years." + +"An equivocal phrase," he replied, with a smile. + +"But you know what I mean. I am going to strangers; I have been with +you. I shall find no one so kind to me as you have been, Monsieur." + +"Your strangers can be much kinder to you than I have been." + +"Never! I wish they did not exist! What do I care for them? What do they +care for me? They do not know me; I shall shock them. I miss you, I hate +them, already. _Non! Personne ne m'aime, et je n'aime personne!_" she +exclaimed, with low-toned vehemence. + +"Rite," began Mr. Raleigh. + +"Rite! No one but my mother ever called me that. How did you know it?" + +"I have met your mother, and I knew you a great many years ago." + +"Mr. Raleigh!" And there was the least possible shade of unconscious +regret in the voice before it added,--"And what was I?" + +"You were some little wood-spirit, the imp of a fallen cone, mayhap, or +the embodiment of birch-tree shadows. You were a soiled and naughty +little beauty, not so different from your present self, and who kissed +me on the lips." "And did you refuse to take the kiss?" + +He laughed. + +"You were a child then," he said. "And I was not"---- + +"Was not?"---- + +Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the shock prevented Mr. +Raleigh's finishing his sentence. + +"Ursule is with us, or on the other one?" she asked. + +"With us." + +"That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by which to prove my +identity." + +"As if there could be two such maidens in the world!" + +Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tarbell her address, and +returning, they were shortly afterward seated side by side in a coach, +Capua and Ursule following in another. As they stopped at the destined +door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She lingered a moment +ere taking it,--not to say adieu, nor to offer him cheek or lip again. + +"_Que je te remercie!_" she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "_Que je +te trouve bon!_" and sprang before him up the steps. + +He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined +them; he reentered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall. + +The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's +business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally +lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and proceeded +at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he found that +affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had been +instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the +overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could +take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months +of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a +little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at +first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the +seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him. +Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him, +if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the +lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues +of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate +and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,-- + + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie, + brave Charlie! + + "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine + wi' McLean!" + +Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best +to remain long in the city; he would be glad to know if sight of the old +scenes could renew a throb. He answered his letters, replenished his +wardrobe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. At noon +of the second day thereafter he found Mr. McLean's coach, with that +worthy gentleman in person, awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it +paused at the foot of his former garden, with a strange sense of the +world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error. + +Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him,--a face less round and rosy +than once, as the need of pink cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and +bright as youth. + +"The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the first greeting, +putting his hands on her shoulders and smiling down at her benevolently. + +"Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking her head. "I +expected this stain on your skin; but, dear me! your eyes look as if you +had not a friend in the world." + +"How can they look so, when you give me such a welcome?" + +"Dear old Roger, you _are_ just the same," said she, bestowing a little +caress upon his sleeve. "And if you remember the summer before you went +away, you will not find that pleasant company so very much changed +either." "I do not expect to find them at all." + +"Oh, then they will find you; because they are all here,--at least the +principals; some with different names, and some, like myself, with +duplicates,"--as a shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother +and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over rosy blushes. + +After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. Raleigh turned again +to Mrs. McLean. + +"And who are there here?" he asked. + +"There is Mrs. Purcell,--you remember Helen Heath? Poor Mrs. Purcell, +whom you knew, died, and her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary, +who is single and speechless yet; and Captain, now Colonel, Purcell +makes a very good silent partner. He is hunting in the West, on +furlough; she is here alone. There is Mrs. Heath,--you never have +forgotten her?" + +"Not I." + +"There is"------ + +"And how came you all in the country so early in the season,--anybody +with your devotion to company?" + +"To be made April fools, John says." + +"Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will be." + +"I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter; and Mrs. Laudersdale +and I agreed, that, the moment the snow was off the ground up here, we +would fly away and be at rest." + +"Mrs. Laudersdale? Can she come here?" + +"Goodness! Why not? The last few summers we have always spent together." + +"She is with you now, then?" + +"Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I didn't mean to tell, but +keep her as a surprise. Of course, you will be a surprise to +everybody.--There, run along, children; we'll follow.--Yes, won't it be +delightful, Roger? We can all play at youth again." + +"Like skeletons in some Dance of Death!" he exclaimed. "We shall be +hideous in each other's sight." + +"McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding the late misanthropy; +"Helen is a girl; the ghost of the prior Mrs. Purcell shall be +_rediviva_; and Katy there"------ + +"Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin. + +"Before you have shuffled off mortality for the whole party, sit down +under this hedge,--here is an opportune bench,--and give me accounts +from the day of my departure." + +"Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible! The ocean in a tea-cup? Let +me see,--you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn't you? Well, +she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It was odd to +miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once. Mrs. +Laudersdale was ill; I don't know exactly what the trouble was. You know +she had been in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer; +and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old city-life, she +became oppressed with a speechless melancholy, I believe, so that the +doctors foreboded insanity. She expressed great disinclination to follow +their advice, and her husband finally banished them all. It was a great +care to him; he altered much. McLean surmised that she didn't like to +see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround +her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and +raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her +sight during the greater part of the winter. I don't know whether she +became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she +conquered it, and decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing, +or what happened. But one cold March evening he set out for his home, +dreary, as usual, he thought; and he found the fire blazing and +reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich +shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as +you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and +impenetrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, "I have +manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has +now and then reported from his conversation. I dare say there isn't a +bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale isn't a man to publish his affairs; +but _I_ believe it. One thing is certain: Mrs. Laudersdale withdrew from +society one autumn and returned one spring, and has queened it +ever since." + +"Is Mr. Laudersdale with you?" + +"No. But he will come with their daughter shortly." + +"And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray?" + +"Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to do. Mrs. Purcell +gossips and lounges, as if she were playing with the world for +spectator. Mrs. Laudersdale lounges, and attacks things with her +finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them. Mrs. McLean gossips +and scolds, as if it depended on her to keep the world in order." + +"Are you going to keep me under the hedge all night?" + +"This is pretty well! Hush! Who is that?" + +As Mrs. McLean spoke, a figure issued from the tall larches on the left, +and crossed the grass in front of them,--a woman, something less tall +than a gypsy queen might be, the round outlines of her form rich and +regular, with a certain firm luxuriance, still wrapped in a morning-robe +of palm-spread cashmere. In her hand she carried various vines and +lichens that had maintained their orange-tawny stains under the winter's +snow, and the black hair that was folded closely over forehead and +temple was crowned with bent sprays of the scarlet maple-blossom. As +vivid a hue dyed her cheek through warm walking, and with a smile of +unconscious content she passed quickly up the slope and disappeared +within the doorway. She impressed the senses of the beholder like some +ripe and luscious fruit, a growth of sunshine and summer. + +"Well," said Mrs. McLean, drawing breath again, "who is it?" + +"Really, I cannot tell," replied Mr. Raleigh. + +"Nor guess?" + +"And that I dare not." + +"Must I tell you?" + +"Was it Mrs. Laudersdale?" + +"And shouldn't you have known her?" + +"Scarcely." + +"Mercy! Then how did you know me? She is unaltered." + +"If that is Mrs. Purcell, at the window, she does not recognize me, you +see; neither did -----. Both she and yourself are nearly the same; one +could not fail to know either of you; but of the Mrs. Laudersdale of +thirteen years ago there remains hardly a vestige." + +If Mrs. McLean, at this testimony, indulged in that little inward +satisfaction which the most generous woman may feel, when told that her +color wears better than the color of her dearest friend, it must have +been quickly quenched by the succeeding sentence. + +"Yes, she is certainly more beautiful than I ever dreamed of a woman's +being. If she continues, I do not know what perfect thing she will +become. She is too exquisite for common use. I wonder her husband is not +jealous of every mote in the air, of rain and wind, of every day that +passes over her head,--since each must now bear some charm from her in +its flight." + +Mr. Raleigh was talking to Mrs. McLean as one frequently reposes +confidence in a person when quite sure that he will not understand a +word you say. + +An hour afterward, Mrs. Purcell joined Mrs. McLean. + +"So that is Mr. Raleigh, is it?" she said. "He looks as if he had made +the acquaintance of Siva the Destroyer. There's nothing left of him. Is +he taller, or thinner, or graver, or darker, or what? My dear Kate, your +cousin, that promised to be such a hero, has become a mere +man-of-business. Did you ever burn firecrackers? You have probably found +some that just fizzed out, then." And Mrs. Purcell took an attitude. + +"Roger is a much finer man than he was, I think,--so far as I could +judge in the short time we have seen each other," replied Mrs. McLean, +with spirit. + +"Do you know," continued Mrs. Purcell, "what makes the Laudersdale so +gay? No? She has a letter from her lord, and he brings you that little +Rite next week. I must send for the Colonel to see such patterns of +conjugal felicity as you and she. Ah, there is the tea-bell!" + +Mr. Raleigh was standing with one hand on the back of his chair, when +Mrs. Laudersdale entered. The cheek had resumed its usual pallor, and +she was in her customary colors of black and gold. She carried a +curiously cut crystal glass, which she placed on the sideboard, and then +moved toward her chair. Her eye rested casually for a moment on Mr. +Raleigh, as she crossed the threshold, and then returned with a species +of calm curiosity. + +"Mrs. Laudersdale has forgotten me?" he asked, with a bow. His voice, +not susceptible of change in its tone of Southern sweetness, +identified him. + +"Not at all," she replied, moving toward him, and offering him her hand +quietly. "I am happy at meeting Mr. Raleigh again." And she took +her seat. + +There was something in her grasp that relieved him. It was neither +studiedly cold, nor absurdly brief, nor traitorously tremulous. It was +simply and forgetfully indifferent. Mr. Raleigh surveyed her with +interest during the light table-talk. He had been possessed with a +restless wish to see her once more, to ascertain if she had yet any +fraction of her old power over him; he had all the more determinedly +banished himself from the city,--to find her in the country. Now he +sought for some trace of what had formerly aroused his heart. He rose +from table convinced that the woman whom he once loved with the whole +fervor of youth and strength and buoyant life was no more, that she did +not exist, and that Mr. Raleigh might experience a new passion, but his +old one was as dead as the ashes that cover the Five Cities of the +Plain. He wondered how it might be with her. For a moment he cursed his +inconstancy; then he feared lest she were of larger heart and firmer +resolve than he,--lest her love had been less light than his; he could +scarcely feel himself secure of freedom,--he must watch. And then stole +in a deeper sense of loneliness than exile and foreign tongues had +taught him,--the knowledge of being single and solitary in the world, +not only for life, but for eternity. + +The evening was passed in the recitation of affairs by himself and his +cousins alone together, and until a week completed its tale of dawns and +sunsets there was the same diurnal recurrence of question and answer. +One day, as the afternoon was paling, Rite came. + +Mr. Raleigh had fallen asleep on the vine-hidden seat outside the +bay-window, and was awakened, certainly not by Mrs. Laudersdale's +velvets trailing over the drawing-room carpet. She was just entering, +slow-paced, though in haste. She held out both of her beautiful arms. A +little form of airy lightness, a very snow-wreath, blew into them. + +"_O ma maman! Est ce que c'est toi_," it cried. "_O comme tu es douce! +Si belle, si molle, si chere!_" And the fair head was lying beneath the +dark one, the face hidden in the bent and stately neck. + +Mr. Raleigh left his seat, unseen, and betook himself to another abode. +As he passed the drawing-room door, on his return, he saw the mother +lying on a lounge, with the slight form nestled beside her, playing with +it as some tame leopardess might play with her silky whelp. It was +almost the only portion of the maternal nature developed within her. + +It seemed as if the tea-hour were a fated one. Mr. Raleigh had been out +on the water and was late. As he entered, Rite sprang up, +half-overturning her chair, and ran to clasp his hand. + +"I did not know that you and Mr. Raleigh were acquainted," said Mrs. +McLean. + +"Oh, Madam, Mr. Raleigh and I had the pleasure of being shipwrecked +together," was the reply; and except that Mrs. Laudersdale required +another napkin where her cup had spilled, all went on smoothly. + +Mrs. Laudersdale took Marguerite entirely to herself for a while. She +seemed, at first, to be like some one suddenly possessed of a new sense, +and who did not know in the least what to do with it; but custom and +familiarity destroyed this sentiment. She did not appear to entertain a +doubt of her child's natural affection, but she had care to fortify it +by the exertion of every charm she possessed. From the presence of +dangerous rivals in the house, an element of determination blended with +her manner, and she moved with a certain conscious power, as if +wonderful energies were but half-latent with her, as if there were +kingdoms to conquer and crowns to win, and she the destined instrument +You would have selected her, at this time of her lavish devotion to +Marguerite, as the one woman of complete capability, of practical +effective force, and have declared that there was nothing beyond her +strength. The relation between herself and her child was certainly as +peculiar as anything else about them; the disparity of age seemed so +slight that they appeared like sisters, full of mutual trust, the +younger leaning on the elder for support in the most trivial affairs. +They walked through the woods together, learned again its glades and +coverts, searched its early treasure of blossoms; they went out on the +lake and spent long April afternoons together, floating about cove and +inlet of island-shores; they returned with innocent gayety to that house +which once the mother, in her moment of passion, had fancied to be a +possible heaven of delight, and which, since, she had found to be a very +indifferent limbo. For, after all, we derive as much happiness from +human beings as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that +bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was +careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this +woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never +bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the +little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or +whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that +estranged the past from the present, there was nothing to tell; it +seemed, nevertheless, as if they could have no closer bond, had they +read each other's thoughts from birth. + +That this assumption of Marguerite could not continue exclusive Mr. +Raleigh found, when now and then joined in his walks by an airy figure +flitting forward at his side: now and then; since Mrs. Laudersdale, +without knowing how to prevent, had manifested an uneasiness at every +such rencontre;--and that it could not endure forever, another +gentleman, without so much reason, congratulated himself,--Mr. Frederic +Heath, the confidential clerk of Day, Knight, and Company,--a rather +supercilious specimen, quite faultlessly got up, who had accompanied her +from New York at her father's request, and who already betrayed every +symptom of the suitor. Meanwhile, Mrs. McLean's little women clamorously +demanded and obtained a share of her attention,--although Capua and +Ursule, with their dark skins, brilliant dyes, and equivocal dialects, +were creatures of a more absorbing interest. + +One afternoon, Marguerite came into the drawing-room by one door, as Mr. +Raleigh entered by another; her mother was sitting near the window, and +other members of the family were in the vicinity, having clustered +preparatory to the tea-bell. + +Marguerite had twisted tassels of the willow-catkins in her hair, +drooping things, in character with her wavy grace, and that sprinkled +her with their fragrant yellow powder, the very breath of spring; and in +one hand she had imprisoned a premature lace-winged fly, a fairy little +savage, in its sheaths of cobweb and emerald, and with its jewel eyes. + +"Dear!" said Mrs. Purcell, gathering her array more closely about her. +"How do you dare touch such a venomous sprite?" + +"As if you had an insect at the North with a sting!" replied Marguerite, +suffering it, a little maliciously, to escape in the lady's face, and +following the flight with a laugh of childlike glee. + +"Here are your snowflakes on stems, mamma," she continued, dropping +anemones over her mother's hands, one by one;--"that is what Mr. Raleigh +calls them. When may I see the snow? You shall wrap me in eider, that I +may be like all the boughs and branches. How buoyant the earth must be, +when every twig becomes a feather!" And she moved toward Mr. Raleigh, +singing, "Oh, would I had wings like a dove!" + +"And here are those which, if not daffodils, +yet + + "'Come before the swallow dares, and take + The winds of March with beauty,'" + +he said, giving her a basket of hepaticas and winter-green. + +Marguerite danced away with the purple trophy, and, emptying a carafe +into a dish of moss that stood near, took them to Mrs. Laudersdale, and, +sitting on the footstool, began to rearrange them. It was curious to +see, that, while Mrs. Laudersdale lifted each blossom and let the stem +lie across her hand, she suffered it to fall into the place designated +for it by Marguerite's fingers, that sparkled in the mosaic till double +wreaths of gold-threaded purple rose from the bed of vivid moss and +melted into a fringe of the starry spires of winter-green. + +"Is it not sweet?" said she then, bending over it. + +"They have no scent," said her mother. + +"Oh, yes, indeed! the very finest, the most delicate, a kind of aerial +perfume; they must of course alchemize the air into which they waste +their fibres with some sweetness." + +"A smell of earth fresh from 'wholesome drench of April rains,'" said +Mr. Raleigh, taking the dish of white porcelain between his brown, +slender hands. "An immature scent, just such an innocent breath as +should precede the epigea, that spicy, exhaustive wealth of savor, that +complete maturity of odor, marriage of daphne and linnaea. The charm of +these first bidders for the year's favor is neither in the ethereal +texture, the depth or delicacy of tint, nor the large-lobed, +blood-stained, ancient leaves. This imponderable soul gives them such a +helpless air of babyhood." + +"Is fragrance the flower's soul?" asked Marguerite. "Then anemones are +not divinely gifted. And yet you said, the other day, that to paint my +portrait would be to paint an anemone." + +"A satisfactory specimen in the family-gallery," said Mrs. Purcell. + +"A flaw in the indictment!" replied Mr. Raleigh. "I am not one of those +who paint the lily." + +"Though you've certainly added a perfume to the violet," remarked Mr. +Frederic Heath, with that sweetly lingering accent familiarly called the +drawl, as he looked at the hepaticas. + +"I don't think it very complimentary, at any rate," continued +Marguerite. "They are not lovely after bloom,--only the little +pink-streaked, budded bells, that hang so demurely. _Oui, da!_ I have +exchanged great queen magnolias for rues; what will you give me for +pomegranates and oleanders?" + +"Are the old oleanders in the garden yet?" asked Mrs. Laudersdale. + +"Not the very same. The hurricane destroyed those, years ago; these are +others, grand and rosy as sunrise sometimes." + +"It was my Aunt Susanne who planted those, I have heard." + +"And it was your daughter Rite who planted these." + +"She buried a little box of old keepsakes at its foot, after her brother +had examined them,--a ring or two, a coin from which she broke and kept +one half"------ + +"Oh, yes! we found the little box, found it when Mr. Heath was in +Martinique, all rusted and moulded and falling apart, and he wears that +half of the coin on his watch-chain. See!" + +Mrs. Laudersdale glanced up indifferently, but Mrs. Purcell sprang from +her elegant lounging and bent to look at her brother's chain. + +"How odd that I never noticed it, Fred!" she exclaimed. "And how odd +that I should wear the same!" And, shaking her _chatelaine_, she +detached a similar affair. + +They were placed side by side in Mr. Raleigh's hand; they matched +entirely, and, so united, they formed a singular French coin of value +and antiquity, the missing figures on one segment supplied by the other, +the embossed profile continued and lost on each, the scroll begun by +this and ended by that; they were plainly severed portions of the +same piece. + +"And this was buried by your Aunt Susanne Le Blanc?" asked Mrs. Purcell, +turning to Mrs. Laudersdale again, with a flush on her cheek. + +"So I presume." + +"Strange! And this was given to mamma by her mother, whose maiden name +was Susan White. There's some _diablerie_ about it." + +"Oh, that is a part of the ceremony of money-hiding," said Mr. Raleigh. +"Kidd always buried a little imp with his pots of gold, you know, to +work deceitful charms on the finder." + +"Did he?" said Marguerite, earnestly. + +They all laughed thereat, and went in to tea. + +[To be continued.] + + + +EPITHALAMIA. + + +I. + +THE WEDDING. + + + O Love! the flowers are blowing in park and field, + With love their bursting hearts are all revealed. + So come to me, and all thy fragrance yield! + + O Love! the sun is sinking in the west, + And sequent stars all sentinel his rest. + So sleep, while angels watch, upon my breast! + + O Love! the flooded moon is at its height, + And trances sea and land with tranquil light. + So shine, and gild with beauty all my night! + + O Love! the ocean floods the crooked shore, + Till sighing beaches give their moaning o'er. + So, Love, o'erflow me, till I sigh no more! + +II. + +THE GOLDEN WEDDING. + + O wife! the fragrant Mayflower now appears, + Fresh as the Pilgrims saw it through their tears. + So blows our love through all these changing years. + + O wife! the sun is rising in the east, + Nor tires to shine, while ages have increased. + So shines our love, and fills my happy breast + + O wife! on yonder beach the ocean sings, + As when it bore the Mayflower's drooping wings. + So in my heart our early love-song rings. + + O wife! the moon and stars slide down the west + To make in fresher skies their happy quest. + So, Love, once more we'll wed among the blest! + + + + +ARTHUR HALLAM. + +We were standing in the old English church at Clevedon on a summer +afternoon. And here, said my companion, pausing in the chancel, sleeps +Arthur Hallam, the friend of Alfred Tennyson, and the subject of "In +Memoriam." + + "'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand + Where he in English earth is laid." + +His burial-place is on a hill overhanging the Bristol Channel, a spot +selected by his father as a fit resting-place for his beloved boy. +And so + + "They laid him by the pleasant shore, + And in the hearing of the wave." + +Dying at twenty-two, the hope and pride of all who knew him, "remarkable +for the early splendor of his genius," the career of this young man +concentres the interest of more than his native country. Tennyson has +laid upon his early grave a poem which will never let his ashes be +forgotten, or his memory fade like that of common clay. What Southey so +felicitously says of Kirke White applies most eloquently to young +Hallam:--"Just at that age when the painter would have wished to fix his +likeness and the lover of poetry would delight to contemplate him, in +the fair morning of his virtues, the full spring-blossom of his hopes,-- +just at that age hath death set the seal of eternity upon him, and the +beautiful hath been made permanent." + +Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place, London, on the 1st of +February, 1811. The eldest son of Henry Hallam, the eminent historian +and critic, his earliest years had every advantage which culture and +moral excellence could bring to his education. His father has feelingly +commemorated his boyish virtues and talents by recording his "peculiar +clearness of perception, his facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above +all, an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his sense +of what was right and becoming." From that tearful record, not publicly +circulated, our recital is partly gathered. Companions of his childhood +have often told us well-remembered incidents of his life, and this is +the too brief story of his earthly career. + +When about eight years of age, Arthur resided some time in Germany and +Switzerland, with his father and mother. He had already become familiar +with the French language, and a year later he read Latin with some +facility. Although the father judiciously studied to repress his son's +marked precocity of talent, Arthur wrote about this time several plays +in prose and in rhyme,--compositions which were never exhibited, +however, beyond the family-circle. + +At ten years of age he became a pupil at a school in Putney, under the +tuition of an excellent clergyman, where he continued two years. He then +took a short tour on the Continent, and, returning, went to Eton, where +he studied nearly five years. While at Eton, he was reckoned, according +to the usual test at that place, not a first-rate Latin student, for his +mind had a predominant bias toward English literature, and there he +lingered among the exhaustless fountains of the earlier poetry of his +native tongue. One who knew him well in those years has described him to +us as a sweet-voiced lad, moving about the pleasant playing-fields of +Eton with a thoughtful eye and a most kindly expression. Afterwards, as +Tennyson, singing to the witch-elms and the towering sycamore, paints +him, he mixed in all the simple sports, and loved to gather a happy +group about him, as he lay on the grass and discussed grave questions of +state. And again,-- + + "Thy converse drew us with delight, + The men of rathe and riper years: + The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, + Forgot his weakness in thy sight." + +His taste for philosophical poetry increased with his years, and +Wordsworth and Shelley became his prime favorites. His contributions to +the "Eton Miscellany" were various, sometimes in prose and now and then +in verse. A poet by nature, he could not resist the Muse's influence, +and he expressed a genuine emotion, oftentimes elegantly, and never +without a meaning. + +In the summer of 1827 he left Eton, and travelled with his parents eight +months in Italy. And now began that life of thought and feeling so +conspicuous to the end of his too brief career. Among the Alps his whole +soul took the impress of those early introductions to what is most +glorious and beautiful in Nature. After passing the mountains, Italian +literature claimed his attention, and he entered upon its study with all +the ardor of a young and earnest student. An Abbate who recognized his +genius encouraged him with his assistance in the difficult art of +Italian versification, and, after a very brief stay in Italy, at the age +of seventeen, he wrote several sonnets which attracted considerable +attention among scholars. Very soon after acquiring the Italian +language, the great Florentine poet opened to him his mystic visions. +Dante became his worship, and his own spirit responded to that of the +author of the "Divina Commedia." + +His growing taste led him to admire deeply all that is noble in Art, and +he soon prized with enthusiasm the great pictures of the Venetian, the +Tuscan, and the Roman schools. "His eyes," says his father, "were fixed +on the best pictures with silent, intense delight." One can imagine him +at this period wandering with all the ardor of youthful passion through +the great galleries, not with the stolid stony gaze of a coldblooded +critic, but with that unmixed enthusiasm which so well becomes the +unwearied traveller in his buoyant days of experience among the unveiled +glories of genius now first revealed to his astonished vision. + +He returned home in 1828, and went to reside at Cambridge, having been +entered, before his departure for the Continent, at Trinity College. It +is said that he cared little for academical reputation, and in the +severe scrutiny of examination he did not appear as a competitor for +accurate mathematical demonstrations. He knew better than those about +him where his treasures lay,--and to some he may have seemed a dreamer, +to others an indifferent student, perhaps. His aims were higher than the +tutor's black-board, and his life-thoughts ran counter to the usual +college-routine. Disordered health soon began to appear, and a too rapid +determination of blood to the brain often deprived him of the power of +much mental labor. At Florence he had been seized with a slight attack +of the same nature, and there was always a tendency to derangement of +the vital functions. Irregularity of circulation occasioned sometimes a +morbid depression of spirits, and his friends anxiously watched for +symptoms of returning health. In his third Cambridge year he grew +better, and all who knew and loved him rejoiced in his apparent recovery. + +About this time, some of his poetical pieces were printed, but withheld +from publication. It was the original intention for the two friends, +Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, to publish together; but the idea was +abandoned. Such lines as these the young poet addressed to the man who +was afterwards to lend interest and immortality to the story of his +early loss:-- + + "Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, + Sitting beneath a mossy, ivied wall + On a quaint bench, which to that structure old + Winds an accordant curve. Above my head + Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves, + Seeming received into the blue expanse + That vaults this summer noon. Before me lies + A lawn of English verdure, smooth, and bright, + Mottled with fainter hues of early hay, + Whose fragrance, blended with the rose-perfume + From that white flowering bush, invites my sense + To a delicious madness,--and faint thoughts + Of childish years are borne into my brain + By unforgotten ardors waking now. + Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade + Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown + Is the prime labor of the pettish winds, + That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves + Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies, + And the gay humming things that summer loves, + Through the warm air, or altering the bound + Where yon elm-shadows in majestic line + Divide dominion with the abundant light." + +And this fine descriptive passage was also written at this period of his +life:-- + + "The garden trees are busy with the shower + That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk, + Lowly and sweetly, as befits the hour, + One to another down the grassy walk. + Hark! the laburnum from his opening flower + This cheery creeper greets in whisper light, + While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, + Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore. + What shall I deem their converse? Would they hail + The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud, + Or the half-bow rising like pillared fire? + Or are they sighing faintly for desire + That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, + And dews about their feet may never fail?" + +The first college prize for English declamation was awarded to him this +year; and his exercise, "The Conduct of the Independent Party during the +Civil War," greatly improved his standing at the University. Other +honors quickly followed his successful essay, and he was chosen to +deliver an oration in the College Chapel just before the Christmas +vacation. This was in the year 1831. He selected as his subject the one +eminently congenial to his thought; and his theme, "The Influence of +Italian upon English Literature," was admirably treated. The oration is +before us as we write, and we turn the pages with a fond and loving eye. +We remember, as we read, his brief sojourn,--that he died "in the sweet +hour of prime,"--and we are astonished at the eloquent wisdom displayed +by a lad of twenty summers. "I cannot help considering," he says, "the +sonnets of Shakspeare as a sort of homage to the Genius of Christian +Europe, necessarily exacted, although voluntarily paid, before he was +allowed to take in hand the sceptre of his endless dominion." And he +ends his charming disquisition in these words;--"An English mind that +has drunk deep at the sources of Southern inspiration, and especially +that is imbued with the spirit of the mighty Florentine, will be +conscious of a perpetual freshness and quiet beauty resting on his +imagination and spreading gently over his affections, until, by the +blessing of Heaven, it may be absorbed without loss in the pure inner +light of which that voice has spoken, as no other can,-- + + "'Light intellectual, yet full of love, + Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy, + Joy, every other sweetness far above.'" + +It was young Hallam's privilege to be among Coleridge's favorites, and +in one of his poems Arthur alludes to him as a man in whose face "every +line wore the pale cast of thought." His conversations with "the old man +eloquent" gave him intense delight, and he often alluded to the +wonderful talks he had enjoyed with the great dreamer, whose magical +richness of illustration took him captive for the time being. + +At Abbotsford he became known to Sir Walter Scott, and Lockhart thus +chronicles his visit:-- + +"Among a few other friends from a distance, Sir Walter received this +summer [1829] a short visit from Mr. Hallam, and made in his company +several of the little excursions which had in former days been of +constant recurrence. Mr. Hallam had with him his son, Arthur, a young +gentleman of extraordinary abilities, and as modest as able, who not +long afterwards was cut off in the very bloom of opening life and +genius. His beautiful verses, 'On Melrose seen in Company with Scott,' +have since been often printed." + + "I lived an hour in fair Melrose: + It was not when 'the pale moonlight' + Its magnifying charm bestows; + Yet deem I that I 'viewed it right.' + The wind-swept shadows fast careered, + Like living things that joyed or feared, + Adown the sunny Eildon Hill, + And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crowned well. + + "I inly laughed to see that scene + Wear such a countenance of youth, + Though many an age those hills were green, + And yonder river glided smooth, + Ere in these now disjointed walls + The Mother Church held festivals, + And full-voiced anthemings the while + Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the echoing aisle. + + "I coveted that Abbey's doom: + For if, I thought, the early flowers + Of our affection may not bloom, + Like those green hills, through countless hours, + Grant me at least a tardy waning + Some pleasure still in age's paining; + Though lines and forms must fade away, + Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay! + + "But looking toward the grassy mound + Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie, + Who, living, quiet never found, + I straightway learnt a lesson high: + And well I knew that thoughtful mien + Of him whose early lyre had thrown + Over these mouldering walls the magic of its tone. + + "Then ceased I from my envying state, + And knew that aweless intellect + Hath power upon the ways of Fate, + And works through time and space uncheck'd. + That minstrel of old Chivalry + In the cold grave must come to be; + But his transmitted thoughts have part + In the collective mind, and never shall depart. + + "It was a comfort, too, to see + Those dogs that from him ne'er would rove, + And always eyed him reverently, + With glances of depending love. + They know not of that eminence + Which marks him to my reasoning sense; + They know but that he is a man, + And still to them is kind, and glads them all he can. + + "And hence their quiet looks confiding, + Hence grateful instincts seated deep, + By whose strong bond, were ill betiding, + They'd risk their own his life to keep. + What joy to watch in lower creature + Such dawning of a moral nature, + And how (the rule all things obey) + They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!" + +At the University he lived a sweet and gracious life. No man had truer +or fonder friends, or was more admired for his excellent +accomplishments. Earnest in whatever he attempted, his enthusiasm for +all that was high and holy in literature stamped his career at Trinity +as one of remarkable superiority. "I have known many young men, both at +Oxford and elsewhere, of whose abilities I think highly, but I never met +with one whom I considered worthy of being put into competition with +Arthur for a moment," writes his early and intimate friend. "I can +scarcely hope to describe the feelings with which I regarded him, much +less the daily beauty of his existence, out of which they grew," writes +another of his companions. Politics, literature, philosophy he discussed +with a metaphysical subtilty marvellous in one so young. The highest +comprehension seemed native to his mind, so that all who came within the +sphere of his influence were alike impressed with his vast and various +powers. The life and grace of a charmed circle, the display of his gifts +was not for show, and he never forgot to keep the solemn injunction, +_"My son, give me thine heart,"_ clearly engraven before him. + +Among his favorite authors, while at the University, we have been told +he greatly delighted in the old dramatists, Webster, Heywood, and +Fletcher. The grace and harmony of style and versification which he +found particularly in the latter master became one of his favorite +themes, and he often dwelt upon this excellence. He loved to repeat the +sad old strains of Bion; and Aeschylus and Sophocles interested +him deeply. + +On leaving Cambridge, he took his degree and went immediately to London +to reside with his father. It was a beautiful relation which always +existed between the elder and the younger scholar; and now, as soon as +Arthur had been entered on the boards of the Inner Temple, the father +and son sat down to read law together. Legal studies occupied the young +student till the month of October, 1832, when he became an inmate of the +office of an eminent conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Although he +applied himself diligently to obtain a sound practical knowledge of the +profession he had chosen, his former habits of literary pursuit did not +entirely desert him. During the winter he translated most of the sonnets +in the "Vita Nuova," and composed a dramatic sketch with Raffaello for +the hero. About this period he wrote brief, but excellent, memoirs of +Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the "Gallery of Portraits," then +publishing by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But his +time, when unoccupied at the office, was principally devoted to +metaphysical research and the history of philosophical opinion. His +spirits, sometimes apt to be graver than is the wont of youth, now +became more animated and even gay, so that his family were cheered on to +hope that his health was firmly gaining ground. The unpleasant symptoms +which manifested themselves in his earlier years had almost entirely +disappeared, when an attack of intermittent fever in the spring of 1833 +gave the fatal blow to his constitution. In August, the careful, tender +father took his beloved son into Germany, trusting to a change of +climate for restoration. Travelling slowly, they lingered among the +scenes connected with a literature and a history both were so familiar +with, and many pleasant and profitable hours of delightful converse +gladdened Arthur's journey. It is difficult to picture a more +interesting group of travellers through the picturesque regions they +were again exploring. + +No child was ever more ardently loved--nay, worshipped--by his father +than Arthur Hallam. The parallel, perhaps, exists in Edmund Burke's fond +attachment for and subsequent calamity in the loss of his son Richard. +That passage in the life of the great statesman is one of the most +affecting in all biographical literature. "The son thus deeply +lamented," says Prior, "had always conducted himself with much filial +duty and affection. Their confidence on all subjects was even more +unreserved than commonly prevails between father and son, and their +esteem for each other higher.... The son looked to the father as one of +the first, if not the very first, character in history; the father had +formed the very highest opinion of the talents of the son, and among his +friends rated them superior to his own." The same confiding +companionship grew up between Henry Hallam and his eldest boy, and +continued till "death set the seal of eternity" upon the young and +gifted Arthur. + +The travellers were returning to Vienna from Pesth; a damp day set in +while they were on the journey; again intermittent fever attacked the +sensitive invalid, and suddenly, mysteriously, his life was ended. It +was the 15th of September, 1833, and Arthur Hallam lay dead in his +father's arms. Twenty-two brief years, and all high hopes for him, the +manly, the noble-spirited, this side the tomb, are broken down forever. +Well might his heart-crushed father sob aloud, "He seemed to tread the +earth as a spirit from some better world." The author of "Horae +Subsecivae" aptly quotes Shakspeare's memorable words, in connection +with the tragic bereavement of that autumnal day in Vienna:-- + + "The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep + Into my study of imagination; + And every lovely organ of thy life + Shall come apparelled in more precious habit, + More moving delicate, and full of life, + Into the eye and prospect of my soul, + Than when thou liv'dst indeed." + +Standing by the grave of this young person, now made so renowned by the +genius of a great poet, whose song has embalmed his name and called the +world's attention to his death, the inevitable reflection is not of +sorrow. He sleeps well who is thus lamented, and "nothing can touch +him further." + + + + +THE CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIUM. + + +It is not yet a year since I ceased to act as a Spiritual Medium. (I am +forced to make use of this title as the most intelligible, but I do it +with a strong mental protest.) At first, I desired only to withdraw +myself quietly from the peculiar associations into which I had been +thrown by the exercise of my faculty, and be content with the simple +fact of my escape. A man who joins the Dashaways does not care to have +the circumstance announced in the newspapers. "So, he was an habitual +drunkard," the public would say. I was overcome by a similar +reluctance,--nay, I might honestly call it shame,--since, although I had +at intervals officiated as a Medium for a period of seven years, my name +had been mentioned, incidentally, only once or twice in the papers +devoted especially to Spiritualism. I had no such reputation as that of +Hume or Andrew Jackson Davis, which would call for a public statement of +my recantation. The result would be, therefore, to give prominence to a +weakness, which, however manfully overcome, might be remembered to my +future prejudice. + +I find, however, that the resolution to be silent leaves me restless and +unsatisfied. And in reflecting calmly--objectively, for the first +time--upon the experience of those seven years, I recognize so many +points wherein my case is undoubtedly analogous to that of hundreds of +others who may be still entangled in the same labyrinth whence I have +but recently escaped, so clear a solution of much that is enigmatical, +even to those who reject Spiritualism, that the impulse to write weighs +upon me with the pressure of a neglected duty. I _cannot_ longer be +silent, and, in the conviction that the truth of my statement will be +evident enough to those most concerned in hearing it, without the +authority of any name, (least of all, of one so little known as mine,) +I now give my confession to the world. The names of the individuals whom +I shall have occasion to introduce are, of course, disguised; but, with +this exception, the narrative is the plainest possible record of my own +experience. Many of the incidents winch I shall be obliged to describe +are known only to the actors therein, who, I feel assured, will never +foolishly betray themselves. I have therefore no fear that any harm can +result from my disclosures. + +In order to make my views intelligible to those readers who have paid no +attention to psychological subjects, I must commence a little in advance +of my story. My own individual nature is one of those apparently +inconsistent combinations which are frequently found in the children of +parents whose temperaments and mental personalities widely differ. This +class of natures is much larger than would be supposed. Inheriting +opposite, even conflicting, traits from father and mother, they assume, +as either element predominates, diverse characters; and that which is +the result of temperament (in fact, congenital inconsistency) is set +down by the unthinking world as moral weakness or duplicity. Those who +have sufficient skill to perceive and reconcile--or, at least, +govern--the opposing elements are few, indeed. Had the power come to me +sooner, I should have been spared the necessity of making these +confessions. + +From one parent I inherited an extraordinarily active and sensitive +imagination,--from the other, a sturdy practical sense, a disposition to +weigh and balance with calm fairness the puzzling questions which life +offers to every man. These conflicting qualities--as is usual in all +similar natures--were not developed in equal order of growth. The former +governed my childhood, my youth, and enveloped me with spells, which all +the force of the latter and more slowly ripened faculty was barely +sufficient to break. Luxuriant weeds and brambles covered the soil which +should have been ploughed and made to produce honest grain. +Unfortunately, I had no teacher who was competent to understand and +direct me. The task was left for myself, and I can only wonder, after +all that has occurred, how it has been possible for me to succeed. +Certainly, this success has not been due to any vigorous exercise of +virtue on my part, but solely to the existence of that cool, reflective +reason which lay _perdue_ beneath all the extravagances of my mind. + +I possessed, even as a child, an unusual share of what phrenologists +call Concentrativeness. The power of absorption, of self-forgetfulness, +was at the same time a source of delight and a torment. Lost in some +wild dream or absurd childish speculation, my insensibility to outward +things was chastised as carelessness or a hardened indifference to +counsel. With a memory almost marvellous to retain those things which +appealed to my imagination, I blundered painfully over the commonest +tasks. While I frequently repeated the Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too +often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my +corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, +to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing +my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat +moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman +required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They +could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. +The closing hymn recalled me to myself, always with a shock, or sense of +pain, and sometimes even with a temporary nausea. + +This habit of abstraction--properly a complete _passivity_ of the +mind--after a while developed another habit, in which I now see the root +of that peculiar condition which made me a Medium. I shall therefore +endeavor to describe it. I was sitting, one Sunday, just as the minister +was commencing his sermon, with my eyes carelessly following the fingers +of my right hand, as I drummed them slowly across my knee. Suddenly, the +wonder came into my mind,--How is it my fingers move? What set them +going? What is it that stops them? The mystery of that communication +between will and muscle, which no physiologist has ever fathomed, burst +upon my young intellect. I had been conscious of no intention of thus +drumming my fingers; they were in motion when I first noticed them: they +were certainly a part of myself, yet they acted without my knowledge or +design! My left hand was quiet; why did its fingers not move also? +Following these reflections came a dreadful fear, as I remembered Jane, +the blacksmith's daughter, whose elbows and shoulders sometimes jerked +in such a way as to make all the other scholars laugh, although we were +sorry for the poor girl, who cried bitterly over her unfortunate, +ungovernable limbs. I was comforted, however, on finding that I could +control the motion of my fingers at pleasure; but my imagination was too +active to stop there. What if I should forget how to direct my hands? +What if they should refuse to obey me? What if my knees, which were just +as still as the hymn-books in the rack before me, should cease to bend, +and I should sit there forever? These very questions seemed to produce a +temporary paralysis of the will. As my right hand lay quietly on my +knee, and I asked myself, with a stupid wonder, "Now, can I move it?" it +lay as still as before. I had only questioned, not willed. "No I cannot +move it," I said, in real doubt I was conscious of a blind sense of +exertion, wherein there was yet no proper exertion, but which seemed to +exhaust me. Fascinated by this new mystery, I contemplated my hand as +something apart from myself,--something subordinate to, but not +identical with, me. The rising of the congregation for the hymn broke +the spell, like the snapping of a thread. + +The reader will readily understand that I carried these experiences much +farther. I gradually learned to suspend (perhaps in imagination only, +but therefore none the less really) the action of my will upon the +muscles of my arms and legs; and I did it with the greater impunity, +from knowing that the stir consequent upon the conclusion of the +services would bring me to myself. In proportion as the will became +passive, the activity of my imagination was increased, and I experienced +a new and strange delight in watching the play of fantasies which +appeared to come and go independently of myself. There was still a dim +consciousness of outward things mingled with my condition; I was not +beyond the recall of my senses. But one day, I remember, as I sat +motionless as a statue, having ceased any longer to attempt to control +my dead limbs, more than usually passive, a white, shining mist +gradually stole around me; my eyes finally ceased to take cognizance of +objects; a low, musical humming sounded in my ears, and those creatures +of the imagination which had hitherto crossed my brain as _thoughts_ now +spoke to me as audible voices. If there is any happy delirium in the +first stages of intoxication, (of which, thank Heaven, I have no +experience,) it must be a sensation very much like that which I felt. +The death of external and the birth of internal consciousness +overwhelmed my childish soul with a dumb, ignorant ecstasy, like that +which savages feel on first hearing the magic of music. + +How long I remained thus I know not. I was aroused, by feeling myself +violently shaken. "John!" exclaimed my mother, who had grasped my arm +with a determined hand,--"bless the boy! what ails him? Why, his face +is as white as a sheet!" Slowly I recovered my consciousness, saw the +church and the departing congregation, and mechanically followed my +parents. I could give no explanation of what had happened, except to say +that I had fallen asleep. As I ate my dinner with a good appetite, my +mother's fears were quieted. I was left at home the following Sunday, +and afterwards only ventured to indulge sparingly in the exercise of my +newly discovered faculty. My mother, I was conscious, took more note of +my presence than formerly, and I feared a repetition of the same +catastrophe. As I grew older and my mind became interested in a wider +range of themes, I finally lost the habit, which I classed among the +many follies of childhood. + +I retained, nevertheless, and still retain, something of that subtile +instinct which mocks and yet surpasses reason. My feelings with regard +to the persons whom I met were quite independent of their behavior +towards me, or the estimation in which they were held by the world. +Things which puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in +sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid +doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible +to understand my motives of action,--because, in fact, there were no +_motives_,--complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I +presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the +instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which +I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and was +generally able to distinguish between its suggestions and the mere +humors of my imagination. It is scarcely necessary to say that I assume +the existence of such a power, at the outset. I recognize it as a normal +faculty of the human mind,--not therefore universal, any more than the +genius which makes a poet, a painter, or a composer. + +My education was neither general nor thorough; hence I groped darkly +with the psychological questions which were presented to me. Tormented +by those doubts which at some period of life assail the soul of every +thinking man, I was ready to grasp at any solution which offered, +without very carefully testing its character. I eagerly accepted the +theory of Animal Magnetism, which, so far as it went, was satisfactory; +but it only illustrated the powers and relations of the soul in its +present state of existence; it threw no light upon that future which I +was not willing to take upon faith alone. Though sensible to mesmeric +influences, I was not willing that my spiritual nature should be the +instrument of another's will,--that a human being, like myself, should +become possessed of all my secrets and sanctities, touching the keys of +every passion with his unhallowed fingers. In the phenomena of +clairvoyance I saw only other and more subtile manifestations of the +power which I knew to exist in my own mind. Hence, I soon grew weary of +prosecuting inquiries which, at best, would fall short of solving my own +great and painful doubt,--Does the human soul continue to exist after +death? That it could take cognizance of things beyond the reach of the +five senses, I was already assured. This, however, might be a sixth +sense, no less material and perishable in its character than the others. +My brain, as yet, was too young and immature to follow the thread of +that lofty spiritual logic in the light of which such doubts melt away +like mists of the night. Thus, uneasy because undeveloped, erring +because I had never known the necessary guidance, seeking, but almost +despairing of enlightenment, I was a fit subject for any spiritual +epidemic which seemed to offer me a cure for worse maladies. + +At this juncture occurred the phenomena known as the "Rochester +Knockings." (My home, let me say, is in a small town not far from New +York.) I shared in the general interest aroused by the marvellous +stories, which, being followed by the no less extraordinary display of +some unknown agency at Norwalk, Connecticut, excited me to such a degree +that I was half-converted to the new faith before I had witnessed any +spiritual manifestation. Soon after the arrival of the Misses Fox in New +York I visited them in their rooms at the Howard House. Impressed by +their quiet, natural demeanor, the absence of anything savoring of +jugglery, and the peculiar character of the raps and movements of the +table, I asked my questions and applied my tests, in a passive, if not a +believing frame of mind. In fact, I had not long been seated, before the +noises became loud and frequent. + +"The spirits like to communicate with you," said Mrs. Fish: "you seem to +be nearer to them than most people." + +I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother, +and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained +correct answers to all my questions. I did not then remark, what has +since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I +knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind +at the time. The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression +upon me. Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train +that morning, I asked,--"Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind +communicate with me?" To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on +calling over the alphabet,--"_He is living!_" + +I returned home, very much puzzled. Precisely those features of the +exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me. The +searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the +manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me +favorably towards the spiritual theory. If disembodied souls, I said, +really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should +they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for +their visitations? What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in +places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than +when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination? In such +reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination, +while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical. + +Soon after this, circles began to be formed in my native town, for the +purpose of table-moving. A number of persons met, secretly at +first,--for as yet there were no avowed converts,--and quite as much for +sport as for serious investigation. The first evening there was no +satisfactory manifestation. The table moved a little, it is true, but +each one laughingly accused his neighbors of employing some muscular +force: all isolated attempts were vain. I was conscious, nevertheless, +of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind +my forgotten experiments in church. No rappings were heard, and some of +the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole thing +a delusion. + +A few evenings after this we met again. Those who were most incredulous +happened to be absent, while, accidentally, their places were filled by +persons whose temperaments disposed them to a passive seriousness. Among +these was a girl of sixteen, Miss Abby Fetters, a pale, delicate +creature, with blond hair and light-blue eyes. Chance placed her next to +me, in forming the ring, and her right hand lay lightly upon my left. We +stood around a heavy circular dining-table. A complete silence was +preserved, and all minds gradually sank into a quiet, passive +expectancy. In about ten minutes I began to feel, or to imagine that I +felt, a stream of light,--if light were a palpable substance,--a +something far finer and more subtile than an electric current, passing +from the hand of Miss Fetters through my own into the table. Presently +the great wooden mass began to move,--stopped,--moved again,--turned in +a circle, we following, without changing the position of our hands,--and +finally began to rock from side to side, with increasing violence. Some +of the circle were thrown off by the movements; others withdrew their +hands in affright; and but four, among whom were Miss Fetters and +myself, retained their hold. My outward consciousness appeared to be +somewhat benumbed, as if by some present fascination or approaching +trance, but I retained curiosity enough to look at my companion. Her +eyes, sparkling with a strange, steady light, were fixed upon the table; +her breath came quick and short, and her cheek had lost every trace of +color. Suddenly, as if by a spasmodic effort, she removed her hands; I +did the same, and the table stopped. She threw herself into a seat, as +if exhausted, yet, during the whole time, not a muscle of the hand which +lay upon mine had stirred. I solemnly declare that my own hands had +been equally passive, yet I experienced the same feeling of +fatigue,--not muscular fatigue, but a sense of _deadness_, as if every +drop of nervous energy had been suddenly taken from me. + +Further experiments, the same evening, showed that we two, either +together or alone, were able to produce the same phenomena without the +assistance of the others present. We did not succeed, however, in +obtaining any answers to our questions, nor were any of us impressed by +the idea that the spirits of the dead were among us. In fact, these +table-movings would not, of themselves, suggest the idea of a spiritual +manifestation. "The table is bewitched," said Thompson, a hard-headed +young fellow, without a particle of imagination; and this was really the +first impression of all: some unknown force, latent in the dead matter, +had been called into action. Still, this conclusion was so strange, so +incredible, that the agency of supernatural intelligences finally +presented itself to my mind as the readiest solution. + +It was not long before we obtained rappings, and were enabled to repeat +all the experiments which I had tried during my visit to the Fox family. +The spirits of our deceased relatives and friends announced themselves, +and generally gave a correct account of their earthly lives. I must +confess, however, that, whenever we attempted to pry into the future, we +usually received answers as ambiguous as those of the Grecian oracles, +or predictions which failed to be realized. Violent knocks or other +unruly demonstrations would sometimes interrupt an intelligent +communication which promised us some light on the other life: these, we +were told, were occasioned by evil or mischievous spirits, whose delight +it was to create disturbances. They never occurred, I now remember, +except when Miss Fetters was present. At the time, we were too much +absorbed in our researches to notice the fact. + +The reader will perceive, from what he knows of my previous mental +state, that it was not difficult for me to accept the theories of the +Spiritualists. Here was an evidence of the immortality of the +soul,--nay, more, of its continued individuality through endless future +existences. The idea of my individuality being lost had been to me the +same thing as complete annihilation. The spirits themselves informed us +that they had come to teach these truths. The simple, ignorant faith of +the Past, they said, was worn out; with the development of science, the +mind of man had become skeptical; the ancient fountains no longer +sufficed for his thirst; each new era required a new revelation; in all +former ages there had been single minds pure enough and advanced enough +to communicate with the dead and be the mediums of their messages to +men, but now the time had come when the knowledge of this intercourse +must be declared unto all; in its light the mysteries of the Past became +clear; in the wisdom thus imparted, that happy Future which seems +possible to every ardent and generous heart would be secured. I was not +troubled by the fact that the messages which proclaimed these things +were often incorrectly spelt, that the grammar was bad and the language +far from elegant. I did not reflect that these new and sublime truths +had formerly passed through my own brain as the dreams of a wandering +imagination. Like that American philosopher who looks upon one of his +own neophytes as a man of great and profound mind because the latter +carefully remembers and repeats to him his own carelessly uttered +wisdom, I saw in these misty and disjointed reflections of my own +thoughts the precious revelation of departed and purified spirits. + +How a passion for the unknown and unattainable takes hold of men is +illustrated by the search for the universal solvent, by the mysteries of +the Rosicrucians, by the patronage of fortune-tellers, even. Wholly +absorbed in spiritual researches,--having, in fact, no vital interest in +anything else,--I soon developed into what is called a Medium. I +discovered, at the outset, that the peculiar condition to be attained +before the tables would begin to move could be produced at will.[7] I +also found that the passive state into which I naturally fell had a +tendency to produce that trance or suspension of the will which I had +discovered when a boy. External consciousness, however, did not wholly +depart. I saw the circle of inquirers around me, but dimly, and as +phantoms,--while the impressions which passed over my brain seemed to +wear visible forms and to speak with audible voices. + +I did not doubt, at the time, that spirits visited me, and that they +made use of my body to communicate with those who could hear them in no +other way. Beside the pleasant intoxication of the semi-trance, I felt a +rare joy in the knowledge that I was elected above other men to be their +interpreter. Let me endeavor to describe the nature of this possession. +Sometimes, even before a spirit would be called for, the figure of the +person, as it existed in the mind of the inquirer, would suddenly +present itself to me,--not to my outward senses, but to my interior, +instinctive knowledge. If the recollection of the other embraced also +the voice, I heard the voice in the same manner, and unconsciously +imitated it. The answers to the questions I knew by the same instinct, +as soon as the questions were spoken. + +If the question was vague, asked for information rather than +_confirmation_, either no answer came, or there was an impression of a +_wish_ of what the answer might be, or, at times, some strange +involuntary sentence sprang to my lips. When I wrote, my hand appeared +to move of itself; yet the words it wrote invariably passed through my +mind. Even when blindfolded, there was no difference in its performance. +The same powers developed themselves in a still greater degree in Miss +Fetters. The spirits which spoke most readily through her were those of +men, even coarse and rude characters, which came unsummoned. Two or +three of the other members of our circle were able to produce motions in +the table; they could even feel, as they asserted, the touch of +spiritual hands; but, however much they desired it, they were never +personally possessed as we, and therefore could not properly be +called Mediums. + +These investigations were not regularly carried on. Occasionally the +interest of the circle flagged, until it was renewed by the visit of +some apostle of the new faith, usually accompanied by a "Preaching +Medium." Among those whose presence especially conduced to keep alive +the flame of spiritual inquiry was a gentleman named Stilton, the editor +of a small monthly periodical entitled "Revelations from the Interior." +Without being himself a Medium, he was nevertheless thoroughly +conversant with the various phenomena of Spiritualism, and both spoke +and wrote in the dialect which its followers adopted. He was a man of +varied, but not profound learning, an active intellect, giving and +receiving impressions with equal facility, and with an unusual +combination of concentrativeness and versatility in his nature. A +certain inspiration was connected with his presence. His personality +overflowed upon and influenced others. "My mind is not sufficiently +submissive," he would say, "to receive impressions from the spirits, but +my atmosphere attracts them and encourages them to speak." He was a +stout, strongly built man, with coarse black hair, gray eyes, large +animal mouth, square jaws, and short, thick neck. Had his hair been +cropped close, he would have looked very much like a prize-fighter; but +he wore it long, parted in the middle, and as meek in expression as its +stiff waves would allow. + +Stilton soon became the controlling spirit of our circle. His presence +really seemed, as he said, to encourage the spirits. Never before had +the manifestations been so abundant or so surprising. Miss Fetters, +especially, astonished us by the vigor of her possessions. Not only +Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe +Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens, +prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her +frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she +floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore +for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the +opposite cast. Hypatia, Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest +of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually +spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand, +and often without giving any clue to their personality. A practised +stenographer, engaged by Mr. Stilton, took down many of these +communications as they were spoken, and they were afterwards published +in the "Revelations." It was also remarked, that, while Miss Fetters +employed violent gestures and seemed to possess a superhuman strength, +I, on the contrary, sat motionless, pale, and with little sign of life +except in my voice, which, though low, was clear and dramatic in its +modulations. Stilton explained this difference without hesitation. "Miss +Abby," he said, "possesses soul-matter of a texture to which the souls +of these strong men naturally adhere. In the spirit-land the +superfluities repel each other; the individual souls seek to remedy +their imperfections: in the union of opposites only is to be found the +great harmonia of life. You, John, move upon another plane; through what +in you is undeveloped, these developed spirits are attracted." + +For two or three years, I must admit, my life was a very happy one. Not +only were those occasional trances an intoxication, nay, a coveted +indulgence, but they cast a consecration over my life. My restored faith +rested on the sure evidence of my own experience; my new creed contained +no harsh or repulsive feature; I heard the same noble sentiments which I +uttered in such moments repeated by my associates in the faith, and I +devoutly believed that a complete regeneration of the human race was at +hand. Nevertheless, it struck me sometimes as singular that many of the +Mediums whom I met--men and women chosen by spiritual hands to the same +high office--excited in my mind that instinct of repulsion on which I +had learned to rely as a sufficient reason for avoiding certain persons. +Far as it would have been from my mind, at that time, to question the +manifestations which accompanied them, I could not smother my mistrust +of their characters. Miss Fetters, whom I so frequently met, was one of +the most disagreeable. Her cold, thin lips, pale eyes, and lean figure +gave me a singular impression of voracious hunger. Her presence was +often announced to me by a chill shudder, before I saw her. Centuries +ago one of her ancestors must have been a ghoul or vampire. The trance +of possession seemed, with her, to be a form of dissipation, in which +she indulged as she might have catered for a baser appetite. The new +religion was nothing to her; I believe she valued it only on account of +the importance she obtained among its followers. Her father, a vain, +weak-minded man, who kept a grocery in the town, was himself a convert. + +Stilton had an answer for every doubt. No matter how tangled a labyrinth +might be exhibited to him, he walked straight through it. + +"How is it," I asked him, "that so many of my fellow-mediums inspire me +with an instinctive dislike and mistrust?" + +"By mistrust you mean dislike," he answered; "since you know of no +reason to doubt their characters. The elements of soul-matter are +differently combined in different individuals, and there are affinities +and repulsions, just as there are in the chemical elements. Your feeling +is chemical, not moral. A want of affinity does not necessarily imply an +existing evil in the other party. In the present ignorance of the world, +our true affinities can only he imperfectly felt and indulged; and the +entire freedom which we shall obtain in this respect is the greatest +happiness of the spirit-life." + +Another time I asked,-- + +"How is it that the spirits of great authors speak so tamely to us? +Shakspeare, last night, wrote a passage which he would have been +heartily ashamed of, as a living man. We know that a spirit spoke, +calling himself Shakspeare; but, judging from his communication, it +could not have been he." + +"It probably was not," said Mr. Stilton. "I am convinced that all +malicious spirits are at work to interrupt the communications from the +higher spheres. We were thus deceived by one professing to be Benjamin +Franklin, who drew for us the plan of a machine for splitting shingles, +which we had fabricated and patented at considerable expense. On trial, +however, it proved to be a miserable failure, a complete mockery. When +the spirit was again summoned, he refused to speak, but shook the table +to express his malicious laughter, went off, and has never since +returned. My friend, we know but the alphabet of Spiritualism, the mere +A B C; we can no more expect to master the immortal language in a day +than a child to read Plato after learning his letters." + +Many of those who had been interested in the usual phenomena gradually +dropped off, tired, and perhaps a little ashamed, in the reaction +following their excitement; but there were continual accessions to our +ranks, and we formed, at last, a distinct clan or community. Indeed, the +number of _secret_ believers in Spiritualism would never be suspected by +the uninitiated. In the sect, however, as in Masonry and the Catholic +Church, there are circles within circles,--concentric rings, whence you +can look outwards, but not inwards, and where he alone who stands at the +centre is able to perceive everything. Such an inner circle was at last +formed in our town. Its object, according to Stilton, with whom the plan +originated, was to obtain a purer spiritual atmosphere, by the exclusion +of all but Mediums and those non-mediumistic believers in whose presence +the spirits felt at ease, and thus invite communications from the +farther and purer spheres. + +In fact, the result seemed to justify the plan. The character of the +trance, as I had frequently observed, is vitiated by the consciousness +that disbelievers are present. The more perfect the atmosphere of +credulity, the more satisfactory the manifestations. The expectant +company, the dim light, the conviction that a wonderful revelation was +about to dawn upon us, excited my imagination, and my trance was really +a sort of delirium, in which I spoke with a passion and an eloquence I +had never before exhibited. The fear, which had previously haunted me, +at times, of giving my brain and tongue into the control of an unknown, +power, was forgotten; yet, more than ever, I was conscious of some +strong controlling influence, and experienced a reckless pleasure in +permitting myself to be governed by it. "Prepare," I concluded, (I quote +from the report in the "Revelations,") "prepare, sons of men, for the +dawning day! Prepare for the second and perfect regeneration of man! For +the prison-chambers have been broken into, and the light from the +interior shall illuminate the external! Ye shall enjoy spiritual and +passional freedom; your guides shall no longer be the despotism of +ignorant laws, nor the whip of an imaginary conscience,--but the natural +impulses of your nature, which are the melody of Life, and the natural +affinities, which are its harmony! The reflections from the upper +spheres shall irradiate the lower, and Death is the triumphal arch +through which we pass from glory to glory!" + +--I have here paused, deliberating whether I should proceed farther in +my narrative. But no; if any good is to be accomplished by these +confessions, the reader must walk with me through the dark labyrinth +which follows. He must walk over what may be considered delicate ground, +but he shall not be harmed. One feature of the trance condition is too +remarkable, too important in its consequences, to be overlooked. It is a +feature of which many Mediums are undoubtedly ignorant, the existence of +which is not even suspected by thousands of honest Spiritualists. + +Let me again anticipate the regular course of my narrative, and explain. +A suspension of the Will, when indulged in for any length of time, +produces a suspension of that inward consciousness of good and evil +which we call Conscience, and which can be actively exercised only +through the medium of the Will. The mental faculties and the moral +perceptions lie down together in the same passive sleep. The subject is, +therefore, equally liable to receive impressions from the minds of +others, and from their passions and lusts. Besides this, the germs of +all good and of all evil are implanted in the nature of every human +being; and even when some appetite is buried in a crypt so deep that its +existence is forgotten, let the warder be removed, and it will gradually +work its way to the light. Persons in the receptive condition which +belongs to the trance may be surrounded by honest and pure-minded +individuals, and receive no harmful impressions; they may even, if of a +healthy spiritual temperament, resist for a time the aggressions of evil +influences; but the final danger is always the same. The state of the +Medium, therefore, may be described as one in which the Will is passive, +the Conscience passive, the outward senses partially (sometimes wholly) +suspended, the mind helplessly subject to the operations of other minds, +and the passions and desires released from all restraining +influences.[8] I make the statement boldly, after long and careful +reflection, and severe self-examination. + +As I said before, I did not entirely lose my external consciousness, +although it was very dim and dream-like. On returning to the natural +state, my recollection of what had occurred during the trance became +equally dim; but I retained a general impression of the character of the +possession. I knew that some foreign influence--the spirit of a dead +poet, or hero, or saint, I then believed--governed me for the time; that +I gave utterance to thoughts unfamiliar to my mind in its conscious +state; and that my own individuality was lost, or so disguised that I +could no longer recognize it. This very circumstance made the trance an +indulgence, a spiritual intoxication, no less fascinating than that of +the body, although accompanied by a similar reaction. Yet, behind all, +dimly evident to me, there was an element of terror. There were times +when, back of the influences which spoke with my voice, rose another,--a +vast, overwhelming, threatening power, the nature of which I could not +grasp, but which I knew was evil. Even when in my natural state, +listening to the harsh utterances of Miss Fetters or the lofty spiritual +philosophy of Mr. Stilton, I have felt, for a single second, the touch +of an icy wind, accompanied by a sensation of unutterable dread. + +Our secret circle had not held many sessions before a remarkable change +took place in the character of the revelations. Mr. Stilton ceased to +report them for his paper. + +"We are on the threshold, at last," said he; "the secrets of the ages +lie beyond. The hands of spirits are now lifting the veil, fold by fold. +Let us not be startled by what we hear: let us show that our eyes can +bear the light,--that we are competent to receive the wisdom of the +higher spheres, and live according to it." + +Miss Fetters was more than ever possessed by the spirit of Joe Manton, +whose allowance of grog having been cut off too suddenly by his death, +he was continually clamoring for a dram. + +"I tell you," yelled he, or rather she, "I won't stand sich meanness. I +ha'n't come all the way here for nothin'. I'll knock Erasmus all to +thunder, if you go for to turn me out dry, and let him come in." + +Mr. Stilton thereupon handed him, or her, a tumbler half-full of brandy, +which she gulped down at a single swallow. Joe Manton presently retired +to make room for Erasmus, who spoke for some time in Latin, or what +appeared to be Latin. None of us could make much of it; but Mr. Stilton +declared that the Latin pronunciation of Erasmus was probably different +from ours, or that he might have learned the true Roman accent from +Cicero and Seneca, with whom, doubtless, he was now on intimate terms. +As Erasmus generally concluded by throwing his arms, or rather the arms +of Miss Fetters, around the neck of Mr. Stilton,--his spirit +fraternizing, apparently, with the spirit of the latter,--we greatly +regretted that his communications were unintelligible, on account of the +superior wisdom which they might be supposed to contain. + +I confess, I cannot recall the part I played in what would have been a +pitiable farce, if it had not been so terribly tragical, without a +feeling of utter shame. Nothing but my profound sympathy for the +thousands and tens of thousands who are still subject to the same +delusion could compel me to such a sacrifice of pride. Curiously enough, +(as I thought _then_, but not now,) the enunciation of sentiments +opposed to my moral sense--the abolition, in fact, of all moral +restraint--came from my lips, while the actions of Miss Fetters hinted +at their practical application. Upon the ground that the interests of +the soul were paramount to all human laws and customs, I declared--or +rather, _my voice_ declared--that self-denial was a fatal error, to +which half the misery of mankind could be traced; that the passions, +held as slaves, exhibited only the brutish nature of slaves, and would +be exalted and glorified by entire freedom; and that our sole guidance +ought to come from the voices of the spirits who communicated with us, +instead of the imperfect laws constructed by our benighted fellow-men. +How clear and logical, how lofty, these doctrines seemed! If, at times, +something in their nature repelled me, I simply attributed it to the +fact that I was still but a neophyte in the Spiritual Philosophy, and +incapable of perceiving the truth with entire clearness. + +Mr. Stilton had a wife,--one of those meek, amiable, simple-hearted +women whose individuality seems to be completely absorbed into that of +their husbands. When such women are wedded to frank, tender, protecting +men, their lives are truly blessed; but they are willing slaves to the +domestic tyrant. They bear uncomplainingly,--many of them even without a +thought of complaint,--and die at last with their hearts full of love +for the brutes who have trampled upon them. Mrs. Stilton was perhaps +forty years of age, of middle height, moderately plump in person, with +light-brown hair, soft, inexpressive gray eyes, and a meek, helpless, +imploring mouth. Her voice was mild and plaintive, and its accents of +anger (if she ever gave utterance to such) could not have been +distinguished from those of grief. She did not often attend our +sessions, and it was evident, that, while she endeavored to comprehend +the revelations, in order to please her husband, their import was very +far beyond her comprehension. She was now and then a little frightened +at utterances which no doubt sounded lewd or profane to her ears; but +after a glance at Mr. Stilton's face, and finding that it betrayed +neither horror nor surprise, would persuade herself that everything +must be right. + +"Are you sure," she once timidly whispered to me, "are you very sure, +Mr. ------, that there is no danger of being led astray? It seems +strange to me; but perhaps I don't understand it." + +Her question was so indefinite, that I found it difficult to answer. +Stilton, however, seeing me engaged in endeavoring to make clear to her +the glories of the new truth, exclaimed,-- + +"That's right, John! Your spiritual plane slants through many spheres, +and has points of contact with a great variety of souls. I hope my wife +will be able to see the light through you, since I appear to be too +opaque for her to receive it from me." + +"Oh, Abijah!" said the poor woman, "you know it is my fault. I try to +follow, and I hope I have faith, though I don't see everything as +clearly as you do." + +I began also to have my own doubts, as I perceived that an "affinity" +was gradually being developed between Stilton and Miss Fetters. She was +more and more frequently possessed by the spirit of Erasmus, whose +salutations, on meeting and parting with his brother-philosopher, were +too enthusiastic for merely masculine love. But, whenever I hinted at +the possibility of mistaking the impulses of the soul, or at evil +resulting from a too sudden and universal liberation of the passions, +Stilton always silenced me with his inevitable logic. Having once +accepted the premises, I could not avoid the conclusions. + +"When our natures are in harmony with spirit-matter throughout the +spheres," he would say, "our impulses will always be in accordance. Or, +if there should be any temporary disturbance, arising from our necessary +intercourse with the gross, blinded multitude, we can always fly to our +spiritual monitors for counsel. Will not they, the immortal souls of the +ages past, who have guided us to a knowledge of the truth, assist us +also in preserving it pure?" + +In spite of this, in spite of my admiration of Stilton's intellect, and +my yet unshaken faith in Spiritualism, I was conscious that the harmony +of the circle was becoming impaired to me. Was I falling behind in +spiritual progress? Was I too weak to be the medium for the promised +revelations? I threw myself again and again into the trance, with a +recklessness of soul which fitted me to receive any, even the darkest +impressions, to catch and proclaim every guilty whisper of the senses, +and, while under the influence of the excitement, to exult in the age of +license which I believed to be at hand. But darker, stronger grew the +terror which lurked behind this spiritual carnival. A more tremendous +power than that which I now recognized as coming from Stilton's brain +was present, and I saw myself whirling nearer and nearer to its grasp. I +felt, by a sort of blind instinct, too vague to be expressed, that some +demoniac agency had thrust itself into the manifestations,--perhaps had +been mingled with them from the outset. + +For two or three months, my life was the strangest mixture of happiness +and misery. I walked about with the sense of some crisis hanging over +me. My "possessions" became fiercer and wilder, and the reaction so much +more exhausting that I fell into the habit of restoring myself by means +of the bottle of brandy which Mr. Stilton took care should be on hand, +in case of a visit from Joe Manton. Miss Fetters, strange to say, was +not in the least affected by the powerful draughts she imbibed. But, at +the same time, my waking life was growing brighter and brighter under +the power of a new and delicious experience. My nature is eminently +social, and I had not been able--indeed, I did not desire--wholly to +withdraw myself from intercourse with non-believers. There was too much +in society that was congenial to me to be given up. My instinctive +dislike to Miss Abby Fetters and my compassionate regard for Mrs. +Stilton's weakness only served to render the company of intelligent, +cultivated women more attractive to me. Among those whom I met most +frequently was Miss Agnes Honeywood, a calm, quiet, unobtrusive girl, +the characteristic of whose face was sweetness rather than beauty, while +the first feeling she inspired was respect rather than admiration. She +had just that amount of self-possession which conceals without +conquering the sweet timidity of woman. Her voice was low, yet clear; +and her mild eyes, I found, were capable, on occasion, of both flashing +and melting. Why describe her? I loved her before I knew it; but, with +the consciousness of my love, that clairvoyant sense on which I had +learned to depend failed for the first time. Did she love me? When I +sought to answer the question in her presence, all was confusion within. + +This was not the only new influence which entered into and increased the +tumult of my mind. The other half of my two-sided nature--the cool, +reflective, investigating faculty--had been gradually ripening, and the +questions which it now began to present seriously disturbed the +complacency of my theories. I saw that I had accepted many things on +very unsatisfactory evidence; but, on the other hand, there was much for +which I could find no other explanation. Let me be frank, and say, that +I do not now pretend to explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism. This, +however, I determined to do,--to ascertain, if possible, whether the +influences which governed me in the trance state came from the persons +around, from the exercise of some independent faculty of my own mind, or +really and truly from the spirits of the dead. Mr. Stilton appeared to +notice that some internal conflict was going on; but he said nothing in +regard to it, and, as events proved, he entirely miscalculated its +character. + +I said to myself,--"If this chaos continues, it will drive me mad. Let +me have one bit of solid earth beneath my feet, and I can stand until it +subsides. Let me throw over the best bower of the heart, since all the +anchors of the mind are dragging!" I summoned resolution. I made that +desperate venture which no true man makes without a pang of forced +courage; but, thank God! I did not make it in vain. Agnes loved me, and +in the deep, quiet bliss which this knowledge gave I felt the promise of +deliverance. She knew and lamented my connection with the Spiritualists; +but, perceiving my mental condition from the few intimations which I +dared to give her, discreetly held her peace. But I could read the +anxious expression of that gentle face none the less. + +My first endeavor to solve the new questions was to check the _abandon_ +of the trance condition, and interfuse it with more of sober +consciousness. It was a difficult task; and nothing but the circumstance +that my consciousness had never been entirely lost enabled me to make +any progress. I finally succeeded, as I imagined, (certainty is +impossible,) in separating the different influences which impressed +me,--perceiving where one terminated and the other commenced, or where +two met and my mind vibrated from one to the other until the stronger +prevailed, or where a thought which seemed to originate in my own brain +took the lead and swept away with me like the mad rush of a prairie +colt. When out of the trance, I noticed attentively the expressions made +use of by Mr. Stilton and the other members of the circle, and was +surprised to find how many of them I had reproduced. But might they not, +in the first place, have been derived from me? And what was the vague, +dark Presence which still overshadowed me at such times? What was that +Power which I had tempted,--which we were all tempting, every time we +met,--and which continually drew nearer and became more threatening? I +knew not; _and I know not_. I would rather not speak or think of it +any more. + +My suspicions with regard to Stilton and Miss Fetters were confirmed by +a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should +treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, +but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there +was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon +the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual harmonies. Among +_us_, he said, there could be no more hatred or mistrust or +jealousy,--nothing but love, pure, unselfish, perfect love. "You, my +dear," (turning to Mrs. Stilton,) "belong to a sphere which is included +within my own, and share in my harmonies and affinities; yet the +soul-matter which adheres to you is of a different texture from mine. +Yours has also its independent affinities; I see and respect them; and +even though they might lead our bodies--our outward, material +lives--away from one another, we should still be true to that glorious +light of Jove which permeates all soul-matter." + +"Oh, Abijah!" cried Mrs. Stilton, really distressed, "how can you say +such a thing of me? You know I can never adhere to anybody else +but you!" + +Stilton would then call in my aid to explain his meaning, asserting that +I had a faculty of reaching his wife's intellect, which he did not +himself possess. Feeling a certain sympathy for her painful confusion of +mind, I did my best to give his words an interpretation which soothed +her fears. Then she begged his pardon, taking all the blame to her own +stupidity, and received his grudged, unwilling kiss with a restored +happiness which pained me to the heart. + +I had a growing presentiment of some approaching catastrophe. I felt, +distinctly, the presence of unhallowed passions in our circle; and my +steadfast love for Agnes, borne thither in my bosom, seemed like a pure +white dove in a cage of unclean birds. Stilton held me from him by the +superior strength of his intellect. I began to mistrust, even to hate +him, while I was still subject to his power, and unable to acquaint him +with the change in my feelings. Miss Fetters was so repulsive that I +never spoke to her when it could be avoided. I had tolerated her, +heretofore, for the sake of her spiritual gift; but now, when I began to +doubt the authenticity of that gift, her hungry eyes, her thin lips, her +flat breast, and cold, dry hands excited in me a sensation of absolute +abhorrence. + +The doctrine of Affinities had some time before been adopted by the +circle, as a part of the Spiritual Truth. Other circles, with which we +were in communication, had also received the same revelation; and the +ground upon which it was based, in fact, rendered its acceptance easy. +Even I, shielded as I was by the protecting arms of a pure love, sought +in vain for arguments to refute a doctrine, the practical operation of +which, I saw, might be so dangerous. The soul had a right to seek its +kindred soul: that I could not deny. Having found, they belonged to each +other. Love is the only law which those who love are bound to obey. I +shall not repeat all the sophistry whereby these positions were +strengthened. The doctrine soon blossomed and bore fruit, the nature of +which left no doubt as to the character of the tree. + +The catastrophe came sooner than I had anticipated, and partly through +my own instrumentality; though, in any case, it must finally have come. +We were met together at the house of one of the most zealous and +fanatical believers. There were but eight persons present,--the host and +his wife, (an equally zealous proselyte,) a middle-aged bachelor +neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Stilton, Miss Fetters and her father, and +myself. It was a still, cloudy, sultry evening, after one of those dull, +oppressive days when all the bad blood in a man seems to be uppermost in +his veins. The manifestations upon the table, with which we commenced, +were unusually rapid and lively. "I am convinced," said Mr. Stilton, +"that we shall receive important revelations to-night. My own mind +possesses a clearness and quickness, which, I have noticed, always +precede the visit of a superior spirit. Let us be passive and receptive, +my friends. We are but instruments in the hands of loftier +intelligences, and only through our obedience can this second advent of +Truth be fulfilled." + +He looked at me with that expression which I so well knew, as the signal +for a surrender of my will. I had come rather unwillingly, for I was +getting heartily tired of the business, and longed to shake off my habit +of (spiritual) intoxication, which no longer possessed any attraction, +since I had been allowed to visit Agnes as an accepted lover. In fact, I +continued to hold my place in the circle principally for the sake of +satisfying myself with regard to the real nature and causes of the +phenomena. On this night, something in Mr. Stilton's face arrested my +attention, and a rapid inspiration flashed through my mind. "Suppose," I +thought, "I allow the usual effect to be produced, yet reverse the +character of its operation? I am convinced that he has been directing +the current of my thought according to his will; let me now render +myself so thoroughly passive, that my mind, like a mirror, shall reflect +what passes through his, retaining nothing of my own except the simple +consciousness of what I am doing." Perhaps this was exactly what he +desired. He sat, bending forward a little over the table, his square +jaws firmly set, his eyes hidden beneath their heavy brows, and every +long, wiry hair on his head in its proper place. I fixed my eyes upon +him, threw my mind into a state of perfect receptivity, and waited. + +It was not long before I felt his approach. Shadow after shadow flitted +across the still mirror of my inward sense. Whether the thoughts took +words in his brain or in mine,--whether I first caught his disjointed +musings, and, by their utterance reacting upon him, gave system and +development to _his_ thoughts,--I cannot tell. But this I know: what I +said came wholly from him,--not from the slandered spirits of the dead, +not from the vagaries of my own imagination, but from _him_. "Listen to +me!" I said. "In the flesh I was a martyr to the Truth, and I am +permitted to communicate only with those whom the Truth has made free. +You are the heralds of the great day; you have climbed from sphere to +sphere, until now you stand near the fountains of light. But it is not +enough that you see: your lives must reflect the light. The inward +vision is for you, but the outward manifestation thereof is for the +souls of others. Fulfil the harmonies in the flesh. Be the living music, +not the silent instruments." + +There was more, much more of this,--a plenitude of eloquent sound, which +seems to embody sublime ideas, but which, carefully examined, contains +no more palpable substance than sea-froth. If the reader will take the +trouble to read an "Epic of the Starry Heavens," the production of a +Spiritual Medium, he will find several hundred pages of the same +character. But, by degrees, the revelation descended to details, and +assumed a personal application. "In you, in all of you, the spiritual +harmonies are still violated," was the conclusion. "You, Abijah Stilton, +who are chosen to hold up the light of truth to the world, require that +a transparent soul, capable of transmitting that light to you, should be +allied to yours. She who is called your wife is a clouded lens; she can +receive the light only through John----, who is her true spiritual +husband, as Abby Fetters is _your_ true spiritual wife!" + +I was here conscious of a sudden cessation of the influence which forced +me to speak, and stopped. The members of the circle opposite to me--the +host, his wife, neighbor, and old Mr. Fetters--were silent, but their +faces exhibited more satisfaction than astonishment. My eye fell upon +Mrs. Stilton. Her face was pale, her eyes widely opened, and her lips +dropped apart, with a stunned, bewildered expression. It was the blank +face of a woman walking in her sleep. These observations were +accomplished in an instant; for Miss Fetters, suddenly possessed with +the spirit of Black Hawk, sprang upon her feet. "Ugh! ugh!" she +exclaimed, in a deep, harsh voice, "where's the pale-face? Black Hawk, +he like him,--he love him much!"--and therewith threw her arms around +Stilton, fairly lifting him off his feet. "Ugh! fire-water for Black +Hawk!--big Injun drink!"--and she tossed off a tumbler of brandy. By +this time I had wholly recovered my consciousness, but remained silent, +stupefied by the extraordinary scene. + +Presently Miss Fetters became more quiet, and the possession left her. +"My friends," said Stilton, in his cold, unmoved voice, "I feel that the +spirit has spoken truly. We must obey our spiritual affinities, or our +great and glorious mission will be unfulfilled. Let us rather rejoice +that we have been selected as the instruments to do this work. Come to +me, Abby; and you, Rachel, remember that our harmony is not disturbed, +but only made more complete." + +"Abijah!" exclaimed Mrs. Stilton, with a pitiful cry, while the tears +burst hot and fast from her eyes; "dear husband, what does this mean? +Oh, don't tell me that I'm to be cast off! You promised to love me and +care for me, Abijah! I'm not bright, I know, but I'll try to understand +you; indeed I will! Oh, don't be so cruel!--don't"----And the poor +creature's voice completely gave way. + +She dropped on the floor at his feet, and lay there, sobbing piteously. + +"Rachel, Rachel," said he,--and his face was not quite so calm as his +voice,--"don't be rebellious. We are governed by a higher Power. This is +all for our own good, and for the good of the world. Besides, ours was +not a perfect affinity. You will be much happier with John, as he +harmonizes"---- + +I could endure it no longer. Indignation, pity, the full energy of my +will, possessed me. He lost his power over me then, and forever. + +"What!" I exclaimed, "you, blasphemer, beast that you are, you dare to +dispose of your honest wife in this infamous way, that you may be free +to indulge your own vile appetites?--you, who have outraged the dead and +the living alike, by making me utter your forgeries? Take her back, and +let this disgraceful scene end!--take her back, or I will give you a +brand that shall last to the end of your days!" + +He turned deadly pale, and trembled. I knew that he made a desperate +effort to bring me under the control of his will, and laughed mockingly +as I saw his knit brow and the swollen veins in his temples. As for the +others, they seemed paralyzed by the suddenness and fierceness of my +attack. He wavered but for an instant, however, and his +self-possession returned. + +"Ha!" he exclaimed, "it is the Spirit of Evil that speaks in him! The +Devil himself has risen to destroy our glorious fabric! Help me, +friends! help me to bind him, and to silence his infernal voice, before +he drives the pure spirits from our midst!" + +With that, he advanced a step towards me, and raised a hand to seize my +arm, while the others followed behind. But I was too quick for him. Weak +as I was, in comparison, rage gave me strength, and a blow, delivered +with the rapidity of lightning, just under the chin, laid him senseless +on the floor. Mrs. Stilton screamed, and threw herself over him. The +rest of the company remained as if stupefied. The storm which had been +gathering all the evening at the same instant broke over the house in +simultaneous thunder and rain. + +I stepped suddenly to the door, opened it, and drew a long, deep breath +of relief, as I found myself alone in the darkness. "Now," said I, "I +have done tampering with God's best gift; I will be satisfied with the +natural sunshine which beams from His Word and from His Works; I have +learned wisdom at the expense of shame!" I exulted in my new freedom, in +my restored purity of soul; and the wind, that swept down the dark, +lonely street, seemed to exult with me. The rains beat upon me, but I +heeded them not; nay, I turned aside from the homeward path, in order to +pass by the house where Agnes lived. Her window was dark, and I knew she +was sleeping, lulled by the storm; but I stood a moment below, in the +rain, and said aloud, softly,-- + +"Now, Agnes, I belong wholly to you! Pray to God for me, darling, that I +may never lose the true light I have found at last!" + +My healing, though complete in the end, was not instantaneous. The habit +of the trance, I found, had really impaired the action of my will. I +experienced a periodic tendency to return to it, which I have been able +to overcome only by the most vigorous efforts. I found it prudent, +indeed, to banish from my mind, as far as was possible, all subjects, +all memories, connected with Spiritualism. In this work I was aided by +Agnes, who now possessed my entire confidence, and who willingly took +upon herself the guidance of my mind at those seasons when my own +governing faculties flagged. Gradually my mental health returned, and I +am now beyond all danger of ever again being led into such fatal +dissipations. The writing of this narrative, in fact, has been a test of +my ability to overlook and describe my experience without being touched +by its past delusions. If some portions of it should not be wholly +intelligible to the reader, the defect lies in the very nature of +the subject. + +It will be noticed that I have given but a partial explanation of the +spiritual phenomena. Of the genuineness of the physical manifestations I +am fully convinced, and I can account for them only by the supposition +of some subtile agency whereby the human will operates upon inert +matter. Clairvoyance is a sufficient explanation of the utterances of +the Mediums,--at least of those which I have heard; but there is, as I +have said before, _something_ in the background,--which I feel too +indistinctly to describe, yet which I know to be Evil. I do not wonder +at, though I lament, the prevalence of the belief in Spiritualism. In a +few individual cases it may have been productive of good, but its +general tendency is evil. There are probably but few Stiltons among its +apostles, few Miss Fetterses among its Mediums; but the condition which +accompanies the trance, as I have shown, inevitably removes the +wholesome check which holds our baser passions in subjection. The Medium +is at the mercy of any evil will, and the impressions received from a +corrupt mind are always liable to be accepted by innocent believers as +revelations from the spirits of the holy dead. I shall shock many honest +souls by this confession, but I hope and believe that it may awaken and +enlighten others. Its publication is necessary, as an expiation for some +of the evil which has been done through my own instrumentality. + +I learned, two days afterwards, that Stilton (who was not seriously +damaged by my blow) had gone to New York, taking Miss Fetters with him. +Her ignorant, weak-minded father was entirely satisfied with the +proceeding. Mrs. Stilton, helpless and heart-broken, remained at the +house where our circle had met, with her only child, a boy of three +years of age, who, fortunately, inherited her weakness rather than his +father's power. Agnes, on learning this, insisted on having her removed +from associations which were at once unhappy and dangerous. We went +together to see her, and, after much persuasion, and many painful +scenes which I shall not recapitulate, succeeded in sending her to her +father, a farmer in Connecticut. She still remains there, hoping for the +day when her guilty husband shall return and be instantly forgiven. + +My task is ended; may it not have been performed in vain! + + + * * * * * + + + + +JOHN ANDRE AND HONORA SNEYD. + + +Many of our readers will remember the exquisite lines in which Beranger +paints the connection between our mortal lives and the stars of the sky. +With every human soul that finds its way to earth, a new gem is added to +the azure belt of heaven. Thenceforth the two exist in mutual +dependence, each influencing the other's fate; so that, when death comes +to seal the lips of the man, a flame is paled and a lamp extinguished in +the gulf above. In every loosened orb that shoots across the face of +night the experienced eye may trace the story and the fall of a +fellow-being. Youth, beauty, wealth, the humility of indigence and the +pride of power, alike find their term revealed in the bright, silent +course of the celestial spark; and still new signs succeed to provoke +the sympathy or dazzle the philosophy of the observer. + + "Quelle est cette etoile qui file, + Qui file, file, et disparait?" + +It is unfortunate that such a pretty manner of accounting for the nature +and origin of falling stars should be unsustained by sound astronomical +data, and utterly discountenanced by Herschel and Bond. There is +something in the theory very pleasant and very flattering to human +nature; and there are passages in the history of our race that might +make its promulgation not unacceptable. When, among the innumerable +"patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part +from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway +with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but +be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being +segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture, +hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their +memory with immortal fame. It is thus that the fulfilment of the vow +made in the heat of battle has given Jephthah's name a melancholy +permanence above all others of the captains of Israel. Mutius would long +ago have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave +as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but +for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And +Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty +years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was +failure and death that made him famous. + +Eighty years ago a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which, +in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes +far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by +calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of +undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan. +Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his +professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John Andre, +had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the +generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was +opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the +future. So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better +than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the +Promised Land. It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the +circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and +universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to +hold its seat in the bosom of friend and of foe. To this day, the most +distinguished American and English historians are at issue respecting +the justice of his doom; and to this day, the grave inquirer into the +rise and fall of empires pauses by the way to glean some scanty memorial +of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser +author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on +that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and +many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of +the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the +elucidation of the conduct of an individual. + +John Andre was born in England, probably at London,--possibly at +Southampton,--in the year 1751. His father was an honest, industrious +Switzer, who, following the example of his countrymen and his kindred, +had abandoned the rugged land of his birth, and come over to England to +see what could be made out of John Bull. The family-name appears to have +originally been St. Andre; and this was the style of the famous +dancing-master who gave to the courtiers of Charles II. their +graceful motions. + + "St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time," + +wrote Dryden, in his "MacFlecknoe"; and the same writer again brings him +forward in the third act of "Limberham." It must be remembered that in +those days the teacher of fencing and dancing occupied a very +respectable position; and St. Andre's career was sufficiently prosperous +to tempt a young kinsman, who felt the elements of success strong within +him, to cross the seas in his own turn, and find wealth and reputation +in those pleasant pastures which England above all other countries then +laid open to the skilful adventurer. + +Nicholas St. Andre, who came to London about the close of the +seventeenth century, and who was undoubtedly nearly related to the +future Major Andre, seems to have passed through a career hardly +paralleled by that of Gil Blas himself. From the humblest beginnings, +his ready wit, his multifarious accomplishments, and his indomitable +assurance speedily carried him to the topmost wave of social prosperity. +A brief instruction in surgery gave him such a plausible appearance of +proficiency in the art as to permit his public lectures to be favorably +received, and to lead to his employment in the royal household. George +I. made him Anatomist to the Court, and, as a token of especial grace, +on one occasion, went so far as to bestow upon the young Swiss his own +sword. His attainments in all the amusements of a gentleman probably had +more to do with these advancements, however, than any professional +skill. He was a capital linguist; at fencing, leaping, running, and +other manly exercises, he found few rivals; and his dabblings in +architecture and botany were at least as notable as his mastership of +chess and his skill as a musician. But when it came to a scientific test +of his surgical and anatomical pretensions, his failure was lamentable +indeed. The unquenchable thirst for notoriety--which he may have +mistaken for fame--was perpetually leading him into questionable +positions, and finally covered his name with ridicule and confusion. + +An impudent woman, known as Mary Tofts, declared to the world, that, +instead of a human child, she had given birth to a litter of rabbits. +How such a ridiculous tale ever found believers, it is impossible to +conceive; but such was the case. All England, with the very small +exception of those who united the possession of learning with common +sense, was imbued with the frenzy. The price of warrens was abated to a +mere song, and for a season a Londoner would as readily have eaten a +baked child as a roasted rabbit. The children of men were believed to +populate the burrows, and authorities of the highest reputation lent an +unhesitating support to the delusion. The learned Whiston published in +the circumstance a fulfilment of a prophecy of Esdras, and St. Andre +loudly urged the authenticity of the entire fable and of the theories +that were founded upon it. But the satiric pen of Swift, the burin of +Hogarth, and the graver investigations of Cheselden at last turned the +popular tide, and covered St. Andre in particular with such a load of +contemptuous obloquy as to drive him forever from the high circles he +had moved in. So great was his spleen, that, from that time forth, he +would never suffer a dish upon his table or a syllable in his +conversation that could in any way bring to mind the absurd occasion of +his disgrace. + +If all reports are to be believed, St. Andre's career had led him into +many singular adventures. He had saved Voltaire's life, by violently +detaining Lord Peterborough, when the latter stood prepared to punish +with peremptory death some peccadillo of the Frenchman's. Voltaire fled +from the scene, while his adversary struggled to be released. His +services to Pope, when the poet was overturned in Lord Bolingbroke's +coach, did not protect him from a damaging allusion in the Epilogue to +the Satires, where the source of the wealth that he got by his marriage +with Lady Betty Molyneux is more plainly than politely pointed out. +Leaving forever, therefore, the sphere in which he had encountered so +much favor and so much severity, he retired to Southampton to end his +days in the society of his kindred; and it is more than probable that an +indisposition to proclaim too loudly their identity of race with the +unlucky surgeon was the cause of their modification of name by the +immediate family from which John Andre sprung. + +The father of our hero was a thrifty London trader, whose business as a +Turkey merchant had been prosperous enough to persuade him that no other +career could possibly be so well adapted for his son. The lad was of +another opinion; but those were not the days when a parent's will might +be safely contravened. Sent to Geneva to complete the education that had +been commenced at London, he returned to a seat in the counting-room +with intellectual qualifications that seemed to justify his aspirations +for a very different scene of action. He was a fluent linguist, a ready +and graceful master of the pencil and brush, and very well versed in the +schools of military design. Add to these a proficiency in poetry and +music, a person of unusual symmetry and grace, a face of almost feminine +softness, yet not descending from the dignity of manhood, and we have an +idea of the youth who was already meditating the means of throwing off +the chains that bound him to the inkhorn and ledger, and embracing a +more brilliant and glorious career. With him, the love of fame was an +instinctive passion. The annals of his own fireside taught him how +easily the path to distinction might be trod by men of parts and +address; and he knew in his heart that opportunity was the one and the +only thing needful to insure the accomplishment of his desires. Of very +moderate fortunes and utterly destitute of influential connections, he +knew that his education better qualified him for the useful fulfilment +of military duties than perhaps any man of his years in the service of +the king. Once embarked in the profession of arms, he had nothing to +rely upon but his own address to secure patronage and promotion,--nothing +but his own merits to justify the countenance that his ingenuity +should win. Without undue vanity, it is tolerably safe to say +now that he was authorized by the existing state of things to +confidently predicate his own success on these estimates. + +It is not easy to underrate the professional standard of the English +officer a hundred years ago. That some were good cannot be denied; that +most were bad is very certain. As there was no school of military +instruction in the realm, so no proof of mental or even of physical +capacity was required to enable a person to receive and to hold a +commission. A friend at the Horse Guards, or the baptismal gift of a +godfather, might nominate a baby three days old to a pair of colors. +Court influence or the ready cash having thus enrolled a puny suckling +among the armed defenders of the state, he might in regular process of +seniority come out a full-fledged captain or major against the season +for his being soundly birched at Eton; and an ignorant school-boy would +thus be qualified to govern the lives and fortunes of five hundred +stalwart men, and to represent the honor and the interests of the empire +in that last emergency when all might be depending on his courage and +capacity. Even women were thus saddled upon the pay-lists; and the time +is within the memory of living men, when a gentle lady, whose knowledge +of arms may be presumed to have never extended beyond the internecine +disputes of the nursery, habitually received the salary of a captaincy +of dragoons. In ranks thus officered, it was easy to foresee the speedy +and sure triumph of competent ability, when once backed by patronage. + +So long, however, as his dependence upon his father endured, it was +useless for Andre to anticipate the day when he might don the king's +livery. The repugnance with which his first motion in the matter was +greeted, and the affectionate opposition of his mother and sisters, seem +to have at least silenced, if they did not extinguish his desires. And +when the death of his father, in 1769, left him free to select his own +pathway through the world, a new conjuncture of affairs again caused him +to smother his cherished aspirations. + +The domestic relations of the Andre family were ever peculiarly tender +and affectionate; and in the loss of its head the survivors confessed a +great and a corroding sorrow. To repair the shattered health and recruit +the exhausted spirits of his mother and sisters, the son resolved to +lead them at once away from the daily contemplation of the grave to more +cheerful scenes. The medicinal waters of Derbyshire were then in vogue, +and a tour towards the wells of Buxton and of Matlock was undertaken. +Among the acquaintances that ensued from this expedition was that of the +family of the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield; and while a warm and lasting +friendship rapidly grew up between Andre and Miss Anna Seward, his heart +was surrendered to the charms of her adopted sister, Miss Honora Sneyd. + +By every account, Honora Sneyd must have been a paragon of feminine +loveliness. Her father was a country-gentleman of Staffordshire, who had +been left, by the untimely death of their mother, to the charge of a +bevy of infants. The solicitude of friends and relatives had sought the +care of these, and thus Honora became virtually a daughter of Mrs. +Seward's house. The character of this establishment may be conjectured +from the history of Anna Seward. Remote from the crushing weight of +London authority, she grew up in a provincial atmosphere of literary and +social refinement, and fondly believed that the polite praises (for +censure was a thing unknown among them) that were bandied about in her +own coterie would be cordially echoed by the voices of posterity. In +this she has been utterly deceived; but at the same time it must be +confessed that there was much in the tone of the reigning circles at +Lichfield, in those days, to contrast most favorably with the manners of +the literary sovereigns of the metropolis, or the intellectual elevation +of the rulers of fashion. At Lichfield, it was polite to be learned, and +good-breeding and mutual admiration went hand in hand. + +In such an atmosphere had Miss Sneyd been educated; and the +enthusiastic, not to say romantic, disposition of Miss Seward must have +given additional effect to every impulse that taught her to acknowledge +and rejoice in the undisguised admiration of the young London merchant. +His sentiments were as pure and lofty as her own; his person was as +attractive as that of any hero of romance; and his passion was deep and +true. With the knowledge and involuntary approbation of all their +friends, the love-affair between the two young people went on without +interruption or opposition. It seemed perfectly natural and proper that +they should be brought together. It was not, therefore, until a formal +betrothal began to loom up, that the seniors on either side bethought +themselves of the consequences. Neither party was a beggar; but neither +was in possession of sufficient estate to render a speedy marriage +advisable. It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which +must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons +whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved +a prolonged and wide separation. To this arrangement it would appear +that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover. His feelings +were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press +his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance. His +mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own +control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was +forbidden to regard as an elected husband. + +It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him +the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure +the means of accomplishing matrimony, that Andre was now persuaded to +renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back +to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional +visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss +Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are +vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which +his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a +specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental +fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her +name is Anna. + +"_London, October_ 19, 1769. + +"From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, +let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And +first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must +tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future +profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so +disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged +man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping +a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a +tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the +Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded +with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue +their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods; +Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his +gorgeous vessels 'launched on the bosom of the silver Thames' are +wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all +the mercantile glories crowd on my fancy, emblazoned in the most +effulgent colouring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soaring +pinions, I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my +labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to +receive me; I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and +poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabrick is +pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes +around, and find John Andre by a small coal-fire in a gloomy +compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been +making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is +at present. But, oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for +wealth.--You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I +must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this +threatening disease. + +"It is seven o'clock.--You and Honora, with two or three more select +friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fireplace. What +would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and +a snug circle round it, formed by a few select friends, transports me. +You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the +hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The +purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is +kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as +Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray, +imagine me with you; admit me to your _conversationes_:--Think how I +wish for the blessing of joining them!--and be persuaded that I take +part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that, ere it be very long, +your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray, keep me a place; let +the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me:--But you have Dutch tiles, +which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass be +my representative. + +"But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, +if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps +increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty. Silvered +with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps; musing, +as I homeward plod my way.--Ah! need I name the subject of my +contemplations? + +"_Thursday_. + +"I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with +their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their +amities, and will write in a few days. + +"This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable; +a solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light +was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the serene beams of an +autumnal sun! Gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, +ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, +expand the heart, and 'chase all sorrows but despair.' In the midst of +such a scene, no lesser sorrow can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A +calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating +power. The very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties. There is +a species of mild chearfulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but +indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented +look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave +unattempted. + +"Business calls me away--I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it +contain? No matter--You like anything better than news. Indeed, you have +never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, +from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the tastes of +Julia and _Cher Jean_. What is it to you or me, + + "If here in the city we have nothing but riot; + If the Spitalfield weavers can't be kept quiet; + If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty; + Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aged of thirty? + +"But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I +should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would +plead my cause with Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has +the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my +random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs.----. +Here it is at your service. + + "Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down, + With a flaming red face and a broad yellow gown, + And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown. + +"This little French cousin of our's, Delarise, was my sister Mary's +playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. +Doubtless they tell much of him to you in their letters. + +"How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh, let me not be forgot by the +friends most dear to you at Lichfield. Lichfield! Ah, of what magic +letters is that little word composed! How graceful it looks, when it is +written! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning, 'The Field of +Blood'! Oh, no such thing! It is the field of joy! 'The beautiful city, +that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, _I am, and there is +none beside me.'_ Who says she is vain? Julia will not say so,--nor yet +Honora,--and least of all, their devoted + +"John Andre." + +It is not difficult to perceive in the tone of this letter that its +writer was not an accepted lover. His interests with the lady, despite +Miss Seward's watchful care, were already declining; and the lapse of a +few months more reduced him to the level of a valued and entertaining +friend, whose civilities were not to pass the conventional limits of +polite intercourse. To Andre this fate was very hard. He was hopelessly +enamored; and so long as fortune offered him the least hope of eventual +success, he persevered in the faith that Honora might yet be his own. +But every returning day must have shaken this faith. His visits were +discontinued and his correspondence dropped. Other suitors pressed their +claims, and often urged an argument which it was beyond his means to +supply. They came provided with what Parson Hugh calls good gifts: +"Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts." Foremost among +these dangerous rivals were two men of note in their way: Richard Lovell +Edgeworth, and the eccentric, but amiable Thomas Day. + +Mr. Day was a man whose personal charms were not great. Overgrown, +awkward, pitted with the small-pox, he offered no pleasing contrast to +the discarded Andre: but he had twelve hundred pounds a year. His +notions in regard to women were as peculiar as his estimate of his own +merit. He seems to have really believed that it would be impossible for +any beautiful girl to refuse her assent to the terms of the contract by +which she might acquire his hand. These were absurd to a degree; and it +is not cause for surprise that Miss Sneyd should have unhesitatingly +refused them. Poor Mr. Day was not prepared for such continued ill-luck +in his matrimonial projects. He had already been very unfortunate in his +plans for obtaining a perfect wife,--having vainly provided for the +education of two foundlings between whom he promised himself to select a +paragon of a helpmate. To drop burning sealing-wax upon their necks, and +to discharge a pistol close to their ears, were among his philosophical +rules for training them to habits of submission and self-control; and +the upshot was, that they were fain to attach themselves to men of less +wisdom, but better taste. Miss Sneyd's conduct was more than he could +well endure, after all his previous disappointments; and he went to bed +with a fever that did not leave him till his passion was cured. He could +not at this time have anticipated, however, that the friendly hand which +had aided the prosecution of his addresses was eventually destined to +receive and hold the fair prize which so many were contending for. + +Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the ambassador and counsellor of Mr. Day in +this affair, was at the very moment of the rejection himself enamored of +Miss Sneyd. But Edgeworth had a wife already,--a pining, complaining +woman, he tells us, who did not make his home cheerful,--and honor and +decency forbade him to open his mouth on the subject that occupied his +heart. He wisely sought refuge in flight, and in other scenes the +natural exuberance of his disposition afforded a relief from the pangs +of an unlawful and secret passion. Lord Byron, who met him forty years +afterwards, in five lines shows us the man: if he was thus seen in the +dry wood, we can imagine what he was in the green:--"I thought Edgeworth +a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, +brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty,--no, nor +forty-eight even." He was in France when the death of his father left +him to the possession of a good estate,--and that of his wife occurring +in happy concurrence, he lost little time in opening in his own behalf +the communications that had failed when he spoke for Mr. Day. His wooing +was prosperous; in July, 1773, he married Miss Sneyd. + +It is a mistake, sanctioned by the constant acceptance of historians, to +suppose that it was this occasion that prompted Andre to abandon a +commercial life. The improbability of winning Honora's hand, and the +freedom with which she received the addresses of other men, undoubtedly +went far to convince him of the folly of sticking to trade with but one +motive; and so soon as he attained his majority, he left the desk and +stool forever, and entered the army. This was a long time before the +Edgeworth marriage was undertaken, or even contemplated. + +Lieutenant Andre of the Royal Fusileers had a very different line of +duty to perform from Mr. Andre, merchant, of Warnford Court, Throgmorton +Street; and the bustle of military life, doubtless, in some degree +diverted his mind from the disagreeable contemplation of what was +presently to occur at Lichfield. Some months were spent on the Continent +and among the smaller German courts about the Rhine. After all was over, +however, and the nuptial knot fairly tied that destroyed all his +youthful hopes, he is related to have made a farewell expedition to the +place of his former happiness. There, at least, he was sure to find one +sympathizing heart. Miss Seward, who had to the very last minute +contended with her friend against Mr. Edgeworth and in support of his +less fortunate predecessor, now met him with open arms. No pains were +spared by her to alleviate, since she could not remove, the +disappointment that evidently possessed him. A legend is preserved in +connection with this visit that is curious, though manifestly of very +uncertain credibility. It is said that an engagement had been made by +Miss Seward to introduce her friend to two gentlemen of some note in the +neighborhood, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Newton. On the appointed morning, +while awaiting their expected guests, Cunningham related to his +companion a vision--or rather, a series of visions--that had greatly +disturbed his previous night's repose. He was alone in a wide forest, he +said, when he perceived a rider approaching him. The horseman's +countenance was plainly visible, and its lines were of a character too +interesting to be readily forgotten. Suddenly three men sprang forth +from an ambush among the thickets, and, seizing the stranger, hauled him +from his horse and bore him away. To this succeeded another scene. He +stood with a great multitude near by some foreign town. A bustle was +heard, and he beheld the horseman of his earlier dream again led along a +captive. A gibbet was erected, and the prisoner was at once hanged. In +narrating this tale, Cunningham averred that the features of its hero +were still fresh in his recollection; the door opened, and in the face +of Andre, who at that moment presented himself, he professed to +recognize that which had so troubled his slumbers. + +Such is the tale that is recorded of the supernatural revelation of +Andre's fate. If it rested on somewhat better evidence than any we are +able to find in its favor, it would be at least more interesting. But +whether or no the young officer continued to linger in the spirit about +the spires of Lichfield and the romantic shades of Derbyshire, it is +certain that his fleshly part was moving in a very different direction. +In 1774, he embarked to join his regiment, then posted in Canada, and +arrived at Philadelphia early in the autumn of the year. + +It is not within the design of this paper to pursue to any length the +details of Andre's American career. Regimental duties in a country +district rarely afford matter worthy of particular record; and it is not +until the troubles of our Revolutionary War break out, that we find +anything of mark in his story. He was with the troops that Carleton sent +down, after the fall of Ticonderoga, to garrison Chambly and St. John's, +and to hold the passage of the Sorel against Montgomery and his little +army. With the fall of these forts, he went into captivity. There is +too much reason to believe that the imprisonment of the English on this +occasion was not alleviated by many exhibitions of generosity on the +part of their captors. Montgomery, indeed, was as humane and honorable +as he was brave; but he was no just type of his followers. The articles +of capitulation were little regarded, and the prisoners were, it would +seem, rapidly despoiled of their private effects. "I have been taken by +the Americans," wrote Andre, "and robbed of everything save the picture +of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving that, I think +myself happy." Sent into the remote parts of Pennsylvania, his +companions and himself met with but scant measure of courtesy from the +mountaineers of that region; nor was he exchanged for many long and +weary months. Once more free, however, his address and capacity soon +came to his aid. His reports and sketches speedily commended him to the +especial favor of the commander-in-chief, Sir William Howe; and ere long +he was promoted to a captaincy and made aide-de-camp to Sir Charles +Grey. This was a dashing, hard-fighting general of division, whose +element was close quarters and whose favorite argument was the cold +steel. If, therefore, Andre played but an inactive part at the +Brandywine, he had ample opportunity on other occasions of tasting the +excitement and the horrors of war. The night-surprises of Wayne at +Paoli, and of Baylor on the Hudson,--the scenes of Germantown and +Monmouth,--the reduction of the forts at Verplanck's Ferry, and the +forays led against New Bedford and the Vineyard,--all these familiarized +him with the bloody fruits of civil strife. But they never blunted for +one moment the keenness of his humanity, or warped those sentiments of +refinement and liberality that always distinguished him. Within the +limited range of his narrow sphere, he was constantly found the friend +and reliever of the wounded or captive Americans, and the protector and +benefactor of the followers of his own banner. Accomplished to a degree +in all the graces that adorn the higher circles of society, he was free +from most of their vices; and those who knew him well in this country +have remarked on the universal approbation of both sexes that followed +his steps, and the untouched heart that escaped so many shafts. Nor, +while foremost in the brilliant pleasures that distinguished the British +camp and made Philadelphia a Capua to Howe, was he ever known to descend +to the vulgar sports of his fellows. In the balls, the theatricals, the +picturesque _Mischianza_, he bore a leading hand; but his affections, +meanwhile, appear to have remained where they were earliest and last +bestowed. In our altered days, when marriage and divorce seem so often +interchangeable words, and loyal fidelity but an Old-World phrase, +ill-fashioned and out of date, there is something very attractive in +this hopeless constancy of an exiled lover. + +Beyond the seas, meanwhile, the object of this unfortunate attachment +was lending a happy and a useful life in the fulfilment of the various +duties of a wife, a mother, and a friend. Her husband was a large landed +proprietor, and in public spirit was inferior to no country-gentleman of +the kingdom. Many of his notions were fanciful enough, it must be +allowed; but they were all directed to the improvement and amelioration +of his native land and its people. In these pursuits, as well as in +those of learning, Mrs. Edgeworth was the active and useful coadjutor of +her husband; and it was probably to the desire of this couple to do +something that would make the instruction of their children a less +painful task than had been their own, that we are indebted for the +adaptation of the simpler rudiments of science to a childish dress. In +1778 they wrote together the First Part of "Harry and Lucy," and printed +a handful of copies in that largo black type which every one associates +with the first school-days of his childhood. From these pages she taught +her own children to read. The plan was communicated to Mr. Day, who +entered into it eagerly; and an educational library seemed about to be +prepared for the benefit of a far-away household in the heart of +Ireland. But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's +life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; +and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to +forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his +little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book +that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful +judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth +included "Harry and Lucy" in her "Early Lessons." It is thus a point to +be noticed, that nothing but the _res angusta domi_, the lack of wealth, +on the part of young Andre, was the cause of that series of little +volumes being produced by Miss Edgeworth, which so long held the first +place among the literary treasures of the nurseries of England and +America. Lazy Lawrence, Simple Susan, and a score more of excellently +conceived characters, might never have been called from chaos to +influence thousands of tender minds, but for Andre's narrow purse. + +The ravages of the insidious disease with which she was afflicted soon +came to an end; and after a term of wedlock as brief as it was +prosperous, Mrs. Edgeworth's dying couch was spread.--"I have every +blessing," she wrote, "and I am happy. The conversation of my beloved +husband, when my breath will let me have it, is my greatest delight: he +procures me every comfort, and, as he always said he thought he should, +contrives for me everything that can ease and assist my weakness,-- + + "'Like a kind angel, whispers peace, + And smooths the bed of death.'" + +Rightly viewed, the closing scenes in the life of this estimable woman +are not less solemn, not less impressive, than those of that memorable +day, when, with all the awful ceremonials of offended justice and the +stern pageantries of war, her lover died in the full glare of noonday +before the eyes of assembled thousands. He had played for a mighty +stake, and he had lost. He had perilled his life for the destruction of +our American empire, and he was there to pay the penalty: and surely +never, in all the annals of our race, has a man more gallantly yielded +up his forfeited breath, or under circumstances more impressive. He +perished regretted alike by friend and foe; and perhaps not one of the +throng that witnessed his execution but would have rejoicingly hailed a +means of reconciling his pardon with the higher and inevitable duties +which they owed to the safety of the army and the existence of the +state. And in the aspect which the affair has since taken, who can say +that Andre's fate has been entirely unfortunate? He drank out the wine +of life while it was still sparkling and foaming and bright in his cup: +he tasted none of the bitterness of its lees till almost his last sun +had risen. When he was forever parted from the woman whom he loved, a +new, but not an earthly mistress succeeded to the vacant throne; and +thenceforth the love of glory possessed his heart exclusively. And how +rarely has a greater lustre attached to any name than to his! His bones +are laid with those of the wisest and mightiest of the land; the +gratitude of monarchs cumbers the earth with his sepulchral honors; and +his memory is consecrated in the most eloquent pages of the history not +only of his own country, but of that which sent him out of existence. +Looked upon thus, death might have been welcomed by him as a benefit +rather than dreaded as a calamity, and the words applied by Cicero to +the fate of Crassus be repeated with fresh significancy,--"_Mors dortata +quam vita erepta_." + +The same year that carries on its records the date of Andre's fall +witnessed the death of a second Honora Edgeworth, the only surviving +daughter of Honora Sneyd. She is represented as having inherited all the +beauty, all the talents of her mother. The productions of her pen and +pencil seem to justify this assertion, so far as the precocity of such a +mere child may warrant the ungarnered fruits of future years. But with +her parent's person she received the frailties of its constitution; and, +ere girlhood had fairly opened upon her way of life, she succumbed to +the same malady that had wrecked her mother. + + + * * * * * + + + + +WE SHALL RISE AGAIN. + + We know the spirit shall not taste of death: + Earth bids her elements, + "Turn, turn again to me!" + But to the soul, unto the soul, she saith, + "Flee, alien, flee!" + + And circumstance of matter what doth weigh? + Oh! not the height and depth of this to know + But reachings of that grosser element, + Which, entered in and clinging to it so, + With earthlier earthiness than dwells in clay, + Can drag the spirit down, that, looking up, + Sees, through surrounding shades of death and time, + With solemn wonder, and with new-born hope, + The dawning glories of its native clime; + And inly swell such mighty floods of love, + Unutterable longing and desire, + For that celestial, blessed home above, + The soul springs upward like the mounting fire, + Up, through the lessening shadows on its way, + While, in its raptured vision, grows more clear + The calm, the high, illimitable day + To which it draws more near and yet more near. + Draws near? Alas! its brief, its waning strength + Upward no more the fetters' weight can bear: + It falters,--pauses,--sinks; and, sunk at length, + Plucks at its chain in frenzy and despair. + + Not forever fallen! Not in eternal prison! + No! hell with fire of pain + Melteth apart its chain; + Heaven doth once more constrain: + It hath arisen! + + And never, never again, thus to fall low? + Ah, no! + Terror, Remorse, and Woe, + Vainly they pierced it through with many sorrows; + Hell shall regain it,--thousand times regain it; + But can detain it + Only awhile from ruthful Heaven's to-morrows. + + That sin is suffering, + It knows,--it knows this thing; + And yet it courts the sting + That deeply pains it; + It knows that in the cup + The sweet is but a sup, + That Sorrow fills it up, + And who drinks drains it. + + It knows; who runs may read. + But, when the fetters dazzle, heaven's far joy seems dim; + And 'tis not life but so to be inwound. + A little while, and then--behold it bleed + With madness of its throes to be unbound! + + It knows. But when the sudden stress + Of passion is resistlessness, + It drags the flood that sweeps away, + For anchorage, or hold, or stay, + Or saving rock of stableness, + And there is none,-- + No underlying fixedness to fasten on: + Unsounded depths; unsteadfast seas; + Wavering, yielding, bottomless depths: + But these! + + Yea, sometimes seemeth gone + The Everlasting Arm we lean upon! + + So blind, as well as maimed and halt and lame, + What sometimes makes it see? + Oppressed with guilt and gnawed upon of shame, + What comes upon it so, + Faster and faster stealing, + Flooding it like an air or sea + Of warm and golden feeling? + What makes it melt, + Dissolving from the earthiness that made it hard and heavy? + What makes it melt and flow, + And melt and melt and flow,-- + Till light, clear-shining through its heart of dew, + Makes all things new? + + Loosed from the spirit of infirmity, listen its cry. + "Was it I that longed for oblivion, + O wonderful Love! was it I, + That deep in its easeful water + My wounded soul might lie? + That over the wounds and anguish + The easeful flood might roll? + A river of loving-kindness + Has healed and hidden the whole. + Lo! in its pitiful bosom + Vanish the sins of my youth,-- + Error and shame and backsliding + Lost in celestial ruth. + + "O grace too great! + O excellency of my new estate! + + "No more, for the friends that love me, + I shall veil my face or grieve + Because love outrunneth deserving; + I shall be as they believe. + And I shall be strong to help them, + Filled of Thy fulness with stores + Of comfort and hope and compassion. + Oh, upon all my shores, + With the waters with which Thou dost flood me, + Bid me, my Father, o'erflow! + Who can taste Thy divineness, + Nor hunger and thirst to bestow? + Send me, oh, send me! + The wanderers let me bring! + The thirsty let me show + Where the rivers of gladness spring, + And fountains of mercy flow! + How in the hills shall they sit and sing, + With valleys of peace below!" + + Oh that the keys of our hearts the angels would bear in their bosoms! + For revelation fades and fades away, + Dream-like becomes, and dim, and far-withdrawn; + And evening comes to find the soul a prey, + That was caught up to visions at the dawn; + Sword of the spirit,--still it sheathes in rust, + And lips of prophecy are sealed with dust. + + High lies the better country, + The land of morning and perpetual spring; + But graciously the warder + Over its mountain-border + Leans to us, beckoning,--bids us, "Come up hither!" + And though we climb with step unfixed and slow, + From visioning heights of hope we look off thither, + And we must go. + + And we shall go! And we shall go! + We shall not always weep and wander so,-- + Not always in vain, + By merciful pain, + Be upcast from the hell we seek again! + How shall we, + Whom the stars draw so, and the uplifting sea? + Answer, thou Secret Heart! how shall it be, + With all His infinite promising in thee? + + Beloved! beloved! not cloud and fire alone + From bondage and the wilderness restore + And guide the wandering spirit to its own; + But all His elements, they go before: + Upon its way the seasons bring, + And hearten with foreshadowing + The resurrection-wonder, + What lands of death awake to sing + And germs of hope swell under; + And full and fine, and full and fine, + The day distils life's golden wine; + And night is Palace Beautiful, peace-chambered. + All things are ours; and life fills up of them + Such measure as we hold. + For ours beyond the gate, + The deep things, the untold, + We only wait. + + + + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +THE WILD HUNTSMAN. + + +The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. Without +attributing any great importance to the warning he had given him, Mr. +Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was becoming a +pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as good as many +others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after the first +few days. + +The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the back-yard of the Institute +was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about in +Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not easily +stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, +but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. +It soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful +shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at +three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; +some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and +that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other +words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, +as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, +however innocent he may be of them. + +In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this +time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the +population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for +want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the +Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he +can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's +version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, +as far as he could see the white of it. + +Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing +more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster +too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant +work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did +not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in +his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,--a robber, +say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; +long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with +the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he +could do as a marksman. + +The nature of the mark that Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from +an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially +abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some +practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to +render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet +way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was +very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; +rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's ears, +if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick satisfied himself +that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance +of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there happened to be anything +behind it, the glass would not materially alter the force or direction +of the bullet. + +About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want of +practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and regain +its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For his first +trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and after the hour +when the Rockland people were like to be stirring abroad. He was so far +established now that he could do much as he pleased without +exciting remark. + +The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, +had been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be remembered, +he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long strip of hide +with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been accustomed to playing +with such a thong from his boyhood, and had become expert in its use in +capturing wild cattle in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately, +there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in the neighborhood, to +become the subjects of his skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a +horse in a pasture, must serve his turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks +to aim at, at any rate. + +Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the +lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the +silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving +a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale +explosion,--is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm +the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest +with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost +naked _retiarius_ with his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin +in the other. Once get a net over a man's head, or a cord round his +neck, or, what is more frequently done nowadays, _bonnet_ him by +knocking his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his +opponent. Our soldiers who served against the Mexicans found this out +too well. Many a poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from +the plains, and fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him +in the fatal noose. + +But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might have +been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky mother +who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately along the +road, laying the dust, as she went, with thready streams from her +swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the windmill!" said +Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the lasso round his head as +he rode. The creature swerved to one side of the way, as the wild horse +and his rider came rushing down upon her, and presently turned and ran, +as only cows and--it wouldn't be safe to say it--can run. Just before he +passed,--at twenty or thirty feet from her,--the lasso shot from his +hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in an instant its loop was round her +horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as he galloped up to her side and +dexterously disengaged the lasso. "Now for a horse on the run!" + +He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at the +roadside. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove the +horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young animal enough, +and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew more and +more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, until the two horses +stretched themselves out in their longest strides. If the first feat +looked like play, the one he was now to attempt had a good deal the +appearance of real work. He touched the mustang with the spur, and in a +few fierce leaps found himself nearly abreast of the frightened animal +he was chasing. Once more he whirled the lasso round and round over his +head, and then shot it forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from +the loops against which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, +and in another instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. +The prairie horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the +captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and +the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble +and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a +thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was +enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet +snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and rode slowly +along towards the mansion-house. + +The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as he +now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the grand +mountain-screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern blasts, +rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high +towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square chimneys, and +bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared +gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings,--the beds of +flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in its centre +bearing a sun-dial on which the rays of the moon were idly shining, +another with a white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over all these +objects, harmonized with all their infinite details into one fair whole +by the moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed himself, looked +with admiring eyes. + +But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from a +poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of the +inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. Every day +this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up to +that place,--that usher's girltrap. Every day,--regularly now,--it used +to be different. Did she go only to get out of his, her cousin's, reach? +Was she not rather becoming more and more involved in the toils of this +plotting Yankee? + +If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in advance, +the chances are that in less than one minute he would have found himself +with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted horseman. +Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse +quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded towards the +house. He got to his bed without disturbing the family, but could not +sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of his mind that a deep +intrigue was going on which would end by bringing Elsie and the +schoolmaster into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With that +ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy, he tortured every +circumstance of the last few weeks so as to make it square with this +belief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed to a consideration +of every possible method by which the issue he feared might be avoided. + +Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these inward +colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be done then? +First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which should put a +complete and final check upon his projects and contrivances. The +particular accident which might interrupt his career must, evidently, be +determined by circumstances; but it must be of a nature to explain +itself without the necessity of any particular person's becoming +involved in the matter. It would be unpleasant to go into particulars; +but everybody knows well enough that men sometimes get in the way of a +stray bullet, and that young persons occasionally do violence to +themselves in various modes,--by fire-arms, suspension, and other +means,--in consequence of disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than +from other motives. There was still another kind of accident which might +serve his purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the +most natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his +nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, Uncle Dudley +should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, where would +he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication which he could +conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not help noticing--that +his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much +pleased with, that young woman from the school. What did that mean? Was +it possible that he was going to take a fancy to her? + +It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might +defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his +grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: sometimes at that +of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the +meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that +of the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that +of his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to +peril the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection. It was +a frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no +one single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the +fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If +it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one +person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make +that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that +a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered +the case. + +His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes arranging +plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, sometimes +getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of considering +what object he should select as the one most clearly in his way. On the +whole, there could be no doubt where the most threatening of all his +embarrassments lay. It was in the probable growing relation between +Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should prove, as it seemed likely, +that there was springing up a serious attachment tending to a union +between them, he knew what he should do, if he was not quite so sure how +he should do it. + +There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, +at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet +observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: +whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under +what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with +him might be reckoned on, in case it should be desirable. He could also +very probably learn some facts about Elsie: whether the young man was in +the habit of attending her on her way home from school; whether she +stayed about the school-room after the other girls had gone; and any +incidental matters of interest which might present themselves. + +He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A mad +gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a fancy to +him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in her talk, +for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of some of his +earlier friends, the _senoritas_,--all these were distractions, to be +sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in +longings for more dangerous excitements. The thought of getting a +knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he would be in his power at +any moment, was a happy one. + +For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, to +watch her until she got to the school-house. One day he saw Mr. Bernard +join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only once this +happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart from the +groups of girls who strolled out of the school-house yard in company. +Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. Could she +have stayed to meet the schoolmaster? + +If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have liked +to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding between +her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. But this was +beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content himself with +such cautious observations as could be made at a distance. With the aid +of a pocket-glass he could make out persons without the risk of being +observed himself. + +Mr. Silas Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off duty +or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. Sometimes Mr. +Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go out for a ramble +in the day-time; but more frequently it would be in the evening, after +the hour of "retiring," as bed-time was elegantly termed by the young +ladies of the Apollinean Institute. He would then not unfrequently walk +out alone in the common roads, or climb up the sides of The Mountain, +which seemed to be one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it was +impossible to follow him with the eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, +gnawing suspicion that somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster +might meet Elsie, whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this +he was not able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present +plans, and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk one +evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. Presently +a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a wooded bank, some +thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick Venner could see the +interior of the chamber, and watch the master as he sat at his desk, the +light falling strongly upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript +before him. Dick contemplated him very long in this attitude. The sense +of watching his every motion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was +delicious. How little the master was thinking what eyes were on him! + +Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he chose, +he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in a more +solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an evening or +two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he sat at his +desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be very little +difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, silence is always +preferable to noise, and there is a great difference in the marks left +by different casualties. Very likely nothing would come of all this +espionage; but, at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man you +want to have in your power is to learn his habits. + +Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful +and moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. It +was the working of her jealousy against that young school-girl to whom +the master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the heiress of +the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to exasperate her +irritable nature against him, and in this way to render her more +accessible to his own advances? It was difficult to influence her at +all. She endured his company without seeming to enjoy it. She watched +him with that strange look of hers, sometimes as if she were on her +guard against him, sometimes as if she would like to strike at him as in +that fit of childish passion. She ordered him about with a haughty +indifference which reminded him of his own way with the dark-eyed women +whom he had known so well of old. All this added a secret pleasure to +the other motives he had for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He +knew she brooded silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that +she fed on it, as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her +veins,--and that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself +was not likely the second time to be the object, or in some deadly +vengeance wrought secretly, against which he would keep a sharp +look-out, so far as he was concerned, she had no outlet for her +dangerous, smouldering passions. + +Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, there +is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to listen to +her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental,--then, +if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few heartfuls of wild blood +in her, and you have done her a wrong,--double-bolt the door which she +may enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,--look twice before you taste +of any cup whose draught the shadow of her hand may have darkened! + +But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives in +the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is tired, +she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of coffee +from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment. So, if she +can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her wickedness will run +off through her throat or the tips of her fingers. How many tragedies +find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades and strenuous +bravuras! How many murders are executed in double-quick time upon the +keys which stab the air with their dagger-strokes of sound! What would +our civilization be without the piano? Are not Erard and Broadwood and +Chickering the true humanizers of our time? Therefore do I love to hear +the all-pervading _tum tum_ jarring the walls of little parlors in +houses with double door-plates on their portals, looking out on streets +and courts which to know is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to +live, according to any true definition of living. Therefore complain I +not of modern degeneracy, when, even from the open window of the small +unlovely farm-house, tenanted by the hard-handed man of bovine flavors +and the flat-patterned woman of broken-down countenance, issue the same +familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira, but for these keys, which +throb away her wild impulses in harmless discords, would not have been +floating, dead, in the brown stream which runs through the meadows by +her father's door,--or living, with that other current which runs +beneath the gas-lights over the slimy pavement, choking with wretched +weeds that were once in spotless flower? + +Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner life +in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as common +articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be in action. +Watch her well by day and by night, Old Sophy! watch her well! or the +long line of her honored name may close in shame, and the stately +mansion of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till its roof is +buried in its cellar! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + + +ON HIS TRACKS. + + +"Abel!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?" + +Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will you" +did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of rounding +the corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the personal +independence of an American citizen. + +The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. His +face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the +Doctor's eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which looked +as if he had something to communicate. + +"Well?" said the Doctor. + +"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest happened +daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' the gate on +that queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very +slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. +He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn +to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a +pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be +all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' +raoun' the Institoot for, after folks is abed." + +"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor. + +"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be +pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' +want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me +like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits +ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know what +hurts ye." + +"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any +such weapon about him?" + +"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks kin' +o' dangerous. May-be he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't say that +he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raoun' jest 'z ef he +wuz spyin' somebody; 'n' somehaow I caan't help mistrustin' them +Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caa'n't keep the run o' this chap all the +time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown't the mansion-haouse +knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody." + +The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his private +detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in +the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from +the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. +He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a +shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the +schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had +cautioned Mr. Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt an interest in the +young man,--a student of his own profession, an intelligent and +ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been thrown by accident +into the companionship or the neighborhood of two person, one of whom he +knew to be dangerous, and the other he believed instinctively might be +capable of crime. + +The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of +seeing Old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen. +He began talking with her as a physician; he wanted to know how her +rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw though all that with her +little beady black eyes. It was something quite different he had come +for, and Old Sophy answered very briefly for her aches and ails. + +"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the Lord's +doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sh'n't be long roun' this kitchen. +It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it's our Elsie,--it's the baby, as we +use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen year ago, 'n' +her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where is she? Let me see +her!'--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run then,--'n' got the coral +necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, 'n' then showed her to her +mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, 'n' looked, 'n' then put out +her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the necklace,--'n' fell right back on +her piller, as white as though she was laid out to bury?" + +The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He had +never chosen to let Old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious +reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual fears and +prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it. + +"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief pause. + +The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply. + +The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the +glasses through which he now saw her. + +Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision. + +"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from +the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three +times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!" + +"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in +his tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a +certain tendency to belief in the superstition to which the +question refers. + +"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, as +if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it was +somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' +people,--like the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor +chil', 'n' take care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared she'll +never live to see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick." Poor +Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not unnaturally, +somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of the Second-Advent +preachers had been about, and circulated their predictions among the +kitchen-population of Rockland. This was the way in which it happened +that she mingled her fears in such a strange manner with their +doctrines. + +The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, but +it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in the +household different from common?" + +Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, when +she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her +infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of +observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather +looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor +was a mighty conjuror, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She +had relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the +Doctor was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them +through all their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She +had but one real object of affection in the world,--this child that she +had tended from infancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick +round her; how soon they would break upon her, and blight or destroy +her, no one could tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue of +terrors that might not come upon the household at any moment. Her own +wits had sharpened themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her +face had forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to +its features. + +"Doctor," Old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by night +and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked him. He +giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I know it make +him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he needn' feel as if I +didn' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as much as a member o' +the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody." + +Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to Mr. +Richard Venner might perhaps go a little farther than the Christian +limit she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather was in the +habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the last enemy he +had bagged, and that her grandmother's teeth were filed down to points, +so that they were as sharp as a shark's. + +"What is it that you have seen about Mr. Richard Venner that gives you +such a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor. + +"What I' seen 'bout Dick Venner?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell y' +what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that's what he wan's; 'n' +he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as I hate him! +He wan's to marry our Elsie, 'n' live here in the big house, 'n' have +nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch Massa Venner 'n' see how long +'t 'll take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die fas' 'nuff, help him some way +t' die fasser!--Come close up t' me, Doctor! I wan' t' tell you +somethin' I tol' th' minister t'other day. Th' minister, he come down +'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, +'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie,--but he didn' tell nobody what to +do to stop all what I been dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to +me, Doctor!" + +The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman. + +"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's long 's she lives! +Nobody mus'n' never live with Elsie but Ol' Sophy; 'n' Ol' Sophy won't +never die 's long 's Elsie's alive to be took care of. But I 's feared, +Doctor, I 's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. The' 's a +young gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of 'em tells +me,--'n' she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she talks about him +when she's asleep sometimes. She mus'n' never marry nobody, Doctor! If +she do, he die, certain!" + +"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the Doctor +said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from Dick." + +"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but Ol' Sophy. She no like any +other creatur' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' marry one +man cos she love him, she marry another man cos she hate him." + +"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it." + +"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said Old Sophy, with a flash +of strange intelligence in her eyes. + +The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could not +know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange +superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had +better follow Sophy's lead and find out what she meant. + +"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. "You +don't mean that she has any ugly thing about her, except--you +know--under the necklace?" + +The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her darling. + +"I didn' say she had nothin'--but jes' that--you know. My beauty have +anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever had a +shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't like no +other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh like other +women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as other women.--Do +you know that young gen'l'm'n up at the school, Doctor?" + +"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young man, +handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell me, +Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to fall in +love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?" + +"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a little to +the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all." + +"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she +would have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, if +anybody can." + +"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live wi' +Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but Ol' Sophy, +I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, if Dick +Venner die? He wan's to marry our Elsie so's to live in the big house +'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the chists full +o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes! That's what Dick wan's. An' he hates +Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marries Elsie, she'll make him +die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her 'n' hang her, or he'll +get mad with her 'n' choke her.--Oh, I know his chokin' tricks!--he don' +leave his keys roun' for nothin'!" + +"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that." + +So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his +chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it +to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of +inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather +thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, +which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at +least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search; but Old Sophy considered +that a game of life and death was going on in the household, and that +she was bound to look out for her darling. + +The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of information. +Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use this +mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was certainly +very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom of his trunk. +The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something about the _lasso_ and +the _lariat_ and the _bolas_, and had an indistinct idea that they had +been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or private revenge; but they +were essentially a huntsman's implements, after all, and it was not very +strange that this young man had brought one of them with him. Not +strange, perhaps, but worth noting. + +"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently. + +"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, he +never let nobody else have her. Oh, Dick's a dark man, Doctor! I know +him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunnin'. I think +he mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,--come in +softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I hear the +cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Venner, when he comes up +in his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean mischief to +somebody. I no like his looks these las' days.--Is that a very pooty +gen'l'm'n up at the school-house, Doctor?" + +"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?" + +"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus'n' never marry nobody,--but, +oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little how it +would ha' been, if the Lord hadn' been so hard on Elsie." + +She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left her +a moment to her thoughts. + +"And how does Mr. Dudley Venner take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little. + +"Oh, Massa Venner, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, as +Ol' Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, 'n' +set by her sometime when she 'sleep; I come to her in th' mornin' 'n' +help her put on her things."--Then, in a whisper,--"Doctor, Elsie lets +Ol' Sophy take off that necklace for her. What you think she do, 'f +anybody else tech it?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps." + +"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her hands, Doctor!"--The old woman's +significant pantomime must be guessed at. + +"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Venner thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry Elsie." + +"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout what +goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you know,--sort o' +giv' up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say 'Yes, yes.' Dick +always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. One time I thought Massa +Venner b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to Elsie; but now he don' seem to +take much notice;--he kin' o' stupid-like 'bout sech things. It's +trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Venner bright man naterally,--'n' he's got a +great heap o' books. I don' think Massa Venner never been jes' heself +sence Elsie's born. He done all he know how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a +great deal. You men-folks don' know nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' +'f you knowed all the young gals that ever lived, y' wouldn' know +nothin' 'bout our Elsie." + +"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. Venner +has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has any notion +that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels safe to have +him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him." + +"Lor' bless you, Doctor, Massa Venner no more idee 'f any mischief 'bout +Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long wi' +us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' ol' +family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby,--y' +never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care for +nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. The +fus' year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the window +'n' look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the baby's neck +'n' say, '_It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it?_' 'n' then go down in the study +'n' walk 'n' walk, 'n' then kneel down 'n' pray. Doctor, there was two +places in the old carpet that was all threadbare, where his knees had +worn 'em. An sometimes,--you remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up +into The Mountain 'n' be gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he +could find up there.--Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them +days!--An' by-'n'-by he grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, +'n' 't las' he got's quiet 's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I +think he's got religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's +goin' on, 'n' I don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' +happens;--for the' 's somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day +doesn' come to stop it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my +poor Elsie, my baby that the Lord hasn' took care of like all his +other childer." + +The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal about +them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her own. Let +her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a look-out +elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know at once. +Send up one of the men-servants, and he would come down at a +moment's warning. + +There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the Doctor +was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He rode +straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had a brief +conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his personal +interests. + +That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place of +his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night Mr. +Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back among +the fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a dozen +of it. + + + + +A PLEA FOR FREEDOM FROM SPEECH AND FIGURES +OF SPEECH-MAKERS. + + +I observe, Messieurs of the "Atlantic," that your articles are commonly +written in the imperial style; but I must beg allowance to use the first +person singular. I cannot, like old Weller, spell myself with a We. Ours +is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the +worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal +pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. +Other tongues have, or pretend, a greater modesty. + +I. + +What a noble letter it is! In it every reader sees himself as in a +glass. As for me, without my I-s, I should be as poorly off as the great +mole of Hadrian, which, being the biggest, must be also, by parity of +reason, the blindest in the world. When I was in college, I confess I +always liked those passages best in the choruses of the Greek drama +which were well sprinkled with _ai ai_, they were so grandly simple. +The force of great men is generally to be found in their intense +individuality,--in other words, it is all in their I. The merit of this +essay will be similar. + +What I was going to say is this. + +My mind has been much exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, +which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun +to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and +Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human +habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind. We had hitherto got on very +well in Chesumpscot, having caught a trick of silence, perhaps from the +fish which we cured, _more medicorum_, by laying them out. But this +summer some misguided young men among us got up a lecture-association. +Of course it led to a general quarrel; for every pastor in the town +wished to have the censorship of the list of lecturers. A certain number +of the original projectors, however, took the matter wholly into their +own hands, raised a subscription to pay expenses, and resolved to call +their lectures "The Universal Brotherhood Course,"--for no other reason, +that I can divine, but that they had set the whole village by the ears. +They invited that distinguished young apostle of Reform, Mr. Philip +Vandal, to deliver the opening lecture. He has just done so, and, from +what I have heard about his discourse, it would have been fitter as the +introductory to a nunnery of Kilkenny cats than to anything like +universal brotherhood. He opened our lyceum as if it had been an oyster, +without any regard for the feelings of those inside. He pitched into the +world in general, and all his neighbors past and present in particular. +Even the babe unborn did not escape some unsavory epithets in the way of +vaticination. I sat down, meaning to write you an essay on "The Right of +Private Judgment as distinguished from the Right of Public +Vituperation"; but I forbear. It may be that I do not understand the +nature of philanthropy. + +Why, here is Philip Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that +he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of +them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is +worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (_a +knurly_) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway +once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's shop. I like dealers in +out-of-the-way things,--traders in bigotry and virtue are too +common,--and so I went in. The gem of the collection was a terrier,--a +perfect beauty, uglier than philanthropy itself, and hairier, as a +Cockney would say, than the 'ole British hairystocracy. "A'n't he a +stunner?" said my disrespectable friend, the master of the shop. "Ah, +you should see him worry a rat! He does it like a puffic Christian!" +Since then, the world has been divided for me into Christians and +perfect Christians; and I find so many of the latter species in +proportion to the former, that I begin to pity the rats. They (the rats) +have at least one virtue,--they are not eloquent. + +It is, I think, a universally recognized truth of natural history, that +a young lady is sure to fall in love with a young man for whom she feels +at first an unconquerable aversion; and it must be on the same principle +that the first symptoms of love for our neighbor almost always manifest +themselves in a violent disgust at the world in general, on the part of +the apostles of that gospel. They give every token of hating their +neighbors consumedly; _argal_, they are going to be madly enamored of +them. Or, perhaps, this is the manner in which Universal Brotherhood +shows itself in people who wilfully subject themselves to infection as a +prophylactic. In the natural way we might find the disease inconvenient +and even expensive; but thus vaccinated with virus from the udders +(whatever they may be) that yield the (butter-)milk of human kindness, +the inconvenience is slight, and we are able still to go about our +ordinary business of detesting our brethren as usual. It only shows that +the milder type of the disease has penetrated the system, which will +thus be enabled to out-Jenneral its more dangerous congener. Before +long we shall have physicians of our ailing social system writing to the +"Weekly Brandreth's Pill" somewhat on this wise:--"I have a very marked +and hopeful case in Pequawgus Four Corners. Miss Hepzibah Tarbell, +daughter of that arch-enemy of his kind, Deacon Joash T., attended only +one of my lectures. In a day or two the symptoms of eruption were most +encouraging. She has already quarrelled with all her family,--accusing +her father of bigamy, her uncle Benoni of polytheism, her brother Zeno +C. of aneurism, and her sister Eudoxy Trithemia of the variation of the +magnetic needle. If ever hopes of seeing a perfect case of Primitive +Christian were well-founded, I think we may entertain them now." + +What I chiefly object to in the general denunciation sort of reformers +is that they make no allowance for character and temperament. They wish +to repeal universal laws, and to patch our natural skins for us, as if +they always wanted mending. That while they talk so much of the godlike +nature of man, they should so forget the human natures of men! The +Flathead Indian squeezes the child's skull between two boards till it +shapes itself into a kind of gambrel-roof against the rain,--the +readiest way, perhaps, of uniforming a tribe that wear no clothes. But +does he alter the inside of the head? Not a hair's-breadth. You remember +the striking old gnomic poem that tells how Aaron, in a moment of +fanatical zeal against that member by which mankind are so readily led +into mischief, proposes a rhinotomic sacrifice to Moses? What is the +answer of the experienced lawgiver? + + "Says Moses to Aaron, + ''Tis the fashion to wear 'em!'" + +Shall we advise the Tadpole to get his tail cut off, as a badge of the +reptile nature in him, and to achieve the higher sphere of the Croakers +at a single hop? Why, it is all he steers by; without it, he would be as +helpless as a compass under the flare of Northern Lights; and he no +doubt regards it as a mark of blood, the proof of his kinship with the +preadamite family of the Saurians. Shall we send missionaries to the +Bear to warn him against raw chestnuts, because they are sometimes so +discomforting to our human intestines, which are so like his own? One +sermon from the colic were worth the whole American Board. + +Moreover, as an author, I protest in the name of universal Grub Street +against a unanimity in goodness. Not to mention that a Quaker world, all +faded out to an autumnal drab, would be a little tedious,--what should +we do for the villain of our tragedy or novel? No rascals, no +literature. You have your choice. Were we weak enough to consent to a +sudden homogeneousness in virtue, many industrious persons would be +thrown out of employment. The wife and mother, for example, with as +indeterminate a number of children as the Martyr Rogers, who visits me +monthly,--what claim would she have upon me, were not her husband +forever taking to drink, or the penitentiary, or Spiritualism? The +pusillanimous lapse of her lord into morality would not only take the +very ground of her invention from under her feet, but would rob her and +him of an income that sustains them both in blissful independence of the +curse of Adam. But do not let us be disheartened. Nature is strong; she +is persistent; she completes her syllogism after we have long been +feeding the roots of her grasses, and has her own way in spite of us. +Some ancestral Cromwellian trooper leaps to life again in Nathaniel +Greene, and makes a general of him, to confute five generations of +Broadbrims. The Puritans were good in their way, and we enjoy them +highly as a preterite phenomenon: but they were _not_ good at cakes and +ale, and that is one reason why they are a preterite phenomenon. + +I suppose we are all willing to let a public censor like P.V. run amuck +whenever he likes,--so it be not down our street. I confess to a good +deal of tolerance in this respect, and, when I live in Number 21, have +plenty of stoicism to spare for the griefs of the dwellers in No. 23. +Indeed, I agreed with our young Cato heartily in what he said about +Statues. We must have an Act for the Suppression, either of Great Men, +or else of Sculptors. I have not quite made up my mind which are the +greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of +both. They used to be _rare_, (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett,) +but nowadays they are overdone. I am half-inclined to think that the +sculptors club together to write folks up during their lives in the +newspapers, quieting their consciences with the hope of some day making +them look so mean in bronze or marble as to make all square again. Or do +we really have so many? Can't they help growing twelve feet high in this +new soil, any more than our maize? I suspect that Posterity will not +thank us for the hereditary disease of Carrara we are entailing on him, +and will try some heroic remedy, perhaps lithotripsy. + +Nor was I troubled by what Mr. Vandal said about the late Benjamin +Webster. I am not a Boston man, and have, therefore, the privilege of +thinking for myself. Nor do I object to his claiming for women the right +to make books and pictures and (shall I say it?) statues,--only this +last becomes a grave matter, if we are to have statues of all the great +women, too! To be sure, there will not be the trousers-difficulty,--at +least, not at present; what we may come to is none of my affair. I even +go beyond him in my opinions on what is called the Woman Question. In +the gift of speech, they have always had the advantage of us; and though +the jealousy of the other sex have deprived us of the orations of +Xantippe, yet even Demosthenes does not seem to have produced greater +effects, if we may take the word of Socrates for it,--as I, for one, +very gladly do. + +No,--what I complain of is not the lecturer's opinions, but the +eloquence with which he expressed them. He does not like statues better +than I do; but is it possible that he fails to see that the one nuisance +leads directly to the other, and that we set up three images of Talkers +for one to any kind of man who was useful in his generation? Let him +beware, or he will himself be petrified after death. Boston seems to be +specially unfortunate. She has more statues and more speakers than any +other city on this continent. I have with my own eyes seen a book called +"The Hundred Boston Orators." This would seem to give her a fairer title +to be called the _tire_ than the _hub_ of creation. What with the +speeches of her great men while they are alive, and those of her +surviving great men about those aforesaid after they are dead, and those +we look forward to from her _ditto ditto_ yet to be upon her _ditto +ditto_ now in being, and those of her paulopost _ditto ditto_ upon her +_ditto ditto_ yet to be, and those--But I am getting into the house +that Jack built. And yet I remember once visiting the Massachusetts +State-House and being struck with the Pythagorean fish hung on high in +the Representatives' Chamber, the emblem of a silence too sacred, as +would seem, to be observed except on Sundays. Eloquent Philip Vandal, I +appeal to you as a man and a brother, let us two form (not an +Antediluvian, for there are plenty, but) an Antidiluvian Society against +the flood of milk-and-water that threatens the land. Let us adopt as our +creed these two propositions:-- + +I. _Tongues were given us to be held._ + +II. _Dumbness sets the brute below the man: Silence elevates the man +above the brute._ + +Every one of those hundred orators is to me a more fearful thought than +that of a hundred men gathering samphire. And when we take into account +how large a portion of them (if the present mania hold) are likely to be +commemorated in stone or some even more durable material, the conception +is positively stunning. Let us settle all scores by subscribing to a +colossal statue of the late Town-Crier in bell-metal, with the +inscription, "VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL," as a comprehensive tribute to +oratorical powers in general. _He_, at least, never betrayed his +clients. As it is, there is no end to it. We are to set up Horatius Vir +in effigy for inventing the Normal Schoolmaster, and by-and-by we shall +be called on to do the same ill-turn for Elihu Mulciber for getting +uselessly learned (as if any man had ideas enough for twenty languages!) +without any schoolmaster at all. We are the victims of a droll +antithesis. Daniel would not give in to Nebuchadnezzar's taste in +statuary, and we are called on to fall down and worship an image of +Daniel which the Assyrian monarch would have gone to grass again sooner +than have it in his back-parlor. I do not think lions are agreeable, +especially the shaved-poodle variety one is so apt to encounter;--I met +one once at an evening party. But I would be thrown into a den of them +rather than sleep in the same room with that statue. Posterity will +think we cut pretty figures indeed in the monumental line! Perhaps there +is a gleam of hope and a symptom of convalescence in the fact that the +Prince of Wales, during his late visit, got off without a single speech. +The cheerful hospitalities of Mount Auburn were offered to him, as to +all distinguished strangers, but nothing more melancholy. In his case I +doubt the expediency of the omission. Had we set a score or two of +orators on him and his suite, it would have given them a more +intimidating notion of the offensive powers of the country than West +Point and all the Navy-Yards put together. + +In the name of our common humanity, consider, too, what shifts our +friends in the sculpin line (as we should call them in Chesumpscot) are +put to for originality of design, and what the country has to pay for +it. The Clark Mills (that turns out equestrian statues as the Stark +Mills do calico-patterns) has pocketed fifty thousand dollars for making +a very dead bronze horse stand on his hind-legs. For twenty-five cents I +have seen a man at the circus do something more wonderful,--make a very +living bay horse dance a redowa round the amphitheatre on his (it occurs +to me that _hind-legs_ is indelicate) posterior extremities to the +wayward music of an out-of-town (_Scotice_, out-o'-toon) band. Now, I +will make a handsome offer to the public. I propose for twenty-five +thousand dollars to suppress my design for an equestrian statue of a +distinguished general officer as he _would have_ appeared at the Battle +of Buena Vista. This monument is intended as a weathercock to crown the +new dome of the Capitol at Washington. By this happy contrivance, the +horse will be freed from the degrading necessity of touching the earth +at all,--thus distancing Mr. Mills by two feet in the race for +originality. The pivot is to be placed so far behind the middle of the +horse, that the statue, like its original, will always indicate which +way the wind blows by going along with it. The inferior animal I have +resolved to model from a spirited saw-horse in my own collection. In +this way I shall combine two striking advantages. The advocates of the +Ideal in Art cannot fail to be pleased with a charger which embodies, as +it were, merely the abstract notion or quality, Horse, and the attention +of the spectator will not be distracted from the principal figure. The +material to be pure brass. I have also in progress an allegorical group +commemorative of Governor Wise. This, like-Wise, represents only a +potentiality. I have chosen, as worthy of commemoration, the moment when +and the method by which the Governor meant to seize the Treasury at +Washington. His Excellency is modelled in the act of making one of his +speeches. Before him a despairing reporter kills himself by falling on +his own steel pen; a broken telegraph-wire hints at the weight of the +thoughts to which it has found itself inadequate; while the Army and +Navy of the United States are conjointly typified in a horse-marine who +flies headlong with his hands pressed convulsively over his ears. I +think I shall be able to have this ready for exhibition by the time Mr. +Wise is nominated for the Presidency,--certainly before he is elected. +The material to be plaster, made of the shells of those oysters with +which Virginia shall have paid her public debt. It may be objected, that +plaster is not durable enough for verisimilitude, since bronze itself +could hardly be expected to outlast one of the Governor's speeches. But +it must be remembered that his mere effigy cannot, like its prototype, +have the pleasure of hearing itself talk; so that to the mind of the +spectator the oratorical despotism is tempered with some reasonable hope +of silence. This design, also, is intended only _in terrorem_, and will +be suppressed for an adequate consideration. + +I find one comfort, however, in the very hideousness of our statues. The +fear of what the sculptors will do for them after they are gone may +deter those who are careful of their memories from talking themselves +into greatness. It is plain that Mr. Caleb Cushing has begun to feel a +wholesome dread of this posthumous retribution. I cannot in any other +way account for that nightmare of the solitary horseman on the edge of +the horizon, in his Hartford Speech. His imagination is infected with +the terrible consciousness, that Mr. Mills, as the younger man, will, in +the course of Nature, survive him, and will be left loose to seek new +victims of his nefarious designs. Formerly the punishment of the wooden +horse was a degradation inflicted on private soldiers only; but Mr. +Mills (whose genius could make even Pegasus look wooden, in whatever +material) flies at higher game, and will be content with nothing short +of a general. Mr. Cushing advises extreme measures. He counsels us to +sell our real estate and stocks, and to leave a country where no man's +reputation with posterity is safe, being merely as clay in the hands of +the sculptor. To a mind undisturbed by the terror natural in one whose +military reputation insures his cutting and running, (I mean, of course, +in marble and bronze,) the question becomes an interesting one,--To +whom, in case of a general exodus, shall we sell? The statues will have +the land all to themselves,--until the Aztecs, perhaps, repeopling their +ancient heritage, shall pay divine honors to these images, whose +ugliness will revive the traditions of the classic period of Mexican +Art. For my own part, I never look at one of them now without thinking +of at least one human sacrifice. + +I doubt the feasibility of Mr. Cushing's proposal, and yet something +ought to be done. We must put up with what we have already, I suppose, +and let Mr. Webster stand threatening to blow us all up with his pistol +pointed at the elongated keg of gunpowder on which his left hand +rests,--no bad type of the great man's state of mind after the +nomination of General Taylor, or of what a country member would call a +penal statue. But do we reflect that Vermont is half marble, and that +Lake Superior can send us bronze enough for regiments of statues? I go +back to my first plan of a prohibitory enactment. I had even gone so far +as to make a rough draught of an Act for the Better Observance of the +Second Commandment; but it occurred to me that convictions under it +would be doubtful, from the difficulty of satisfying a jury that our +graven images did really present a likeness to any of the objects +enumerated in the divine ordinance. Perhaps a double-barrelled statute +might be contrived that would meet both the oratorical and the +monumental difficulty. Let a law be passed that all speeches delivered +more for the benefit of the orator than that of the audience, and all +eulogistic ones of whatever description, be pronounced in the chapel of +the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and all statues be set up within the grounds +of the Institution for the Blind. Let the penalty for infringement in +the one case be to read the last President's Message, and in the other +to look at the Webster statue one hour a day, for a term not so long as +to violate the spirit of the law forbidding cruel and unusual +punishments. + +Perhaps it is too much to expect of our legislators that they should +pass so self-denying an ordinance. They might, perhaps, make all oratory +but their own penal, and then (who knows?) the reports of their debates +might be read by the few unhappy persons who were demoniacally possessed +by a passion for that kind of thing, as girls are sometimes said to be +by an appetite for slate-pencils. _Vita brevis, lingua longa_. I protest +that among law-givers I respect Numa, who declared, that, of all the +Camenae, Tacita was most worthy of reverence. The ancient Greeks also +(though they left too much oratory behind them) had some good notions, +especially if we consider that they had not, like modern Europe, the +advantage of communication with America. Now the Greeks had a Muse of +Beginning, and the wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how +hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more +excellent Muse of Leaving-off. The Spartans, I suspect, found her out +and kept her selfishly to themselves. She were indeed a goddess to be +worshipped, a true Sister of Charity among that loquacious sisterhood! + +Endlessness is the order of the day. I ask you to compare Plutarch's +lives of demigods and heroes with our modern biographies of deminoughts +and zeroes. Those will appear but tailors and ninth-parts of men in +comparison with these, every one of whom would seem to have had nine +lives, like a cat, to justify such prolixity. Yet the evils of print are +as dust in the balance to those of speech. + +We were doing very well in Chesumpscot, but the Lyceum has ruined all. +There are now two debating-clubs, seminaries of multiloquence. A few of +us old-fashioned fellows have got up an opposition club and called it +"The Jolly Oysters." No member is allowed to open his mouth except at +high-tide by the calendar. We have biennial festivals on the evening of +election-day, when the constituency avenges itself in some small measure +on its Representative elect by sending a baker's dozen of orators to +congratulate him. + +But I am falling into the very vice I condemn,--like Carlyle, who has +talked a quarter of a century in praise of holding your tongue. And yet +something should be done about it. Even when we get one orator safely +under-ground, there are ten to pronounce his eulogy, and twenty to do it +over again when the meeting is held about the inevitable statue. I go to +listen: we all go: we are under a spell. 'Tis true, I find a casual +refuge in sleep; for Drummond of Hawthornden was wrong when he called +Sleep the child of Silence. Speech begets her as often. But there is no +sure refuge save in Death; and when my life is closed untimely, let +there be written on my headstone, with impartial application to these +Black Brunswickers mounted on the high horse of oratory and to our +equestrian statues,-- + +_Os sublime_ did it! + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita_. Vol. I, Containing, +I. _Opus Tertium_,--II. _Opus Minus_,--III. _Compendium Philosophiae_. +Edited by J.S. BREWER, M.A., Professor of English Literature, King's +College, London, and Reader at the Rolls. Published by the Authority of +the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction +of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and +Roberts. 1859. 8vo. pp. c., 573. + +Sir John Romilly has shown good judgment in including the unpublished +works of Roger Bacon in the series of "Chronicles and Memorials of Great +Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," now in course of +publication under his direction. They are in a true sense important +memorials of the period at which they were written, and, though but +incidentally illustrating the events of the time, they are of great +value in indicating the condition of thought and learning as well as the +modes of mental discipline and acquisition during the thirteenth century. + +The memory of Roger Bacon has received but scant justice. Although long +since recognized as one of the chief lights of England during the Middle +Ages, the clinging mist of popular tradition has obscured his real +brightness and distorted its proportions, while even among scholars he +has been more known by reputation than by actual acquaintance with his +writings. His principal work, his "Opus Majus," was published for the +first time in London in 1733, in folio, and afterwards at Venice in +1750, in the same form. Down to the publication of the volume before us, +it was the only one of his writings of much importance which had been +printed complete, if indeed it is to be called complete,--the Seventh +Part having been omitted by the editor, Dr. Jebb, and never having since +been published. + +The facts known concerning Roger Bacon's life are few, and are so +intermingled with tradition that it is difficult wholly to separate them +from it. Born of a good family at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, near the +beginning of the thirteenth century, he was placed in early youth at +Oxford, whence, after completing his studies in grammar and logic, "he +proceeded to Paris," says Anthony Wood, "according to the fashion +prevalent among English scholars of those times, especially among the +members of the University of Oxford." Here, under the famous masters of +the day, he devoted himself to study for some years, and made such +progress that he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity. Returning to +Oxford, he seems soon to have entered into the Franciscan Order, for the +sake of securing a freedom from worldly cares, that he might the more +exclusively give himself to his favorite pursuits. At various times he +lectured at the University. He spent some later years out of England, +probably again in Paris. His life was embittered by the suspicions felt +in regard to his studies by the brethren of his order, and by their +opposition, which proceeded to such lengths that it is said he was cast +into prison, where, according to one report, he died wretchedly. However +this may have been, his death took place before the beginning of the +fourteenth century. The scientific and experimental studies which had +brought him into ill-favor with his own order, and had excited the +suspicion against him of dealing in magic and forbidden arts, seem to +have sown the seed of the popular traditions which at once took root +around his name. Friar Bacon soon became, and indeed has remained almost +to the present day, a half-mythical character. To the imagination of the +common people, he was a great necromancer; he had had dealings with the +Evil One, who had revealed many of the secrets of Nature to him; he had +made a head of brass that could speak and foretell future events; and to +him were attributed other not less wonderful inventions, which seem to +have formed a common stock for popular legends of this sort during the +Middle Ages, and to have been ascribed indiscriminately to one +philosopher or another in various countries and in various times.[9] The +references in our early literature to Friar Bacon, as one who had had +familiarity with spirits and been a master in magic arts, are so +numerous as to show that the belief in these stories was wide-spread, +and that the real character of the learned Friar was quite given over to +oblivion. But time slowly brings about its revenges; and the man whom +his ignorant and stupid fellows thought fit to hamper and imprison, and +whom popular credulity looked upon with that half-horror and +half-admiration with which those were regarded who were supposed to have +put their souls in pawn for the sake of tasting the forbidden fruit, is +now recognized not only as one of the most profound and clearest +thinkers of his time, but as the very first among its experimental +philosophers, and as a prophet of truths which, then neglected and +despised, have since been adopted as axioms in the progress of science. +"The precursor of Galileo," says M. Haureau, in his work on Scholastic +Philosophy, "he learned before him how rash it is to offend the +prejudices of the multitude, and to desire to give lessons to the +ignorant." + +The range of Roger Bacon's studies was encyclopedic, comprehending all +the branches of learning then open to scholars. Brucker, in speaking of +him in his History of Philosophy, has no words strong enough to express +his admiration for his abilities and learning. "Seculi sui indolem +multum superavit," "vir summus, tantaque occultioris philosophiae +cognitione et experientia nobilis, ut merito Doctoris Mirabilis titulum +reportaverit."[10] The logical and metaphysical studies, in the +intricate subtilties of which most of the schoolmen of his time involved +themselves, presented less attraction to Bacon than the pursuits of +physical science and the investigation of Nature. His genius, displaying +the practical bent of his English mind, turning with weariness from the +endless verbal discussions of the Nominalists and Realists, and +recognizing the impossibility of solving the questions which divided the +schools of Europe into two hostile camps, led him to the study of +branches of knowledge that were held in little repute. He recognized the +place of mathematics as the basis of exact science, and proceeded to the +investigation of the facts and laws of optics, mechanics, chemistry, and +astronomy. But he did not limit himself to positive science; he was at +the same time a student of languages and of language, of grammar and of +music. He was versed not less in the arts of the _Trivium_ than in the +sciences of the Quadrivium.[11] + +But in rejecting the method of study then in vogue, and in opposing the +study of facts to that of questions which by their abstruseness fatigued +the intellect, which were of more worth in sharpening the wit than in +extending the limits of knowledge, and which led rather to vain +contentions than to settled conclusions,--in thus turning from the +investigation of abstract metaphysics to the study of Nature, Roger +Bacon went so far before his age as to condemn himself to solitude, to +misappreciation, and to posthumous neglect. Unlike men of far narrower +minds, but more conformed to the spirit of the times, he founded no +school, and left no disciples to carry out the system which he had +advanced, and which was one day to have its triumph. At the end of the +thirteenth century the scholastic method was far from having run its +career. The minds of men were occupied with problems which it alone +seemed to be able to resolve, and they would not abandon it at the will +of the first innovator. The questions in dispute were embittered by +personal feeling and party animosities. Franciscans and Dominicans were +divided by points of logic not less than by the rules of their +orders.[12] Ignorance and passion alike gave ardor to discussion, and it +was vain to attempt to convince the heated partisans on one side or the +other, that the truths they sought were beyond the reach of human +faculties, and that their dialectics and metaphysics served to bewilder +more than to enlighten the intellect. The disciples of subtile +speculatists like Aquinas, or of fervent mystics like Bonaventura, were +not likely to recognize the worth and importance of the slow processes +of experimental philosophy. + +The qualities of natural things, the limits of intellectual powers, the +relations of man to the universe, the conditions of matter and spirit, +the laws of thought, were too imperfectly understood for any man to +attain to a comprehensive and correct view of the sources and methods of +study and discovery of the truth. Bacon shared in what may he called, +without a sneer, the childishnesses of his time, childishnesses often +combined with mature powers and profound thought. No age is fully +conscious of its own intellectual disproportions; and what now seem mere +puerilities in the works of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were perhaps +frequently the result of as laborious effort and as patient study as +what we still prize in them for its manly vigor and permanent worth. In +a later age, the Centuries of the "Sylva Sylvarum" afford a curious +comment on the Aphorisms of the "Novum Organum." + +The "Opus Majus" of Bacon was undertaken in answer to a demand of Pope +Clement IV. in 1266, and was intended to contain a review of the whole +range of science, as then understood, with the exception of logic. +Clement had apparently become personally acquainted with Bacon, at the +time when, as legate of the preceding Pope, he had been sent to England +on an ineffectual mission to compose the differences between Henry III. +and his barons, and he appears to have formed a just opinion of the +genius and learning of the philosopher. + +The task to which Bacon had been set by the Papal mandate was rapidly +accomplished, in spite of difficulties which might have overcome a less +resolute spirit; but the work extended to such great length in his +hands, that he seems to have felt a not unnatural fear that Clement, +burdened with the innumerable cares of the Pontificate, would not find +leisure for its perusal, much less for the study which some part of it +demanded. With this fear, fearful also that portions of his work might +be deficient in clearness, and dreading lest it might be lost on its way +to Rome, he proceeded to compose a second treatise, called the "Opus +Minus," to serve as an abstract and specimen of his greater work, and to +embrace some additions to its matter. Unfortunately, but a fragment of +this second work has been preserved, and this fragment is for the first +time published in the volume just issued under the direction of the +Master of the Rolls. But the "Opus Minus" was scarcely completed before +he undertook a third work, to serve as an introduction and preamble to +both the preceding. This has been handed down to us complete, and this, +too, is for the first time printed in the volume before us. We take the +account of it given by Professor Brewer, the editor, in his +introduction. + + "Inferior to its predecessors in the importance + of its scientific details and the illustration + it supplies of Bacon's philosophy, it is + more interesting than either, for the insight + it affords of his labors, and of the numerous + obstacles he had to contend with in the execution + of his work. The first twenty chapters + detail various anecdotes of Bacon's personal + history, his opinions on the state of + education, the impediments thrown in his + way by the ignorance, the prejudices, the + contempt, the carelessness, the indifference + of his contemporaries. From the twentieth + chapter to the close of the volume he pursues + the thread of the Opus Majus, supplying what + he had there omitted, correcting and explaining + what had been less clearly or correctly + expressed in that or in the Opus Minus. In + Chapter LII. he apologizes for diverging from + the strict line he had originally marked out, + by inserting in the ten preceding chapters his + opinions on three abstruse subjects, Vacuum, + Motion, and Space, mainly in regard to their + spiritual significance. 'As these questions,' + he says,' are very perplexing and difficult, I + thought I would record what I had to say + about them in some one of my works. In the + Opus Majus and Opus Minus I had not studied + them sufficiently to prevail on myself to + commit my thoughts about them to writing; + and I was glad to omit them, owing to the + length of those works, and because I was + much hurried in their composition.' From the + fifty-second chapter to the close of the volume + he adheres to his subject without further digression, + but with so much vigor of thought + and freshness of observations, that, like the + Opus Minus, the Opus Tertium may be fairly + considered an independent work."--pp. + xliv-xlv.[13] + +The details which Bacon gives of his personal history are of special +interest as throwing light upon the habits of life of a scholar in the +thirteenth century. Their autobiographic charm is increased by their +novelty, for they give a view of ways of life of which but few +particulars have been handed down. + +Excusing himself for the delay which had occurred, after the reception +of the Pope's letter, before the transmission of the writings he had +desired, Bacon says that he was strictly prohibited by a rule of his +Order from communicating to others any writing made by one of its +members, under penalty of loss of the book, and a diet for many days of +bread and water. Moreover, a fair copy could not be made, supposing that +he succeeded in writing, except by scribes outside of the Order; and +they might transcribe either for themselves or others, and through their +dishonesty it very often happened that books were divulged at Paris. + +"Then other far greater causes of delay occurred, on account of which I +was often ready to despair; and a hundred times I thought to give up the +work I had undertaken; and, had it not been for reverence for the Vicar +of the only Saviour, and [regard to] the profit to the world to be +secured through him alone, I would not have proceeded, against these +hindrances, with this affair, for all those who are in the Church of +Christ, however much they might have prayed and urged me. The first +hindrance was from those who were set over me, to whom you had written +nothing in my favor, and who, since I could not reveal your secret +[commission] to them, being bound not to do so by your command of +secrecy, urged me with unutterable violence, and with other means, to +obey their will. But I resisted, on account of the bond of your precept, +which obliged me to your work, in spite of every mandate of my +superiors.... + +"But I met also with another hindrance, which was enough to put a stop +to the whole matter, and this was the want of [means to meet] the +expense. For I was obliged to pay out in this business more than sixty +livres of Paris,[14] the account and reckoning of which I will set forth +in their place hereafter. I do not wonder, indeed, that you did not +think of these expenses, because, sitting at the top of the world, you +have to think of so great and so many things that no one can estimate +the cares of your mind. But the messengers who carried your letters were +careless in not making mention to you of these expenses; and they were +unwilling to expend a single penny, even though I told them that I would +write to you an account of the expenses, and that to every one of them +should be returned what was his. I truly have no money, as you know, nor +can I have it, nor consequently can I borrow, since I have nothing +wherewith to repay. I sent then to my rich brother, in my country, who, +belonging to the party of the king, was exiled with my mother and my +brothers and the whole family, and oftentimes being taken by the enemy +redeemed himself with money, so that thus being ruined and +impoverished, he could not assist me, nor even to this day have I had an +answer from him. + +"Considering, then, the reverence due to you, and the nature of your +command, I solicited many and great people, the faces of some of whom +you know well, but not their minds; and I told them that a certain +affair of yours must he attended to by me in France, (but I did not +disclose to them what it was,) the performance of which required a large +sum of money. But how often I was deemed a cheat, how often repulsed, +how often put off with empty hope, how often confused in myself, I +cannot express. Even my friends did not believe me, because I could not +explain to them the affair; and hence I could not advance by this way. +In distress, therefore, beyond what can be imagined, I compelled +serving-men and poor to expend all that they had, to sell many things, +and to pawn others, often at usury; and I promised them that I would +write to you every part of the expenses, and would in good faith obtain +from you payment in full. And yet, on account of the poverty of these +persons, I many times gave up the work, and many times despaired and +neglected to proceed; and indeed, if I had known that you would not +attend to the settling of these accounts, I would not for the whole +world have gone on,--nay, rather, I would have gone to prison. Nor could +I send special messengers to you for the needed sum, because I had no +means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing +the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on +account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of +expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by +ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all +these things, so great a delay has occurred in this matter."[15] + +There is a touching simplicity in this account of the trials by which he +was beset, and it rises to dignity in connection with a sentence which +immediately follows, in which he says, the thought of "the advantage of +the world excited me, and the revival of knowledge, which now for many +ages has lain dead, vehemently urged me forward." Motives such as these +were truly needed to enable him to make head against such difficulties. + +The work which he accomplished, remarkable as it is from its intrinsic +qualities, is also surprising from the rapidity with which it was +performed, in spite of the distractions and obstacles that attended it. +It would seem that in less than two years from the date of Clement's +letter, the three works composed in compliance with its demand were +despatched to the Pope. Bacon's diligence must have been as great as his +learning. In speaking, in another part of the "Opus Tertium," of the +insufficiency of the common modes of instruction, he gives incidentally +an account of his own devotion to study. "I have labored much," he says, +"on the sciences and languages; it is now forty years since I first +learned the alphabet, and I have always been studious; except two years +of these forty, I have been always engaged in study; and I have expended +much, [in learning,] as others generally do; but yet I am sure that +within a quarter of a year, or half a year, I could teach orally, to a +man eager and confident to learn, all that I know of the powers of the +sciences and languages; provided only that I had previously composed a +written compend. And yet it is known that no one else has worked so hard +or on so many sciences and tongues; for men used to wonder formerly that +I kept my life on account of my excessive labor, and ever since I have +been as studious as I was then, but I have not worked so hard, because, +through my practice in knowledge, it was not needful."[16] Again he +says, that in the twenty years in which he had specially labored in the +study of wisdom, neglecting the notions of the crowd, he had spent more +than two thousand pounds [livres] in the acquisition of secret books, +and for various experiments, instruments, tables, and other things, as +well as in seeking the friendship of learned men, and in instructing +assistants in languages, figures, the use of instruments and tables, +and many other things. But yet, though he had examined everything that +was necessary for the construction of a preliminary work to serve as a +guide to the wisdom of philosophy, though he knew how it was to be done, +with what aids, and what were the hindrances to it, still he could not +proceed with it, owing to the want of means. The cost of employing +proper persons in the work, the rarity and costliness of books, the +expense of instruments and of experiments, the need of infinite +parchment and many scribes for rough copies, all put it beyond his power +to accomplish. This was his excuse for the imperfection of the treatise +which he had sent to the Pope, and this was a work worthy to be +sustained by Papal aid.[17] + +The enumeration by Bacon of the trials and difficulties of a scholar's +life at a time when the means of communicating knowledge were difficult, +when books were rare and to be obtained only at great cost, when the +knowledge of the ancient languages was most imperfect, and many of the +most precious works of ancient philosophy were not to be obtained or +were to be found only in imperfect and erroneous translations, depicts a +condition of things in vivid contrast to the present facilities for the +communication and acquisition of learning, and enables us in some degree +to estimate the drawbacks under which scholars prosecuted their studies +before the invention of printing. That with such impediments they were +able to effect so much is wonderful; and their claim on the gratitude +and respect of their successors is heightened by the arduous nature of +the difficulties with which they were forced to contend. The value of +their work receives a high estimate, when we consider the scanty means +with which it was performed. + +Complaining of the want of books, Bacon says,--"The books on philosophy +by Aristotle and Avicenna, by Seneca and Tully and others, cannot be had +except at great cost, both because the chief of them are not translated +into Latin, and because of others not a copy is to be found in public +schools of learning or elsewhere. For instance, the most excellent books +of Tully De Republica are nowhere to be found, so far as I can hear, and +I have been eager in the search for them in various parts of the world +and with various agents. It is the same with many other of his books. +The books of Seneca also, the flowers of which I have copied out for +your Beatitude, I was never able to find till about the time of your +mandate, although I had been diligent in seeking for them for twenty +years and more."[18] Again, speaking of the corruption of translations, +so that they are often unintelligible, as is especially the case with +the books of Aristotle, he says that "there are not four Latins [that +is, Western scholars] who know the grammar of the Hebrews, the Greeks, +and the Arabians; for I am well acquainted with them, and have made +diligent inquiry both here and beyond the sea, and have labored much in +these things. There are many, indeed, who can speak Greek and Arabic and +Hebrew, but scarcely any who know the principles of the grammar so as to +teach it, for I have tried very many."[19] + +In his treatise entitled "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," which is +printed in this volume for the first time, he adds in relation to this +subject,--"Teachers are not wanting, because there are Jews everywhere, +and their tongue is the same in substance with the Arabic and the +Chaldean, though they differ in mode.... Nor would it be much, for the +sake of the great advantage of learning Greek, to go to Italy, where the +clergy and the people in many places are purely Greek; moreover, bishops +and archbishops and rich men and elders might send thither for books, +and for one or for more persons who know Greek, as Lord Robert, the +sainted Bishop of Lincoln,[20] did indeed do,--and some of those [whom +he brought over] still survive in England."[21] The ignorance of the +most noted clerks and lecturers of his day is over and over again the +subject of Bacon's indignant remonstrance. They were utterly unable to +correct the mistakes with which the translations of ancient works were +full. "The text is in great part horribly corrupt in the copy of the +Vulgate at Paris, ...and as many readers as there are, so many +correctors, or rather corruptors, ...for every reader changes the text +according to his fancy."[22] Even those who professed to translate new +works of ancient learning were generally wholly unfit for the task. +Hermann the German knew nothing of science, and little of Arabic, from +which he professed to translate; but when he was in Spain, he kept +Saracens with him who did the main part of the translations that he +claimed. In like manner, Michael Scot asserted that he had made many +translations; but the truth was, that a certain Jew named Andrew worked +more than he upon them.[23] William Fleming was, however, the most +ignorant and most presuming of all.[24] "Certain I am that it were +better for the Latins that the wisdom of Aristotle had not been +translated, than to have it thus perverted and obscured, ...so that the +more men study it the less they know, as I have experienced with all who +have stuck to these books. Wherefore my Lord Robert of blessed memory +altogether neglected them, and proceeded by his own experiments, and +with other means, until he knew the things concerning which Aristotle +treats a hundred thousand times better than he could ever have learned +them from those perverse translations. And if I had power over these +translations of Aristotle, I would have every copy of them burned; for +to study them is only a loss of time and a cause of error and a +multiplication of ignorance beyond telling. And since the labors of +Aristotle are the foundation of all knowledge, no one can estimate the +injury done by means of these bad translations."[25] + +Bacon had occasion for lamenting not only the character of the +translations in use, but also the fact that many of the most important +works of the ancients were not translated at all, and hence lay out of +the reach of all but the rare scholars, like himself and his friend +Grostete, who were able, through their acquaintance with the languages +in which they were written, to make use of them, provided manuscripts +could be found for reading. "We have few useful works on philosophy in +Latin. Aristotle composed a thousand volumes, as we read in his Life, +and of these we have but three of any notable size, namely,--on Logic, +Natural History, and Metaphysics; so that all the other scientific works +that he composed are wanting to the Latins, except some tractates and +small little books, and of these but very few. Of his Logic two of the +best books are deficient, which Hermann had in Arabic, but did not +venture to translate. One of them, indeed, he did translate, or caused +to be translated, but so ill that the translation is of no sort of value +and has never come into use. Aristotle wrote fifty excellent books about +Animals, as Pliny says in the eighth book of his Natural History, and I +have seen them in Greek, and of these the Latins have only nineteen +wretchedly imperfect little books. Of his Metaphysics the Latins read +only the ten books which they have, while there are many more; and of +these ten which they read, many chapters are wanting in the translation, +and almost infinite lines. Indeed, the Latins have nothing worthy; and +therefore it is necessary that they should know the languages, for the +sake of translating those things that are deficient and needful. For, +moreover, of the works on secret sciences, in which the secrets and +marvels of Nature are explored, they have little except fragments here +and there, which scarcely suffice to excite the very wisest to study and +experiment and to inquire by themselves after those things which are +lacking to the dignity of wisdom; while the crowd of students are not +moved to any worthy undertaking, and grow so languid and asinine over +these ill translations, that they lose utterly their time and study and +expense. They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not +care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly +multitude."[26] + +These passages may serve to show something of the nature of those +external hindrances to knowledge with which Bacon himself had had to +strive, which he overcame, and which he set himself with all his force +to break down, that they might no longer obstruct the path of study. +What scholar, what lover of learning, can now picture to himself such +efforts without emotion,--without an almost oppressive sense of the +contrast between the wealth of his own opportunities and the penury of +the earlier scholar? On the shelves within reach of his hand lie the +accumulated riches of time. Compare our libraries, with their crowded +volumes of ancient and modern learning, with the bare cell of the +solitary Friar, in which, in a single small cupboard, are laid away a +few imperfect manuscripts, precious as a king's ransom, which it had +been the labor of years to collect. This very volume of his works, a +noble monument of patient labor, of careful investigation, of deep +thought, costs us but a trivial sum; while its author, in his poverty, +was scarcely able, without begging, to pay for the parchment upon which +he wrote it, as, uncheered by the anticipation that centuries after his +death men would prize the works he painfully accomplished, he leaned +against his empty desk, half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset +him. All honor to him! honor to the schoolmen of the Middle Ages! to the +men who kept the traditions of wisdom alive, who trimmed the wick of the +lamp of learning when its flame was flickering, and who, when its light +grew dim and seemed to be dying out, supplied it with oil hardly +squeezed by their own hands, drop by drop, from the scanty olives which +they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days +learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who +should be worthy to be put into comparison with the philosopher of the +thirteenth century? + +The general scheme of Bacon's system of philosophy was at once simple +and comprehensive. The scope of his thought had a breadth uncommon in +his or in any time. In his view, the object of all philosophy and human +learning was to enable men to attain to the wisdom of God; and to this +end it was to be subservient absolutely, and relatively so far as +regarded the Church, the government of the state, the conversion of +infidels, and the repression of those who could not be converted. All +wisdom was included in the Sacred Scriptures, if properly understood and +explained. "I believe," said he, "that the perfection of philosophy is +to raise it to the state of a Christian law." Wisdom was the gift of +God, and as such it included the knowledge of all things in heaven and +earth, the knowledge of God himself, of the teachings of Christ, the +beauty of virtue, the honesty of laws, the eternal life of glory and of +punishment, the resurrection of the dead, and all things else.[27] + +To this end all special sciences were ordained. All these, properly +speaking, were to be called speculative; and though they each might be +divided into two parts, the practical and the speculative, yet one +alone, the most noble and best of all, in respect to which there was no +comparison with the others, was in its own nature practical: this was +the science of morals, or moral philosophy. All the works of Art and +Nature are subservient to morals, and are of value only as they promote +it. They are as nothing without it; as the whole wisdom of philosophy is +as nothing without the wisdom of the Christian faith. This science of +morals has six principal divisions. The first of these is theological, +treating of the relations of man to God and to spiritual things; the +second is political, treating of public laws and the government of +states; the third is ethical, treating of virtue and vice; the fourth +treats of the revolutions of religious sects, and of the proofs of the +Christian faith. + +"This is the best part of all philosophy." Experimental science and the +knowledge of languages come into use here. The fifth division is +hortatory, or of morals as applied to duty, and embraces the art of +rhetoric and other subsidiary arts. The sixth and final division treats +of the relations of morals to the execution of justice.[28] Under one +or other of these heads all special sciences and every branch of +learning are included. + +Such, then, being the object and end of all learning, it is to be +considered in what manner and by what methods study is to be pursued, to +secure the attainment of truth. And here occurs one of the most +remarkable features of Bacon's system. It is in his distinct statement +of the prime importance of experiment as the only test of certainty in +the sciences. "However strong arguments may be, they do not give +certainty, apart from positive experience of a conclusion." "It is the +prerogative of experiment to test the noble conclusions of all sciences +which are drawn from arguments." All science is ancillary to it.[29] And +of all branches of learning, two are of chief importance: languages are +the first gate of wisdom; mathematics the second.[30] By means of +foreign tongues we gain the wisdom which men have collected in past +times and other countries; and without them the sciences are not to be +pursued, for the requisite books are wanting in the Latin tongue. Even +theology must fail without a knowledge of the original texts of the +Sacred Writings and of their earliest expositors. Mathematics are of +scarcely less importance; "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know +any other physical science,--what is more, cannot discover his own +ignorance or find its proper remedies." "The sciences cannot be known by +logical and sophistical arguments, such as are commonly used, but only +by mathematical demonstrations."[31] But this view of the essential +importance of these two studies did not prevent Bacon from rising to the +height from which he beheld the mutual importance and relations of all +knowledge. We do not know where to find a clearer statement of the +connection of the sciences than in the following words:--"All sciences +are connected, and support each other with mutual aid, as parts of the +same whole, of which each performs its work, not for itself alone, but +for the others as well: as the eye directs the whole body, and the foot +supports the whole; so that any part of knowledge taken from the rest is +like an eye torn out or a foot cut off."[32] + +Such, then, in brief, appears to have been Bacon's general system of +philosophy. He has nowhere presented it in a compact form; and his style +of writing is often so corrupt, and his use of terms so inexact, that +any exposition of his views, exhibiting them in a methodical +arrangement, is liable to the charge of possessing a definiteness of +statement beyond that which his opinions had assumed in his own mind. +Still, the view that has now been given of his philosophy corresponds as +nearly as may be with the indications afforded by his works. The details +of his system present many points of peculiar interest. He was not +merely a theorist, with speculative views of a character far in advance +of those of the mass of contemporary schoolmen, but a practical +investigator as well, who by his experiments and discoveries pushed +forward the limits of knowledge, and a sound scholar who saw and +displayed to others the true means by which progress in learning was to +be secured. In this latter respect, no parts of his writings are more +remarkable than those in which he urges the importance of philological +and linguistic studies. His remarks on comparative grammar, on the +relations of languages, on the necessity of the study of original texts, +are distinguished by good sense, by extensive and (for the time) exact +scholarship, and by a breadth of view unparalleled, so far as we are +aware, by any other writer of his age. The treatise on the Greek +Grammar--which occupies a large portion of the incomplete "Compendium +Studii Philosophiae," and which is broken off in the middle by the +mutilation of the manuscript--contains, in addition to many curious +remarks illustrative of the learning of the period, much matter of +permanent interest to the student of language. The passages which we +have quoted in regard to the defects of the translations of Greek +authors show to how great a degree the study of Greek and other ancient +tongues had been neglected. Most of the scholars of the day contented +themselves with collecting the Greek words which they found interpreted +in the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Origen, Martianus Capella, +Boethius, and a few other later Latin authors; and were satisfied to use +these interpretations without investigation of their exactness, or +without understanding their meaning. Hugo of Saint Victor, (Dante's "Ugo +di Sanvittore e qui con elli,") one of the most illustrious of Bacon's +predecessors, translates, for instance, _mechanica_ by _adulterina_, as +if it came from the Latin _moecha_, and derives _economica_ from +_oequus_, showing that he, like most other Western scholars, was +ignorant even of the Greek letters.[33] Michael Scot, in respect to +whose translations Bacon speaks with merited contempt, exhibits the +grossest ignorance, in his version from the Arabic of Aristotle's +History of Animals, for example, a passage in which Aristotle speaks of +taming the wildest animals, and says, "Beneficio enim mitescunt, veluti +crocodilorum genus afficitur erga sacerdotem a quo enratur ut alantur," +("They become mild with kind treatment, as crocodiles toward the priest +who provides them with food,") is thus unintelligibly rendered by him: +"Genus autem karoluoz et hirdon habet pacem lehhium et domesticatur cum +illo, quoniam cogitat de suo cibo." [34] Such a medley makes it certain +that he knew neither Greek nor Arabic, and was willing to compound a +third language, as obscure to his readers as the original was to him. +Bacon points out many instances of this kind; and it is against such +errors--errors so destructive to all learning--that he inveighs with the +full force of invective, and protests with irresistible arguments. His +acquirements in Greek and in Hebrew prove that he had devoted long labor +to the study of these languages, and that he understood them far better +than many scholars who made more pretence of learning. Nowhere are the +defects of the scholarship of the Middle Ages more pointedly and ably +exhibited than in what he has said of them. + +But, although his knowledge in this field was of uncommon quality and +amount, it does not seem to have surpassed his acquisitions in science. +"I have attempted," he says in a striking passage, "with great +diligence, to attain certainty as to what is needful to be known +concerning the processes of alchemy and natural philosophy and +medicine.... And what I have written of the roots [of these sciences] +is, in my judgment, worth far more than all that the other natural +philosophers now alive suppose themselves to know; for in vain, without +these roots, do they seek for branches, flowers, and fruit. And here I +am boastful in words, but not in my soul; for I say this because I +grieve for the infinite error that now exists, and that I may urge you +[the Pope] to a consideration of the truth."[35] Again he says, in +regard to his treatise "De Perspectiva," or On Optics,--"Why should I +conceal the truth? I assert that there is no one among the Latin +scholars who could accomplish, in the space of a year, this work; no, +nor even in ten years."[36] In mathematics, in chemistry, in optics, in +mechanics, he was, if not superior, at least equal, to the best of his +contemporaries. His confidence in his own powers was the just result of +self-knowledge and self-respect. Natural genius, and the accumulations +of forty years of laborious study pursued with a method superior to that +which guided the studies of others, had set him at the head of the +learned men of his time; and he was great enough to know and to claim +his place. He had the self-devotion of enthusiasm, and its ready, but +dignified boldness, based upon the secure foundation of truth. + +In spite of the very imperfect style in which he wrote, and the usually +clumsy and often careless construction of his sentences, his works +contain now and then noble thoughts expressed with simplicity and force. +"Natura est instrumentum Divinae operationis," might be taken as the +motto for his whole system of natural science. In speaking of the value +of words, he says,--"Sed considerare debemus quod verba habent maximam +potestatem, et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta sunt +per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo +maxime delectatur." In the "Opus Tertium," at the point where he begins +to give an abstract of his "Opus Majus," he uses words which remind one +of the famous "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit." He +says,--"Cogitavi quod intellectus humanus habet magnam debilitationem ex +se.... Et ideo volui excludere errorum corde hominis impossible est +ipsum videre veritatem." This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's +"errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post +alios, si mens sibi permittatur." Such citations of passages remarkable +for thought or for expression might be indefinitely extended, but we +have space for only one more, in which the Friar attacks the vices of +the Roman court with an energy that brings to mind the invectives of the +greatest of his contemporaries. "Curia Romana, quae solebat et debet +regi sapientia Dei, nunc depravatur.... Laceratur enim illa sedes sacra +fraudibus et dolis injustorum. Pent justitia; pax omnis violatur; +infinita scandala suscitantur. Mores enim sequuntur ibidem +perversissimi; regnat superbia, ardet avaritia, invidia corrodit +singulos, luxuria diffamat totam illam curiam, gula in omnibus +dominatur." It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger +Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be +driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed +tightly within. + +There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to +discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with +him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the +most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of +tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation +to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to +discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The +popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in +two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and +on the Nullity of Magic,"[37] in one of which he describes some of its +qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its composition +under an enigma.[38] He had made experiments with Greek fire and the +magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power; +and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that +magnified and diminished. It was no wonder that a man who knew and +employed such wonderful things, who was known, too, to have sought for +artificial gold, should gain the reputation of a wizard, and that his +books should be looked upon with suspicion. As he himself says,--"Many +books are esteemed magic, which are not so, but contain the dignity of +knowledge." And he adds,--"For, as it is unworthy and unlawful for a +wise man to deal with magic, so it is superfluous and unnecessary."[39] + +There is a passage in this treatise "On the Nullity of Magic" of +remarkable character, as exhibiting the achievements, or, if not the +actual achievements, the things esteemed possible by the inventors of +the thirteenth century. There is in it a seeming mixture of fancy and of +fact, of childish credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of +mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the +progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after +Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by +what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and +inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's +truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken his dreams for facts. As it +stands, it is one of the most curious existing illustrations of the +state of physical science in the Middle Ages. It runs as follows:--"I +will now, in the first place, speak of some of the wonderful works of +Art and Nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and methods of +them, in which there is nothing magical, so that it may be seen how +inferior and worthless all magic power is, in comparison with these +works. And first, according to the fashion and rule of Art alone. Thus, +machines can be made for navigation without men to row them; so that +ships of the largest size, whether on rivers or the sea, can be carried +forward, under the guidance of a single man, at greater speed than if +they were full of men [rowers]. In like manner, a car can be made which +will move, without the aid of any animal, with incalculable impetus; +such as we suppose the scythed chariots to have been which were +anciently used in battle. Also, machines for flying can be made, so that +a man may sit in the middle of the machine, turning an engine, by which +wings artificially disposed are made to beat the air after the manner of +a bird in flight. Also, an instrument, small in size, for raising and +depressing almost infinite weights, than which nothing on occasion is +more useful: for, with an instrument of three fingers in height, and of +the same width, and of smaller bulk, a man might deliver himself and his +companions from all danger of prison, and could rise or descend. Also, +an instrument might be easily made by which one man could draw to +himself a thousand men by force and against their will, and in like +manner draw other things. Instruments can be made for walking in the sea +or in rivers, even at the bottom, without bodily risk: for Alexander the +Great made use of this to see the secrets of the sea, as the Ethical +Astronomer relates. These things were made in ancient times, and are +made in our times, as is certain; except, perhaps, the machine for +flying, which I have not seen, nor have I known any one who had seen +it, but I know a wise man who thought to accomplish this device. And +almost an infinite number of such things can be made; as bridges across +rivers without piers or any supports, and machines and unheard-of +engines." Bacon goes on to speak of other wonders of Nature and Art, to +prove, that, to produce marvellous effects, it is not necessary to +aspire to the knowledge of magic, and ends this division of his subject +with words becoming a philosopher:--"Yet wise men are now ignorant of +many things which the common crowd of students [_vulgus studentium_] +will know in future times."[40] + +It is much to be regretted that Roger Bacon does not appear to have +executed the second and more important part of his design, namely, "to +assign the causes and methods" of these wonderful works of Art and +Nature. Possibly he was unable to do so to his own satisfaction; +possibly he may upon further reflection have refrained from doing so, +deeming them mysteries not to be communicated to the vulgar;--"for he +who divulges mysteries diminishes the majesty of things; wherefore +Aristotle says that he should be the breaker of the heavenly seal, were +he to divulge the secret things of wisdom."[41] However this may have +been, we may safely doubt whether the inventions which he reports were +in fact the result of sound scientific knowledge, whether they had +indeed any real existence, or whether they were only the half-realized +and imperfect creations of the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming +of things to come. + +The matters of interest in the volume before us are by no means +exhausted, but we can proceed no farther in the examination of them, and +must refer those readers who desire to know more of its contents to the +volume itself. We can assure them that they will find it full of vivid +illustrations of the character of Bacon's time,--of the thoughts of men +at an epoch of which less is commonly known than of periods more +distant, but less connected by intellectual sympathy and moral relations +with our own. But the chief interest of Bacon's works lies in their +exhibition to us of himself, a man foremost in his own time in all +knowledge, endowed by Nature with a genius of peculiar force and +clearness of intuition, with a resolute energy that yielded to no +obstacles, with a combination so remarkable of the speculative and the +practical intellect as to place him in the ranks of the chief +philosophers to whom the progress of the world in learning and in +thought is due. They show him exposed to the trials which the men who +are in advance of their contemporaries are in every age called to meet, +and bearing these trials with a noble confidence in the final prevalence +of the truth,--using all his powers for the advantage of the world, and +regarding all science and learning of value only as they led to +acquaintance with the wisdom of God and the establishment of Christian +virtue. He himself gives us a picture of a scholar of his times, which +we may receive as a not unworthy portrait of himself. "He does not care +for discourses and disputes of words, but he pursues the works of +wisdom, and in them he finds rest. And what others dim-sighted strive to +see, like bats in twilight, he beholds in its full splendor, because he +is the master of experiments; and thus he knows natural things, and the +truths of medicine and alchemy, and the things of heaven as well as +those below. Nay, he is ashamed, if any common man, or old wife, or +soldier, or rustic in the country knows anything of which he is +ignorant. Wherefore he has searched out all the effects of the fusing of +metals, and whatever is effected with gold and silver and other metals +and all minerals; and whatever pertains to warfare and arms and the +chase he knows; and he has examined all that pertains to agriculture, +and the measuring of lands, and the labors of husbandmen; and he has +even considered the practices and the fortune-telling of old women, and +their songs, and all sorts of magic arts, and also the tricks and +devices of jugglers; so that nothing which ought to be known may lie hid +from him, and that he may as far as possible know how to reject all that +is false and magical. And he, as he is above price, so does he not value +himself at his worth. For, if he wished to dwell with kings and princes, +easily could he find those who would honor and enrich him; or, if he +would display at Paris what he knows through the works of wisdom, the +whole world would follow him. But, because in either of these ways he +would be impeded in the great pursuits of experimental philosophy, in +which he chiefly delights, he neglects all honor and wealth, though he +might, when he wished, enrich himself by his knowledge." + + + * * * * * + + + +_Popular Music of the Olden Time_. A Collection of Ancient Songs, +Ballads, and Dance-Tunes, Illustrative of the National Music of England. +With Short Introductions to the Different Reigns, and Notices of the +Airs from Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Also, a +Short Account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappel, F.S.A. The whole of the +Airs harmonized by G. A. McFarren. 2 vols. pp. 384, 439. London: Cramer, +Beale, & Chappell. New York: Webb & Allen. + +In tracing the history of the English nation, no line of investigation +is more interesting, or shows more clearly the progress of civilization, +than the study of its early poetry and music. Sung alike in the royal +palaces and in the cottages and highways of the nation, the ballads and +songs reflect most accurately the manners and customs, and not a little +of the history of the people; while, as indicating the progress of +intellectual culture, the successive changes in language, and the steady +advance of the science of music, and of its handmaid, poetry, they +possess a value peculiarly their own. + +The industry and learning of Percy, Warton, and Ritson have rendered a +thorough acquaintance with early English poetry comparatively easy; +while in the work whose comprehensive title heads this article the +research of Chappell presents to us all that is valuable of the "Popular +Music of the Olden Time," enriched by interesting incidents and +historical facts which render the volumes equally interesting to the +general reader and to the student in music. Chappell published his +collection of "National English Airs" about twenty years ago. Since that +time, he tells us in his preface, the increase of material has been so +great, that it has been advisable to rewrite the entire work, and to +change the title, so that the present edition has all the freshness of a +new publication, and contains more than one hundred and fifty +additional airs. + +The opening chapters are devoted to a concise historical account of +English minstrelsy, from the earliest Saxon times to its gradual +extinction in the reigns of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth; and while +presenting in a condensed form all that is valuable in Percy and others, +the author has interwoven in the narrative much curious and interesting +matter derived from his own careful studies. Much of romantic interest +clusters around the history of the minstrels of England. They are +generally supposed to have been the successors of the ancient bards, who +from the earliest times were held in the highest veneration by nearly +all the people of Europe, whether of Celtic or Gothic origin. According +to Percy, "Their skill was considered as something divine; their persons +were deemed sacred; their attendance was solicited by kings; and they +were everywhere loaded with honors and rewards." Our Anglo-Saxon +ancestors, on their migration into Britain, retained their veneration +for poetry and song, and minstrels continued in high repute, until their +hold upon the people gradually yielded to the steady advance of +civilization, the influence of the printing-press, and the consequent +diffusion of knowledge. It is to be borne in mind that the name, +minstrel, was applied equally to those who sang, and accompanied their +voices with the harp, or some other instrument, and to those who were +skilled in instrumental music only. The harp was the favorite and indeed +the national instrument of the Britons, and its use has been traced as +far back as the first invasion of the country by the Saxons. By the laws +of Wales, no one could pretend to the character of a freeman or +gentleman, who did not possess or could not play upon a harp. Its use +was forbidden to slaves; and a harp could not be seized for debt, as the +simple fact of a person's being without one would reduce him to an +equality with a slave. Other instruments, however, were in use by the +early Anglo-Saxons, such as the Psaltery, the Fiddle, and the Pipe. The +minstrels, clad in a costume of their own, and singing to their quaint +tunes the exploits of past heroes or the simple love-songs of the times, +were the favorites of royalty, and often, and perhaps usually, some of +the better class held stations at court; and under the reigns of Henry +I. and II., Richard I., and John, minstrelsy flourished greatly, and the +services of the minstrels were often rated higher than those of the +clergy. These musicians seem to have had easy access to all places and +persons, and often received valuable grants from the king, until, in the +reign of Edward II., (1315,) such privileges were claimed by them, that +a royal edict became necessary to prevent impositions and abuses. + +In the fourteenth century music was an almost universal accomplishment, +and we learn from Chaucer, in whose poetry much can be learned of the +music of his time, that country-squires could sing and play the lute, +and even "songes make and well indite." From the same source it appears +that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady +was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion +to her proficiency in this art. In those days the bass-viol +(_viol-de-gamba_) was a popular instrument, and was played upon by +ladies,--a practice which in these modern times would be considered a +violation of female propriety, and even then some thought it "an +unmannerly instrument for a woman." In Elizabeth's time vocal music was +held in the highest estimation, and to sing well was a necessary +accomplishment for ladies and gentlemen. A writer of 1602 says to the +ladies, "It shall be your first and finest praise to sing the note of +every new fashion at first sight." That some of the fair sex may have +carried their musical practice too far, like many who have lived since +then, is perhaps indicated in some verses of that date which run in the +following strain:-- + + "This is all that women do: + Sit and answer them that woo; + Deck themselves in new attire, + To entangle fresh desire; + After dinner sing and play, + Or, dancing, pass the time away." + +To many readers one of the most interesting features of Chappell's work +will be the presentation of the original airs to which were sung the +ballads familiar to us from childhood, learned from our English and +Scotch ancestors, or later in life from Percy's "Reliques" and other +sources; and the musician will detect, in even the earliest +compositions, a character and substance, a beauty of cadence and +rhythmic ideality, which render in comparison much of our modern +song-music tamer, if possible, than it now seems. Here are found the +original airs of "Agincourt," "All in the Downs," "Barbara Allen," "The +Barley-Mow," "Cease, rude Boreas," "Derry Down," "Frog he would a-wooing +go," "One Friday morn when we set sail," "Chanson Roland," "Chevy +Chace," and scores of others which have rung in our ears from +nursery-days. + +The ballad-mongers took a wide range in their writings, and almost every +subject seems to have called for their rhymes. There is a curious little +song, dating back to 1601, entitled "O mother, a Hoop," in which the +value of hoop-skirts is set forth by a fair damsel in terms that would +delight a modern belle. It commences thus:-- + + "What a fine thing have I seen to-day! + O mother, a Hoop! + I must have one; you cannot say Nay; + O mother, a Hoop!" + +Another stanza shows the practical usefulness of the hoop:-- + + "Pray, hear me, dear mother, what I have been taught: + Nine men and nine women o'erset in a boat; + The men were all drowned, but the women did float, + And by help of their hoops they all safely got out." + +The fashion for hoops was revived in 1711, in which year was published +in England "A Panegyrick upon the Late, but most Admirable Invention of +the Hoop-Pettycoat." A few years later, (1726,) in New England, a +three-penny pamphlet was issued with the title, "Hoop Petticoats +Arraigned and Condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God," by which +it would seem that our worthy ancestors did not approve of the fashion. +In 1728 we find _hoop-skirts_ and _negro girls_ and other "chattels" +advertised for sale in the same shop! + +The celebrated song, "Tobacco is an Indian weed," is traced to George +Withers, of the time of James I. Perhaps no song has been more +frequently "reset"; but the original version, as is generally the case, +is the best. + +One of the most satisfactory features of Chappell's work is the +thoroughness with which he traces the origin of tunes, and his acute +discrimination and candid judgment. As an instance of this may be +mentioned his article on "God save the Queen"; and wherever we turn, we +find the same evidence of honest investigation. So far as is possible, +he has arranged his airs and his topics chronologically, and presented a +complete picture of the condition of poetry and music during the reigns +of the successive monarchs of England. The musician will find these +volumes invaluable in the pursuit of his studies, the general reader +will be interested in the well-drawn descriptions of men, manners, and +customs, and the antiquary will pore over the pages with a keen delight. + +The work is illustrated with several specimens of the early style of +writing music, the first being an illuminated engraving and fac-simile +of the song, "Sumer is icumen in,"--the earliest secular composition, in +parts, known to exist in any country, its origin being traced back to +1250. It should have been mentioned before this that the very difficult +task of reducing the old songs to modern characters and requirements, +and harmonizing them, has been most admirably done by McFarren, who has +thus made intelligible and available what would otherwise be valuable +only as curiosities. + +1. _Folk-Songs_. Selected and edited by John Williamson Palmer, M.D. +Illustrated with Original Designs. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861. +Small folio. pp. xxiii., 466. + +2. _Loves and Heroines of the Poets_. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. +New York: Derby & Jackson. 1861. Quarto, pp. xviii., 480. + +3. _A Forest Hymn_. By William Cullen Bryant. With Illustrations of John +A. Hows. New York: W. A. Townsend & Co. 1861. Small quarto, pp. 32. + +We have no great liking for illustrated books. Poems, to be sure, often +lend themselves readily to the pencil; but, in proportion as they stand +in need of pictures, they fall short of being poetry. We have never yet +seen any attempts to help Shakspeare in this way that were not as +crutches to an Indian runner. To illustrate poetry truly great in itself +is like illuminating to show off a torchlight-procession. We doubt if +even Michel Angelo's copy of Dante was so great a loss as has sometimes +been thought. We have seen missals and other manuscripts that were truly +_illuminated_,-- + + "laughing leaves + That Franco of Bologna's pencil limned "; + +but the line of those artists ended with Fra Angelico, whose works are +only larger illuminations in fresco and on panel. In those days some +precious volume became the Laura of a poor monk, who lavished on it all +the poetry of his nature, all the unsatisfied longing of a lifetime. +Shut out from the world, his single poem or book of saintly legends was +the window through which he looked back on real life, and he stained its +panes with every brightest hue of fancy and tender half-tint of reverie. +There was, indeed, a chance of success, when the artist worked for the +love of it, gave his whole manhood to a single volume, and mixed his +life with his pigments. But to please yourself is a different thing from +pleasing Tom, Dick, and Harry, which is the problem to be worked out by +whoever makes illustrations to be multiplied and sold by thousands. In +Dr. Palmer's "Folk-Songs," if we understand his preface rightly, the +artists have done their work for love, and it is accordingly much better +done than usual. The engravings make a part of the page, and the +designs, with few exceptions, are happy. Numerous fac-similes of +handwriting are added for the lovers of autographs; and in point of +printing, it is beyond a question the handsomest and most tasteful +volume ever produced in America. The Riverside Press may fairly take +rank now with the classic names in the history of the art. But it is for +the judgment shown in the choice of the poems that the book deserves its +chief commendation. Our readers do not need to be told who Dr. Palmer +is, or that one who knows how to write so well himself is likely to know +what good writing is in others. We have never seen so good and choice a +_florilegium_. The width of its range and its catholicity may be +estimated by its including William Blake and Dibdin, Bishop King and Dr. +Maginn. It would be hard to find the person who would not meet here a +favorite poem. We can speak from our own knowledge of the length of +labor and the loving care that have been devoted to it, and the result +is a gift-book unique in its way and suited to all seasons and all +tastes. Nor has the binding (an art in which America is far behind-hand) +been forgotten. The same taste makes itself felt here, and Matthews of +New York has seconded it with his admirable workmanship. + +In Mr. Stoddard's volume we have a poet selecting such poems as +illustrate the loves of the poets. It is a happy thought happily +realized. With the exception of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso, the choice +is made from English poets, and comes down to our own time. It is a book +for lovers, and he must be exacting who cannot find his mistress +somewhere between the covers. The selection from the poets of the +Elizabethan and Jacobian periods is particularly full; and this is as it +should be; for at no time was our language more equally removed from +conventionalism and commonplace, or so fitted to refine strength of +passion with recondite thought and airy courtliness of phrase. The book +is one likely to teach as well as to please; for, though everybody knows +how to fall in love, few know how to love. It is a mirror of womanly +loveliness and manly devotion. Mr. Stoddard has done his work with the +instinct of a poet, and we cordially commend his truly precious volume +both to those + + "who love a coral lip + And a rosy cheek admire," + +and to those who + + "Interassured of the mind, + Are careless, eyes, lips, hands, to miss"; + +for both likings will find satisfaction here. The season of gifts comes +round oftener for lovers than for less favored mortals, and by means of +this book they may press some two hundred poets into their service to +thread for the "inexpressive she" all the beads of Love's rosary. The +volume is a quarto sumptuous in printing and binding. Of the plates we +cannot speak so warmly. + +The third book on our list deserves very great praise. Bryant's noble +"Forest Hymn" winds like a river through edging and overhanging +greenery. Frequently the designs are rather ornaments to the page than +illustrations of the poem, and in this we think the artist is to be +commended. There is no Birket Foster-ism in the groups of trees, but +honest drawing from Nature, and American Nature. The volume, we think, +marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, +and may challenge comparison with that of any other country. Many of the +drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the +same time. + +_The Works of Lord Bacon_, etc., etc. Vols. XI. and XII. Boston: Brown & +Taggard. 1860. + +We have already spoken of the peculiar merits which make the edition of +Messrs. Heath and Spedding by far the best that exists of Lord Bacon's +Works. It only remains to say, that the American reprint has not only +the advantage of some additional notes contributed by Mr. Spedding, but +that it is more convenient in form, and a much more beautiful specimen +of printing than the English. A better edition could not be desired. The +two volumes thus far published are chiefly filled with the "Life of +Henry VII." and the "Essays"; and readers who are more familiar with +these (as most are) than with the philosophical works will see at once +how much the editors have done in the way of illustration and +correction. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Some time after, the Bey of Tunis ordered Eaton to send his +ship, the Gloria, with despatches to the United States. Eaton sent her +to Leghorn, and sold her at a loss. "The flag of the United States," he +wrote, "has never been seen floating in the service of a Barbary pirate +under my agency."] + +[Footnote 2: The Administration was saturated with this petty parsimony, +as may be seen in an extract from a letter written by Madison to Eaton, +announcing the approach of Dale and his ships:--"The present moment is +peculiarly favorable for the experiment, not only as it is a provision +against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with +all the rest of the world, _and as the force employed would, if at home, +be at nearly the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners_." +Linkum Fidelius has given the Jeffersonian plan of making war in +two lines:-- + + "We'll blow the villains all sky-high, + But do it with e-co-no-my."] + +[Footnote 3: About this time came Meli-Meli, Ambassador from Tunis, in +search of an indemnity and the frigate.] + +[Footnote 4: Massachusetts gave him ten thousand acres, to be selected +by him or by his heirs, in any of the unappropriated land of the +Commonwealth in the District of Maine. Act Passed March 3d, 1806] + +[Footnote 5: He remained in Sicily until 1809, when he was offered the +Beyship of Derne by his brother. He accepted it; two years later, fresh +troubles drove him again into exile. He died in great poverty at Cairo. +Jusuf reigned until 1832, and abdicated in favor of a son. A grandson of +Jusuf took up arms against the new Pacha. The intervention of the Sultan +was asked; a corps of Turkish troops entered Tripoli, drove out both +Pachas, and reannexed the Regency to the Porte.] + +[Footnote 6: The scene of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated retreat from the +British. A place of frequent resort for Federal editors in those days.] + +[Footnote 7: In attempting to describe my own sensations, I labor under +the disadvantage of speaking mostly to those who have never experienced +anything of the kind. Hence, what would he perfectly clear to myself, +and to those who have passed through a similar experience, may be +unintelligible to the former class. The Spiritualists excuse the +crudities which their Plato, St. Paul, and Shakspeare utter, by +ascribing them to the imperfection of human language; and I may claim +the same allowance in setting forth mental conditions of which the mind +itself can grasp no complete idea, seeing that its most important +faculties are paralyzed during the existence of those conditions.] + +[Footnote 8: The recent experiments in Hypnotism, in France, show that a +very similar psychological condition accompanies the trance produced by +gazing fixedly upon a bright object held near the eyes. I have no doubt, +in fact, that it belongs to every abnormal state of the mind.] + +[Footnote 9: See _The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon containing the +Wonderful Things that he did in his Life, also the Manner of his Death; +with the Lives and Deaths of the Conjurors Bungye and Vandermast_. +Reprinted in Thom's _Early English Romances_.] + +[Footnote 10: _Historia Crit. Phil_. Period. II. Pars II. +Liber II. Cap. iii. Section 23.] + +[Footnote 11: A barbarous distich gives the relations of these two +famous divisions of knowledge in the Middle Ages:-- + + "_Gramm_ loquitur, _Dia_ verba docet, _Rhet_ verba colorat, + _Mus_ canit, _Ar_ numerat, _Geo_ ponderat, _Ast_ colit astra."] + +[Footnote 12: See Haureau, _De la Philosophie Scolastique_, II. 284-5.] + +[Footnote 13: Mr. Brewer has in most respects performed his work as +editor in a satisfactory manner. The many difficulties attending the +deciphering of the text of ill-written manuscripts and the correction of +the mistakes of ignorant scribes have been in great part overcome by his +patience and skill. Some passages of the text, however, require further +revision. The Introduction is valuable for its account of existing +manuscripts, but its analysis of Bacon's opinions is unsatisfactory. Nor +are the translations given in it always so accurate as they should be. +The analyses of the chapters in side-notes to the text are sometimes +imperfect, and do not sufficiently represent the current of Bacon's +thought; and the volume stands in great need of a thorough Index. This +omission is hardly to be excused, and ought at once to be supplied in a +separate publication.] + +[Footnote 14: This sum was a large one. It appears that the necessaries +of life were cheap and luxuries dear at Paris during the thirteenth +century. Thus, we are told, in the year 1226, a house sold for forty-six +livres; another with a garden, near St. Eustache, sold for two hundred +livres. This sum was thought large, being estimated as equal to 16,400 +francs at present. Sixty livres were then about five thousand francs, or +a thousand dollars. Lodgings at this period varied from 5 to 17 livres +the year. An ox was worth 1 livre 10 sols; a sheep, 6 sols 3 deniers. +Bacon must at some period of his life have possessed money, for we find +him speaking of having expended two thousand livres in the pursuit of +learning. If the comparative value assumed be correct, this sum +represented between $30,000 and $40,000 of our currency.] + +[Footnote 15: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. iii. pp. 15-17.] + +[Footnote 16: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xx. p. 65.] + +[Footnote 17: _Opus Tertium_. Capp. xvi., xvii. Roger Bacon's urgency to +the Pope to promote the works for the advancement of knowledge which +were too great for private efforts bears a striking resemblance to the +words addressed for the same end by his great successor, Lord Bacon, to +James I. "Et ideo patet," says the Bacon of the thirteenth century, +"quod scripta, principalia de sapientia philosophiae non possunt fieri +ab uno homine, nec a pluribus, nisi manus praelatorum et principum +juvent sapientes cum magna virtute." "Horum quos enumeravimus omnium +defectuum remedia," says the Bacon of the seventeenth century, +"...opera sunt vere basilica; erga quae privati alicujus conatus et +industria fere sic se habent ut Mercurius in bivio, qui digito potest in +viam intendere, pedem inferre non potest."--_De Aug. Scient_. Lib. II. +_Ad Regem Suum_. + +A still more remarkable parallelism is to be found in the following +passages. "Nam facile est dicere, fiant scripture completae de +scientiis, sed nunquam fuerunt apud Latinos aliquae condignae, nec +fient, nisi aliud consilium habeatur. Et nullus sufficeret ad hoc, nisi +dominus papa, vel imperator, aut aliquis rex magnificus, sicut est +dominus rex Franciae. Aristoteles quidem, auctoritate et auxiliis regum, +et maxime Alexandri, fecit in Graeco quae voluit, et multis millibus +hominum usus est in experientia scientiarum, et expensis copiosis, sicut +historiae narrant." (_Opus Tertium_, Cap. viii.) Compare with this the +following passage from the part of the _De Augmentis_ already +cited:--"Et exploratoribus ac speculatoribus Naturae satisfaciendum de +expensis suis; alias de quamplurimis scitu dignissimis nunquam fiemus +certiores. Si enim Alexander magnam vim pecuniae suppeditavit +Aristoteli, qua conduceret venatores, aucupes, piscatores et alios, quo +instructior accederet ad conscribendam historiam animalium; certe majus +quiddam debetur iis, qui non in saltibus naturae pererrant, sed in +labyrinthis artium viam sibi aperiunt." + +Other similar parallelisms of expression on this topic are to be found +in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in +the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have +been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these +two great philosophers borrowed his famous doctrine of "Idols" from the +classification of the four chief hindrances to knowledge by his +predecessor. But the supposition wants foundation, and there is no +reason to suppose that Lord Bacon was acquainted with the works of the +Friar. The Rev. Charles Forster, in his _Mahometanism Unveiled_, a work +of some learning, but more extravagance, after speaking of Roger Bacon +as "strictly and properly an experimentalist of the Saracenic school," +goes indeed so far as to assert that he "was the undoubted, though +unowned, original when his great namesake drew the materials of his +famous experimental system." (Vol. II. pp. 312-317.) But the +resemblances in their systems, although striking in some particulars, +are on the whole not too great to be regarded simply as the results of +corresponding genius, and of a common sense of the insufficiency of the +prevalent methods of scholastic philosophy for the discovery of truth +and the advancement of knowledge. "The same sanguine and sometimes rash +confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for +experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning +pervade both works," the _Opus Majus_ and the _Novum Organum_.--Hallam, +_Europe during the Middle Ages_, III. 431. See also Hallam, _Literature +of Europe_, I. 113; and Mr. Ellis's Preface to the _Novum Organum_, p. +90, in the first volume of the admirable edition of the _Works of Lord +Bacon_ now in course of publication.] + +[Footnote 18: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xv. pp. 55, 56.] + +[Footnote 19: _Id_. Cap. x. p. 33.] + +[Footnote 20: The famous Grostete,--who died in 1253. "Vir in Latino et +Graeco peritissimus," says Matthew Paris.] + +[Footnote 21: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. vi.] + +[Footnote 22: _Opus Minus_, p. 330.] + +[Footnote 23: This was Michael Scot the Wizard, who would seem to have +deserved the place that Dante assigned to him in the _Inferno_, if not +from his practice of forbidden arts, at least from his corruption of +ancient learning in his so-called translations. Strange that he, of all +the Schoolmen, should have been honored by being commemorated by the +greatest poet of Italy and the greatest of his own land! In the Notes to +the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, his kinsman quotes the following lines +concerning him from Satchell's poem on _The Right Honorable Name +of Scott_:-- + + "His writing pen did seem to me to be + Of hardened metal like steel or acumie; + The volume of [his book] did seem so large to me + As the Book of Martyrs and Turks Historie."] + +[Footnote 24: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 472.] + +[Footnote 25: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 469.] + +[Footnote 26: _Comp. Studii Phil_. Cap. viii. p. 473.] + +[Footnote 27: _Opus Tertium_, Cap. xxiv. pp. 80-82.] + +[Footnote 28: _Opus Tertium_. Capp. xiv., xv., pp. 48-53.] + +[Footnote 29: _Id_. Cap. xiii. pp. 43-44.] + +[Footnote 30: _Id_. Cap. xxviii. p. 102.] + +[Footnote 31: _Opus Majus_. pp. 57, 64.] + +[Footnote 32: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. iv. p. 18.] + +[Footnote 33: See Haureau: _Nouvel Examen de l'Edition des Oeuvres de +Hugues de Saint-Victor._ Paris, 1869. p. 52.] + +[Footnote 34: Jourdain: _Recherches sur les Traductions Latines +d'Aristote_. Paris, 1819. p. 373.] + +[Footnote 35: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xii. p. 42.] + +[Footnote 36: _Id. Cap. ii. p. 14.] + +[Footnote 37: Reprinted in the Appendix to the volume edited by +Professor Brewer. A translation of this treatise was printed at London +as early as 1597; and a second version, "faithfully translated out of +Dr. Dee's own copy by T. M.," appeared in 1659.] + +[Footnote 38: "Sed tamen sal petrae LURU VOPO VIR CAN UTRIET sulphuris; +et sic facies tonitruum et coruscationem, si scias artificium. Videas +tamen utrum loquar aenigmate aut secundum veritatem." (p. 551.) One is +tempted to read the last two words of the dark phrase as phonographic +English, or, translating the _vir_, to find the meaning to be, "O man! +you can try it."] + +[Footnote 39: This expression is similar in substance to the closing +sentences of Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse at Montpellier on the Powder +of Sympathy, in 1657. "Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and +faint-heartedness, or rather, a gross weakness of the Understanding, to +pretend any effects of charm or magick herein, or to confine all the +actions of Nature to the grossness of our Senses, when we have not +sufficiently consider'd nor examined the true causes and principles +whereon 'tis fitting we should ground our judgment: we need not have +recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties. + +"'Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.'"] + +[Footnote 40: _Nullity of Magic_, pp. 532-542.] + +[Footnote 41: _Comp. Stud. Phil._ p. 416.] + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Poems. By Sarah Gould. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 32mo. Blue and gold. +pp. 180. 75 cts. + +Miss Gilbert's Career. An American Story. By J.G. Holland. New York. +Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. 476. $1.25. + +Curiosities of Natural History. Second Series. By Francis T. Buckland, +M.A. New York. 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